You know, there was a time...
In 1992, I saw Bill Clinton at the quad at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. (No, it's not a woman, yes, it's in Michigan). Bill had just schooled George Herbert Hoover Walker Bush in a debate at Michigan State University (AKA Moo U), and he was coming down to one of the finest public research universities in the world to say hey to some students. It was kind of a chilly night--iirc, it was about the second week of October--but the quad was so packed that you were warm, because literally people were jammed together. I was with a couple friends, but I was literally touching about four other people...including a woman who, I realized after about a half an hour, was quite enjoying her boyfriend's hand below her belt buckle.
It was the night I learned the term MILF, and it was applied to Hillary Clinton.
At the time, Hillary seemed kinda cool, by national political standards. I mean, think about what I had had before that; Roslyn Carter is great, but she ain't too hip. I can't think of Nancy Reagan without thinking about how much my grandparents hated "Clayface." Kitty Dukakis? Meh. I don't know anything about Mondale's wife. Tipper Gore at that time I only associated with the Parents Music Resource Council. I loved that on the original vinyl pressing of Sonic Youth's Goo, on the trail off section of the album where the music ends and the turntable arm would lift, they had engraved "fuck the PMRC." [I now like Tipper, btw.]
So granted, the competition wasn't too fierce. But in 1992, Hillary was about as hip a potential first lady as we'd had in American since Eleanor Roosevelt, and she was better looking.
WTF happened to her?
OK, granted, Bill was a jerk. Getting a bj from a nitwitted Beverly Hills brat has to be one of the most humiliating things a prominent American man has done to his wife in our history. Also, I'm sure the attacks on her by the right wing hardened her, and made her shut down even more than she was temperamentally inclined to. But were my standards just horrifically low, that I've been surprised at what's she's become?
There used to be a time when I thought Hillary Clinton was OK. I was never a huge fan of hers, but I thought she was OK. I never hated her, not even in the aftermath of her horrendous actions regarding the Iraq War. But her conduct in recent months, her campaign against the Democratic party, it's unconscionable.
So, here's my question for you: has Hillary always been this way, or did success ruin her?