Hillary has claimed her husband's accomplishments for her own, while disavowing his mistakes (like Nafta), and it got me thinking about the complexities of marriage, and how there truly can be some of these back and forth sorts of dynamics going on. Or at least, they can really go on the minds of both partners.
In the traditional American family, the wife pushed the husband forward in his career, and certainly was often a partner in it. The traditional role of First Lady was similar. HRC initially pushed the boundaries of the first lady thing, and then was slapped down hard after the health care thing, and after she made some remarks about not knowing how to make cookies. She came up with a cookie recipe, avoided any controversy after that.
And subsequently she played the Tammy Wynette role to perfection when Bill got caught with 'that woman'.
Incidentally, during the impeachment hearings I watched with horror and fascination, at what certainly appeared to be a Coup attempt. We got another a couple years later, this time successful.
But when Bill bombed those innocents in a Somalian factory on impeachment eve, in a clear wag the dog stylee, well, I began to feel much less sorry for him, to say the least. I mean, he killed people, in order to divert attention away from the hearings, and to wag his big dick in front of the Republicans. I call it murder. At that point I began to wish he'd just step aside, and let Al Gore take over.
Back to Hillary--I have no idea if she would take credit for that incident, or which incidents she would consider hers, and which his. Or whether her point in taking credit is more an overall-he couldn't have done it without me thing-- then anything related to specific incidents at all.
And conversely, which would he give her credit for?
I know this--my own wife thinks that everything I ever did right was due to her, and every screwup I've ever made was all mine alone.
I think that goes back to the traditional roles and expectations.
I do think it would have been interesting to see how Bill dealt with taking or not taking credit for his wife's accomplishments if she had been elected, but I expect we'll still get a chance to see the 'blame game' played--large.