Maybe the qualities that many find off-putting in Hillary - her opportunism, her triangulation, her ethical corner-cutting, her shifting convictions from pro-war to anti-war, her secrecy, her ruthlessness - are the same ones that make people willing to vote for a woman.
It’s an odd cultural inversion. The French first lady, the one who has traditionally ignored and overlooked her husband’s peccadilloes for the greater gain of keeping her marriage intact and running the Elysee Palace, has fled her gilded perch, acting all-American and brimming over with feelings and feminist impulses.
The former American first lady, the one who’s supposed to be brimming over with feminist impulses, has ignored and overlooked her husband’s peccadilloes for the greater gain of keeping her marriage intact, as she tries to return to the gilded perch and run the White House.
Cecilia Sarkozy acts so American, while Hillary Clinton acts so French. Cecilia at one point left her marriage to go to New York and seek love American-style, while Hillary lost the public love in the ‘90s when she tried French-style health care reform.
Hillary’s husband’s sexual behavior, quite apart from the private pain that it has caused her, has also sullied her deepest — and most womanly — ideals and convictions, for the Clintons’ political partnership has demanded that she defend actions she knows to be indefensible. To call her husband a philanderer is almost to whitewash him, for he’s used women far less sophisticated, educated and powerful than he — women particularly susceptible to the rake’s characteristic blend of cajolery and deceit — for his sexual gratification.
That’s French hauteur, of course, the kind Nicolas Sarkozy showed when he called his press secretary an “imbecile” and refused to answer Lesley Stahl’s question on “60 Minutes” about his marriage and ripped off his microphone. He may have failed to realize that, unlike in France, he can’t call his powerful buddies and simply get the story killed.
Hillary surely hopes there is a harbinger in Argentina, where voters just rewarded their former president for his economic policies by electing his wife to succeed him.
“And why not?” former first lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said about Hillary. “Another woman wouldn’t be bad.”
Flanagan is not so sure. She was particularly bothered by Hillary’s callousness in dumping Socks, the beloved White House cat and best-selling author, on Bill’s former secretary Betty Currie.
But maybe the qualities that many find off-putting in Hillary — her opportunism, her triangulation, her ethical corner-cutting, her shifting convictions from pro-war to anti-war, her secrecy, her ruthlessness — are the same ones that make people willing to vote for a woman.
Few are concerned that Hillary is strong enough for the job. She is cold-eyed about wanting power and raising money and turning everything about her life into a commodity. Yet, the characteristics that are somewhat troubling are the same ones that convincingly show she will do what it takes to beat Obama and Rudy. She will not be soft or vulnerable. She will not melt in a crisis.
And, unlike Obama, she doesn’t need to talk herself into manning up. Obama whiffed when debate moderators teed up the first question for him to take on Hillary — something the debate dominatrix never would have done.
