>HILLARY'S WARTS > > >Corporate media trip over themselves to hype Hillary Clinton for >president. The owners know they haven't got much of a chance of >cramming another Republican down the throats of voters in light of >the Bush regime disasters, hence the next best thing-- a centrist >Democrat in a better position to sell out the working class on >behalf of corporate greed at any cost. > >Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the best leftist writers in >America. Today she takes on Hillary Clinton, showing a side >corporate media will not. > >Has Hillary changed since she was president of Wellesley College's >Young Republicans? Barbara says it ain't gonna happen ... > > > ><<http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID>http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=13213> > > >Who Is Hillary Clinton? > >by Barbara Ehrenreich > > > >One theory, which functions as a kind of cargo cult among some >American liberals, is that behind the bland, smiling, exterior and >the thick gauze of platitudes, crouches a fiery liberal >feminist, ready, when she has finally amassed enough power--say in >her second term as President--to spring forth and save the world. > >If Carl Bernstein's exhausting 600-page biography, "A Woman in >Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton", accomplishes anything, >it should be to euthanize this touching hope. Hillary Rodham >Clinton was always a moderate, given to centrist, technocratic. In >her lifetime, she has glided effortlessly from one side to another >on key issues--the death penalty, for example, or entitlements for >poor women and children--all the while maintaining the >self-righteousness granted, supposedly, by her Methodist God. > >In Bernstein's account the mystery of Hillary is largely explained >by her fraught relationship with Bill. She was pretty enough, but >an awkward, wonky, young woman; he was a brilliant, ambitious, >sexually magnetic stud; and in following him to Arkansas she >seemed to have thrown her future as, say, a high-profile Washington >public interest lawyer. "My friends and family thought I had lost >my mind," Bernstein quotes her as saying. He insists that theirs >is, or sometimes was, a deep connection--sexual, intellectual and >committed to their joint political "journey." > >But it was a relationship irreparably twisted by Bill's compulsive >priapism, which seems to have put the young Hillary into a >permanent rage, but, perversely, also bound them ever more tightly >together. In the unstable molecule we used to call "Billary," he >was the id and she was the super-ego, a role she clearly relished >even as it poisoned her with resentment. As Bernstein argues, Bill >dalliances only increased her power in the relationship, since, as >a rising political star, he needed a smart, loyal wife to fend off >the press and publicly stand by her man. When they entered the >White House in 1993 on the heels of the Gennifer Flowers scandal, >the outwardly forgiving Hillary was at the height of her power, >eager to assume the "co-presidency." > >In Bernstein's account, which strives nobly for fairness, Hillary's >early behavior as First Lady was stunningly arrogant. She disdained >the press, alienated the White House staff, turned on her close >friend Vince Foster (who responded by committing suicide) >and appalled Al Gore by trying to claim the West Wing office suite >traditionally reserved for the Vice President. She demanded a >cabinet position, and when that was over-ruled, insisted on leading >Clinton's efforts at health reform, despite the objections of >Health and Human Services secretary Donna Shalala, who was no less >a feminist than Hillary. > >Hillary's attempt to create a national health insurance >system--which she will have to undertake a second time as >a presidential candidate--was a disaster in every way. >Procedurally, she screwed up by conducting the planning under >conditions of extreme secrecy, not even bothering to reach out to >potentially supportive members of Congress, never mind the usual >populist trimming of few televised town meetings. What Bernstein >omits is her out-of-hand dismissal of the kind of >single-payer system the Canadians have, which led to a tortured >1300-page piece of legislation that almost no one could comprehend. >The bottom line, unnoted by Bernstein, is that, despite the right's >charges of "socialized medicine," her plan would have maintained >the nation's largest private insurance companies' death grip on >American health care. > >Now it was Hillary's to be the liability, rather than the >super-ego, in the Billary team. Revelations about her involvement >in an obscure land deal in Arkansas suggested a conflict of interest >between her prior role as both first lady of that state and an >attorney at Little Rock's Rose law firm. The real scandal is that >she had worked for Rose at all, which represented the notorious >anti-labor firms Tyson Poultry and Wal-Mart, but Bernstein makes >nothing of that. > >Soon Hillary, facing the possibility of a criminal indictment, was >undertaking to recreate herself in a softer, cuddlier, mode. She >wrote a book called It Takes a Village, on the importance of >children, notable only for its sappiness and the spurious claim that >her own family of origin had been idyllic. She wore pink for a >defensive press conference held in the White House's Pink Library, >where Bernstein politely describes her as "preternaturally calm," >though the impression- with her eyelids drooping and her voice >slowed, was of over-medication. > >Having failed with her own hard-won health portfolio, and besieged >now by the press for her sleazy deals in Arkansas, Hillary began to >flail--reaching out for help from New Age healer Marianne >Williamson. Compared to the Bush era White House scandals, the >Whitewater land deal was microscopic-- no one died or was >tortured--and surely the "vast rightwing conspiracy" played a role >in keeping it alive. But as Bernstein writes, what magnified it out >of proportion was Hillary's own pattern of "Jesuitical lying, >evasion, and ... stonewalling." She was not in the habit of being >wrong--that was Bill's job--and admitting to wrong-doing was simply >not in her repertoire. > >It took Monica Lewinsky to restore Hillary's upper hand within her >marriage and, with it, her self-confidence. Apparently believing >her husband's protestations of innocence, she took over the >management of his defense within the White House, and, >disconcertingly, started exploring the possibility of running for >the senate in New York State at the very same moment the >already-elected senate was voting on Bill's impeachment. But even >in this time of extreme crisis--for her marriage as well as the >presidency--she could not resist asserting to a family adviser that >"My husband may have his faults, but he has never lied to me." >Bernstein, ever the gentleman, comments only that "that statement >speaks for itself." > >Most of the lies Bernstein documents along the way are, in the >scheme of things, inconsequential and well in the past. But >Bernstein breaks off his biography somewhat abruptly after >Hillary's election to the Senate, where she distinguished herself >by helping push through a statute forbidding flag-burning. For a >current and far more disturbing bit of mendacity, we have to turn >to the another new Hillary book, Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions >of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. As a >presidential candidate, Hillary has repeatedly and confusingly >claimed that she did not vote to authorize the war in Iraq, only to >give Bush the authority to pursue a war if he should decide to. >What she doesn't mention is that she voted against an amendment to >the war resolution, proposed by Senator Carl Levin, that would have >required the President to return to Congress for a war >authorization if diplomatic efforts failed. > >Worse, she has dodged the question of whether she ever actually read >the full text of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, which was >offered as a causus belli despite its equivocations on the subject >of Saddam Hussein's purported WMD's. "If she did not bother to >read the complete intelligence reports," Gerth and Van Natta >observe, "then she did not do enough homework on the decision she >has called the most important of her life. If she did read them, she >chose to make statements to justify her vote for war that were not >supported by the available intelligence." Since the start of her >candidacy, antiwar Democrats have implored her to admit that she >made a mistake on Iraq, which she stubbornly, even childishly, refuses to do. > >In the end, the question of who Hillary is seems almost a bit >anthropomorphic. Surely she has loved, laughed and suffered in the >usual human ways, but what we are left with is a sleek, well-funded, >power-seeking machine encased in a gleaming carapace of >self-righteousness. She's already enjoyed considerable power, both >as a Senator and a "co-president," and in the ways that counted, >she blew it. What Americans need most, after fifteen years of >presidential crimes high and low, is to wash their hands of all the >sleaze, blood, and other bodily fluids, and find themselves a >President who is neither a Clinton nor a Bush. > > >
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