When Bill Clinton first ran for president and brought his wife onto the stage, not as his adorable blond cheerleader-chick Hillary Homemaker, but as his full-on, professional, degreed and accomplished partner, Hillary Rodham, his lucky-for-him live-in consultant, and his ‘go-to girl’ for special projects, sexist America practically barfed.
That was the very first time any powerful man had acknowledged the equal value of his female life partner, ‘two for the price of one’ he boldly said.
You can look back as far back as you like; Pericles didn’t acknowledge Aspasia and Einstein didn’t credit Mileva Maric. But Bill Clinton, the man from Hope, did acknowledge his girl partner Hillary, and that triggered the media ‘backlash’ Susan Faludi wrote about in 1991 and that hasn’t paused. Hillary’s value just rubbed a lot of media people the wrong way, and they didn’t understand why but something just wasn’t right. And then they set about to locate what was so wrong, in her, not in them.
Because women aren’t usually equally respected by their powerful husbands, or even by other women. Usually ‘wives’ are supposed to be appendages, seen if good-enough-looking but never listened to.
Even non-wife workingwomen are used to our best ideas and most useful corporate contributions getting ‘re-gifted’ to some man. We are used to being underrated, having our accomplishments viewed as ‘pretty good for a woman,’ but attributed to trying too hard due to not having a life (and almost never to raw talent and ability). If we are among the few that ‘surpass expectations,’ we are expected to accept the simple fact that we’re just ‘special;’ different than most women, better not luckier, and then expected to chuckle with the other fellows over blond jokes.
Thus ‘the Clintons’ was the term coined to denote ‘that uppity bitch.’ (You never hear ‘the Bushes,’ or ‘the Romney’s’ or ‘the Gores’ and they were born with the same last names so grouping them has sounder logic.) ‘The Clintons’ always meant she took advantage of her marriage to push to the head of the line, she piggy-backed on a man, without him she’d be nothing, how dare she, and she stays there by continuing to push, she hides her mistakes so she can ‘control the narrative’ that otherwise would clearly depict her as she ‘truly’ is - Hamlet’s mother, obviously.
‘The Clintons’ means the uppity girl who screwed her way to the top. Think ‘the Borgias.’ The Clintons means she’d do anything to get what she wants.
Manufactured mothers were incensed the bitch didn’t have time to back cookies. And how dare she stick her nose into the White House Travel Agency’s practice of depositing checks in their personal accounts, isn’t that calling them crooked with no evidence? And anyway, she’s just his wife, who appointed her head of the White House Travel Agency?
She didn’t get any good press until she became a public victim, and then she lost it because she didn’t divorce Bill, ergo there was obviously a ‘pact’ they'd signed in blood, witnessed by the devil knows whom and her payoff would be that she could be the president.
But the real Hillary has factually been the model of a public servant. She takes on all tasks and works tirelessly, she works well with others, she doesn’t take credit for anyone else’s ideas, she studies and practices, she's a team player and she puts doing the job as best she can over any other consideration, and she doesn't forget other women, she puts the light on issues that affect women and children, universal pre-school, helping Hispanic mothers keep their families together, ending sexual trafficking, helping women start businesses. She's the one that said human rights are women's rights. She has a very long record of public service.
When she ran for president in ’08 the sexism was over the top. Even Barack joked about her ‘experience in the white house,’ and the MSNBC crowd, some of whom are now thankfully on her team, repeated over and over that she’d do anything to get ahead. That sexist line, as if no one except her ever did a thing to get ahead, and she’d obviously do anything.
When Barack won she, as usual, lived her feminism, she worked tirelessly to get the younger and less experienced man elected, she didn’t do a Ted Kennedy and run against the real candidate out of unbelievable self-regard, she knew Barack would be great too, and that women and children needed to have a not-Republican president. And later they became friends, neither one having either the grudge gene or the me-first-screw-the-nation gene.
This latest manufactured scandal is, as usual, only about Hillary. Men can use private servers because men have the integrity to not use them to manipulate, to hide dirty laundry, and to be ‘controlling.’ Obviously only a get-ahead-at-any-price girl who has stuff to hide had a special reason for doing what everyone else had done.
Note: the media in retro blood-sniffing mode refers to Hillary in this so-named sui generis ‘scandal’ as ‘the Clintons.’ Those Clintons; those Borgias.
No one listens to Powell, who says he did it the same way. Jeb Bush, who is never called one of ‘the Bushes,’ used a private server like other potential male candidates, but he gets to 'wonder about her judgment' but not be asked if he's wondered about his older brother’s judgment. Hey, his brother Bush always meant well, ‘the Clintons’ is whole other story, wink wink.
This is Hillary hate redux, the story that started in 1992, when a man running for president was brave enough to acknowledge the incredible value of his life-partner, who happened to have a vagina.