Just being around isn’t experience
I’ve never understood, or accepted, this idea that Clinton is the feminist candidate, or even that her election would be much of a victory for women or feminism. I’ve always thought it would be radically, drastically compromised by the huge boost she got from whose wife she was. I’ve always thought such an election would be a victory for women or feminism only if the woman in question did it on her own merits, not partly those of her husband.
Indeed, Clinton has never been just a victim of her gender. When it came to the deeper narratives of the campaign, Clinton benefited, as do many women in politics, from her good fortune of having married a successful political man. Hillary Clinton has spent only four more years than Obama in the Senate, but she was consistently assumed to be a more plausible commander-in-chief than her rival based on her time as First Lady.
Being married to a president does not make anyone a more plausible c-in-c, any more than being the offspring of a president does. And I think this kind of sloppy thinking does feminism in general no favours, in the same sort of way that invented history does feminism in general no favours.
At the same time, it’s been widely assumed that she’s been entirely vetted, leaving many parts of her life–her disastrous leadership style on health care reform, her role in trying to silence and discredit Bill’s mistresses, her husband’s post-White House financial dealings–unexamined.
Which, again, I’ve never understood. She keeps being credited with having ‘experience’ with health care reform. But her only experience was in completely fucking it up! Why is that supposed to be a plus?
And above all why are so many women loyal to her on the grounds that she is a woman? She’s not the only woman in the world! Thatcher’s a woman, too, but I don’t feel any need to be loyal to her. And to be quite frank, I despise some of the tactics Clinton used in the campaign; I despise that ‘elitism’ nonsense: it’s fraudulent, it’s cheap, it’s anti-intellectual, it’s ridiculous, and it’s just plain low. Feminism doesn’t mean admiring all women unconditionally no matter what.
I always thought she gave up any real claim to “feminist” credentials when she didn’t divorce old President ‘yo-yo zipper’…
Staying close to power was clearly more important to her in the short term – although now it does seem to have come back to bite her on the bahookie.
ho hum.
And then she gave up any other claim to “feminist” credentials when she tried to pretend that being married to a president counts as relevant job experience for being president.
Her only experience was in completely fucking it up!
I have been wondering about that one for ages.
What’s interesting to me now is how many women are so loyal to her, as a woman, that they are falling all over themselves to be disloyal to women such as me. I’m a premenopausal woman. I’d kinda like to keep those reproductive rights around, thanks, such as they are. Those boomer women who declare that they’re going to vote for McCain or sit out the general election in a snit — they make me want to spit nails. They might as well have announced it directly: when you come right down to it, they’re more interested in their own pique than in women’s rights.
I’ve actually seen one middle-aged woman declare straight out that we loathsome upstarts will shape up and start to fly right once we’re back in a pre-Roe world. “See how you like it,” she said. And this is what passes for feminism in some sets. Some passion for justice, there.
Boomer women voting for McCain?
The McCain that calls his wife a Cnut in public?
Nose cutting off your spite to face your.
I don’t get it either, OB. Do not get it.
I was walking into the library the other day as a tall, handsome, bespectacled black kid was walking out. He was very much the mini-Obama, and I found myself thinking happily, “Hey! You could be president someday!” It made me wonder what I’d think if HRC had won the nomination and I’d come across a mini-Hillary. Probably, “Hey! You could be president someday, if you marry the right man!” Boy, yeah, would I ever feel the pride.
(I should say, I do know plenty of boomer women who are no HRC fans, and some more people, of various ages, who supported HRC but are quite reasonable about it.)
What other than the fact that this kid was black and wore glasses would make you think that he could be president? and should I feel proud when men get elected president?
Earth-shattering instant charisma is what. You know, once in a while you just come across somebody who carries himself or herself in a tremendous way, and it’s hard not to goggle at the phenomenon. It does help to be tall and good-looking, of course, and god knows that money tends to burnish people to a certain shine — but those things don’t quite account for all of that odd alpha-primate thing of charisma.
(Actually, Obama’s charisma put me off for a while, but I digress.)
Yikes! so competance doesnt matter? if you are tall black and hansome you would vote for someone?
Richard, I do believe you’re being a goof. “You could be president,” doesn’t mean, “I’d vote for you, absolutely.” There are plenty of people who could conceivably be president for whom I would not vote. (And, alas, plenty of people I’d vote for who probably couldn’t become president.)
What the phrase means is, “You give every appearance of being poised for great success, to the extent that I can even imagine you succeeding in a run for the presidency.” And, Richard, I think you know that perfectly well.
But to answer your question, if I were tall, black, and handsome, I’m sure I would vote for someone, yes.
>They would rather have a pale-brown MALE president, rather than ANY female.< Not all that many months ago Hillary Clinton was a way out front-runner, and would have remained so were it not for the extraordinarily well-planned campaign (and charisma) of Obama, so I don’t think that notion holds water. As the online comments to the article tend to confirm, it is evident that, with another credible candidate making ground, and her personality defects coming to the fore under pressure, many voters (including women) simply didn’t want Hillary Clinton.
GT, not helpful, an insider is what I want.
Trying & failing is incidentally not always better than not trying at all because a failure takes it off those agenda’s for years. As to not getting the support of a majority, well, that is not the majority’s fault if you’re going to be democratic.
There’s too much of “this is THE right thing, this simply THE truth” around – it is not enough to believe you are in the right, you need to argue your case (& undoubdedly this case is not simple as you make it out to be: Belgium also does not have an NHS, so maybe failure had nothing to do with the principle – maybe even it had to do with mirroring the bad UK NHS practice in a left wing non-innovative way, I dunno but I want to know).
But from your last comment I guess you are not a democrat – at least not very democratically convinced.
GT, it was a play on democrat as you gave the impression not to be happy with democratic decision-making.
An NHS is only one way to give health care. In Belgium institutions are, in the majority, private but still we do have health care that reimburses most costs. I guess Hilaary’s proposal was for a heavy administration & if so, I can imagine that it didn’t get a vote from many who otherwise find a health care system a good idea.
‘I found myself thinking happily, “Hey! You could be president someday!”‘
I know, I know, I have a lot of thoughts of that kind, that give these weird little jolts. Good jolts.
I was put off by the charisma at first too, and by the instantaneous media frenzy, and by the four-year campaign, so I tuned him out until quite recently. It was that article by Cass Sunstein that made me give up.
Richard…come on. Make an effort. Don’t play ‘gotcha’ with everything anyone says. You know most people who comment here aren’t stupid enough to think ‘if you’re black and wear glasses I’ll vote for you’. The point is that being black is no longer an automatic total disqualification – and that changes everything. It changes the way we see each other when we pass on the street or on the way into the library. Make an effort – try to see what a big deal that is in the US. Don’t be so quick with the pointless shots, that will probably be off the mark.
JoB, no, I can’t explain it, not at all; I’m as baffled by it as you are.
Tingey, trying and failing is absolutely not better than not trying, at least in this instance, because the attempt and failure prevented reform for at least another 15 years. That’s what I mean when I say she fucked it up: there was a real opportunity to fix the US health care disgrace in 1993, and HRC blew it; after that the opportunity was gone.
It wasn’t inevitable. My rep, Jim McDermott, had the right plan (‘single payer’); HRC chose to ignore him and come up with her own much too complicated, much too private and corporate ‘plan’ behind closed doors.
Richard, are you one of those people who thinks Obama is a secret Muslim?
OB, maybe you can´t explain but, sure, you can help:
“My rep, Jim McDermott, had the right plan (‘single payer’); HRC chose to ignore him and come up with her own much too complicated, much too private and corporate ‘plan’ behind closed doors.”
What as the gist of her plan & JMcD´s plan?
Jenavir, well, I agree that women shouldn’t be expected to do unpaid spousal jobs, but that doesn’t make being First Lady a job qualification for being president. Was Nancy Reagan qualified to be president? Was Rosalynn Carter? Is Laura Bush? Not that I’ve ever heard, and I’d want to hear something very damn compelling before I’d believe it. Clinton has experience that Obama lacks, but I don’t think it is very relevant. She had an office, but she didn’t do presidential stuff. She doubtless could have been in the cabinet, in terms of qualifications, but she wasn’t in fact in it. Lots and lots of people work in the White House, but they’re not thought to be obvious candidates for the presidency as a result. I really don’t see why being ‘First Lady’ should be any different.
Besides…acknowledging women’s unpaid labor is one thing, and voting for them to be president is very much another! I think Clinton’s slightly longer time in the US Senate is relevant; I think her time living in the White House is not.
To reflect one of your own questions back on you:
What makes you think he would mug someone?
Ophelia: I think the difference between Clinton and those other First Ladies you named is that she did, in fact, get more involved in presidential stuff. But also, some of the traditional First Lady tasks are basically the same as what the president has to do. The same people-management skills, for example, or diplomatic skills. Attending conferences and events, making speeches, answering questions, articulating policies, meeting with foreign dignitaries–no, that’s not ALL a president does, but it’s part of it.
I just see a lot of cognitive dissonance between the fuss over candidates’ and presidents’ wives–the curiosity about their opinions, the desire to hear them speak, the fact that 61% of Americans (in a recent poll) say candidates’ wives will affect their voting decisions, the candidate’s inability to get elected without a wife committed full-time to the campaign–and the belief that First Lady experience is irrelevant to being qualified for the presidency. Insufficient by itself, certainly. But not, in my opinion, irrelevant. Being First Lady isn’t enough to qualify anyone for the presidency, but I think it’s fair to take it into account as one factor.
Forget Obama’s ‘inexperience’, I am scared of anyone who might exchange a “terrorist fist jab” with his wife…
Drat, I deleted my reply to Jenavir along with replies to Richard and Richard’s comments.
Richard – I’ve had it with you. That comment about white guilt and mugging was disgusting. And I don’t know why you think your pseudo-punditry about the US election is of any value. You just echo what US pundits say; that’s not interesting the first time around, and it’s certainly not interesting when recycled by someone in London.
But in any case the mugging comment pushed me right over the edge. I don’t want comments of that kind here. Period.
Jenavir,
“some of the traditional First Lady tasks are basically the same as what the president has to do.”
Well yes – they both have to be able to walk and talk and comb their hair. But there’s not a lot more overlap than that. “making speeches, answering questions, articulating policies, meeting with foreign dignitaries”
But the “First Lady” doesn’t do most of those things, and the ones she does do she doesn’t do in the same sense in which the president does it. She doesn’t “meet with foreign dignitaries” – she comes along to the dinners and so on. She certainly doesn’t articulate policies in the same sense. She doesn’t make the same kind of speeches or answer the same kind of questions.
Of course, H Clinton is far more qualified to be pres than Bush has ever been, but that’s not because she was FL.
I dont think you are being fair truth is not disgusting? http://seanbryson.com/articles/race_robbery.html
also http://www.racismeantiblanc.bizland.com/005/06-02.htm
Flaky.
You and the sites.
And that is being polite.
To get back on track: having been a 1st anything rather tends to disqualify you than anything else – nepotism is a real problem in Western politics. Hillary is not a child of Bill but, having been in the fray, it’s difficult to see how she could ever run as independent candidate (in fact, it would have been better if, as First Lady, she hadn’t been involved in policy).
Flaky? Flaky?
The first site links directly to the BNP the second link deliberately mixes racist and interracial crimes statistics (and trust me, you don’t want to look at the rest of racismeantiblanc. It’s an emanation of Bruno Gheerbrant, author of a book with the same title and all round arsehole. And, man, what with the obsession with black on white rape?)
Inferiority complex?
It’s the heritage of slave-holding, a dread fear that ‘they’ will take ‘our’ women, who are pure, and not to be confused with slave-women, who are there for the amusement of their owners…
Richard, I am being fair, and I say that before looking at your links. You completely misread (deliberately? I don’t know) Cam’s comment and my follow-up comment, and you made a foul, irrelevant, and nasty comment in reply – all this apparently out of irritation at putative “white guilt.”
I gather from what Arnaud says that your links won’t do much to make your case.
Yeah.
Richard – there are plenty of other sites where you could discuss that kind of thing. I don’t want it here.
Just browsing, and came across the responses to Richard’s posts. (The presidential race didn’t really grab me, though I was glad to see Obama win in the end. HRC, as has been said, didn’t have a lot except her husband’s record, to stand on.) Where does this guy come from? Richard is referencing sites that fall a little short of Nazi propaganda, maybe not so little! Very troubling content. Can’t say much about Richard’s comments. Haven’t paid that much attention, but his links contain abusively racist material. Time for him to move on, perhaps.
You can’t say much about Richard’s comments partly because I deleted the worst one (along with everything that followed it) – but maybe for clarity I should put it back, especially since Richard thinks I’m being unfair and he was just offering “the truth.” So here it is –
“Oh come on O.B it was a daft I am such a good liberal that not only did I not think the young black kid would mug me but I actualy thought he could be president comment?”
Here, put as crudely as possible, is the problem, Richard: statistics about crime and race do not tell you anything about any particular person you may encounter. It’s inane at best and malevolent at worst for you to say Cam should have expected the kid coming out of the library to mug her because he was black. And you willfully misunderstood her comment, which was not (obviously) to say that this one particular kid was necessarily likely to be president but that he could be – that it was possible, in a way it hadn’t been before. There’s something unbearably squalid, small-minded, and just plain nasty about saying no don’t think that, think he’s going to mug me, instead.
I repeat. I don’t want that kind of thing here.
Oh and another thing – there’s also something nasty and Limbaughish about calling Cam’s thought “a daft I am such a good liberal comment.” She wasn’t being smug or self-congratulatory in that comment, and if you weren’t always so busy trying to be a Limbaugh clone you would know that. There would be a lot more justice in calling nearly all of your comments “daft I am such a good anti-liberal contrarian” ones.
And I’ve got a newsflash. If you don’t like liberalism (liberalism in the general sense, not the US sense), then you don’t like B&W. If you don’t like B&W – then let’s just take that as read. Your objections aren’t cogent enough to get much traction, so let’s just agree that we know what they are, and move on.
Maybe you should have left it OB. I get the point.
Oh nice lets all call Richard a racist and speculate on his foul motives. Firstly I didnt realise you meant that comment O.B I thought you meant my answer to DFG, that comment was meant as a joke ( maybe not a very good one) aimed at what I thought was a silly comment. I posted links that would load on dial up rather than you gov type stuff that would jam your computer,they say pretty much the same thing,I didnt even realise racists were using them. Finaly I dont come here every day just to piss you all of, I come here because I learn new stuff and actualy have a guenuine intrest in what you say.
Ophelia–I think you’re underestimating the amount and level of stuff first ladies do by saying they don’t articulate policies or answer the same kinds of questions or do the same sorts of diplomatic stuff. The difference between what the first lady does about that kind of thing and what the president does is often a difference of degree, not a difference of kind. Watching press conferences with Michelle Obama or 1990s Hillary Clinton made it clear to me that presidents’ and candidates’ wives were being expected to take over tasks that are actually part of governing/running.
Again, the majority of Americans factor the candidates’ wives into their decision of who to vote for. “First Lady” is a political office. So, yeah, I’m still not convinced that First Lady experience is completely irrelevant for a future president. Like I said, I wouldn’t vote for someone on the sole basis of their having been first lady but I might consider it as part of a checklist.
If the issue ever comes up again, of course, which I’m not at all certain it will.
Jenavir, that is baffling in more than one way! Attributing that kind of load to a candidate´s wife is undemocratic, at best. Not to say how unmarried men, or women, have to feel about it – or a spouse male or female, that doesn´t go in for the same opinions as candidates to whose opinion you chain them – or a candidate that has decided not to have a stable relationship. On top of that, it is “yuk!” to represent anyone, even First Ladies as mere appendices of the main man.
Do you really believe a First Lady has some constitutional role to play?
A little OT here but just a quick link to a feel-good story to show that you don’t have to be a BNP-voting ass just because you are working class…
Well, that’s the quandary Clinton found herself in, wasn’t it? Married to Bill but with political ambitions of her own, she was always going to be caught between the hammer of “she’s only got that far because she was a First Lady” and the anvil of “First Lady is not such an experience after all.”
I am by no mean a Clinton supporter by the way, but I cannot help wondering if her association to Bill has done her as much good as people say, or even if it has balanced out all the flak she got because of it.
But hey, I watched all this from a long way out!
Arnaud,
So you think that poor Hillary is, and feels, penalized: “Damned, if I hadn´t married a presidential candidate – I´d had a serious shot on my own.”
I don´t think so.
Anyway, she had chances to go her own. She mostly didn´t & when she did – she failed.
Richard…well, I’m glad you come here because you learn new stuff and are interested. Really. But you do fire off these hostile comments, you know. Surely you realize that?! I’ve mentioned it many many times, and asked you (or sometimes just told you) to slow down and think more carefully. I’m sorry about the “let’s all call” but honestly – your reply to Cam and me was pretty damn rude, as well as being completely off the mark. I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t say “go ahead, make comments like that” – because I hate them, and I think they poison any thread they’re on. But I don’t see why you can’t comment without making comments like that. So – comment, but don’t comment in that way. And please make a real effort not to comment in that way – because the time difference and your schedule means that your comments sit here for hours and hours while I’m off the computer. I don’t want poisonous comments sitting here for hours and hours.
This is annoying, actually – here I am apologizing to you, and you haven’t apologized to anyone, but you were damn rude. If you want to keep commenting, you just have to stop being so rude; that’s all there is to it.
Jenavir,
I notice you don’t mention Laura Bush along with HC and Michelle Obama. If “presidents’ and candidates’ wives were being expected to take over tasks that are actually part of governing/running” then why is Laura Bush not on the list? Just oversight? You think she belongs there? I doubt it.
I think it’s quite wrong to say actual or potential presidential wives are expected to take over tasks that are actually part of governing; I think what is happening is that in the case of women who already have the kind of career that could lead to a political career, they are allowed to do some real work along with the fake work of being First Lady. That’s nice, I suppose – but as long as it’s unofficial and unpaid, I don’t think it should count as relevant experience, not least because it’s not accountable enough for that. If HC had been in the cabinet, her work would be on the record in a way that it isn’t now.
The majority of Americans factor all kinds of absurd things into their decision of whom to vote for, but that’s not a reason to conclude that all such factors are reasonable and sensible. Lots of people voted for Bush because “he’s just like us” or “you could have a beer with him”; that fact does nothing to make me think those are good criteria.
JoB: I certainly do not feel that a First Lady has such a constitutional role to play! In fact I think it’s distinctly unconstitutional, and otherwise inappropriate. But it doesn’t change the reality that Hillary Clinton did play that kind of a role.
Ophelia: you won’t catch me disagreeing that the majority of Americans care about stuff that’s sheer nonsense. Of course they do. And no, Laura Bush didn’t play that kind of a role–but she probably could have if she’d had Hillary Clinton’s qualifications.
Your point about how the First Lady’s additional responsibilities are unofficial (and therefore not accountable in the same way as an elected official’s) is fair. I’d still say unofficial responsibilities are a relevant factor, though. Even if it’s not accountable to the public, it’s still accountable to other members of the administration, and it’s still (sometimes) important work. Again, I’m not claiming that First Lady experience ought to be a deciding factor or something like that. I just find it unrealistic to claim that it’s 100% irrelevant.
Rudeness was not my intention so I will apologise without reservation sorry.
As for the gang bang I probably would have joined in if it hadnt been me. Silly thing is I dont even care if young black kids mug more people than whites,joyriders,heroin dealers and serial killers tend to be white and that doesnt mean much either.
The difference, Richard, is that nobody ever makes off-handed comments about how random white people you meet on the street might try to sell you heroin.
One doesn’t need to use slurs or wear bedsheets to be a racist. One just has to look at the world in a certain way. And the fact that you’ve been forced to resort to a “well, yes, I will grudgingly admit that white people commit crimes too” equivalency argument demonstrates that you do, in fact, look at the world in that way.
Thanks, Richard.
Well this is (partly) the thing about Obama – he could change the way a lot of people look at the world. Let’s end on an optimistic note!
Thanks for that O.B the apology was for Cam as well because if you thought it rude she probably did as well. We all tend to make ofhanded judgements abouut people we have never met dzd.