I have been reading and hearing about Hillary Clinton now for fifteen years. Since the year leading up to Bill Clinton's first inauguration as president, she's been a constant part of my world.
At first it was Hillary's hair -- or rather her headbands. It was Hillary's infamous intelligence, her education, her role as First Lady of Arkansas. It was her new hair styles, her quips (some on the right would style them 'gaffs') and her irreverent sense of humor. Then it was her audacity to take on a role larger than First Lady had ever encompassed: health care reform. "How dare she?" they cried. "Who does she think she is?" Finally it was her seemingly endless public humiliation during the neocon witch hunts into her life and, of course, her husband's sex life.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of her husband's presidency, there was Hillary, running for -- and handily winning -- a seat in the Senate. And now she is running for President, managing to simultaneously be more popular -- AND more hated-- than all the other candidates. Through all of this, I have never hated Hillary Rodham Clinton. I didn't hate her when she took money from Rupert Murdoch. I didn't hate her when she voted in ways I opposed vis a vis the Iraq war and other security and privacy issues. I didn't hate her today when she was quoted as saying that some aspects of "the surge" are working -- too little, too late, but working in some areas.
Why don't I hate Hillary Clinton? She's supposedly polarizing, and I don't always agree with her. But I've never hated her. In fact, I have a lot of respect for her good qualities: brilliance, tenacity, courage, dignity, energy, and yes, that stealthy, ironic sense of humor that gets her into trouble from time to time.
Most of all, I don't hate her because I understand that our next president will either be center-left or center-right. And God help me, I would give ANYTHING for our next president to be as many steps "leftwards" -- away from the neocons -- as our general electorate will allow. After 51 years on this Earth, I don't expect political miracles. But I desperately long for our nation to step back from the neocon precipice. I don't hate Hillary Clinton because I think she just might be able to yank us back from the edge, and undo much of the damage done by the Bush years.
Give me an "Eisenhower Democrat" over a Straussian Republican...please.