So many writers and bloggers seem absolutely surprised that Hillary is able to ignore the endless bad news, seemingly oblivious to the impossible math and the drum beat by many to call it a day. But this is not new behavior for her.
During the many years that she was the First Lady of Arkansas, Bill Clinton was accused of having at least a half dozen affairs. Then during the White house years there was, well, we all know her name. He of course engaged Hillary to defend him against "the vast right wing conspiracy." Of course when the truth came out that he was essentially lying, it made her look foolish.
Look, many of us hurt for her. Many of us felt gut punched and empathized with her during a tough ordeal. He is a serial womanizer, even many of us who defended him over impeachment, admit that much.
The thought process for me over the last few days has been either she has knowingly looked the other way for those many years and maintained a state of denial regarding his dalliances or she is an enabler providing excuses and making it possible to avoid the consequences of self-destructive behavior.
Now, I know am going to get beat up over this. It's something we are not supposed to talk about. We are supposed to moveon.org and let bygones be bygones, but these questions bother me, especially after her remarks to The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review regarding Barack Obama and Reverend Wright. In her remarks, she stated she would have "left her church if her pastor made the sort of inflammatory remarks Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor made." She went on to say "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."
Interesting, because you do choose your family when it comes to your Husband or wife, and despite the fact that she knew Bill to have these affairs, she enabled him to lie to us with her support. It is not as if she had no idea, it is not as if she was totally in the dark, there had been years and years of these stories and accusations.
I am no prude and I couldn't care less about who sleeps with whom. If the Clinton's have an agreement, or if he just continues to disappoint, that is not my problem. But no matter the circumstances, it makes a serious argument that she is clearly able to create and manifest a personal parallel universe that is removed from reality. Would we as citizens be subject to her own parallel political reality? Isn't that something we are trying to escape?
Does her loyalty to someone make her less likely to fire someone? Mark Penn and Patti Solis Doyle come to mind.
Does the many years of pretending help explain the Bosnia story?
Is the new Hillary each news cycle a reflection of campaign strategy or pathology?
Do her decisions tend to lean toward her personal reality, political expediency or do facts matter to her at all?
Is the inauthenticity so often attributed to her a symptom of something deeper?
Is she truthful, even to herself?
Now Barack attended church say once a week, but Hillary lived with Bill everyday. She knew this man well, so well that She explains a lot of it away by saying Bill is a "hard dog to keep on the porch," and that Bill's womanizing is a "weakness" she blames on childhood abuse. If we are going to hold Barack accountable for Reverend Wright, then what about Hillary?
Her point about Barack not abandoning a church he attended each sunday begs the question, What sort of personal compromises would she have to make to allow Bill's behavior to continue year in and year out without resolution? Without leaving him.
I don't have the answer. I am just trying to figure out how it is that she can say the things she has been saying, fabricate truths that puts her in league with the Republicans, act as if things are going swimmingly and never ever bat an eye.
I don't care about the Clinton marriage at all, but I wonder about what this says about her state of mind. All the self lying or denial must take a toll at some point.
My final point might be summed up this way, as we have seen over the past 7+ years, misplaced loyalty hurts all of us. I just want to be sure that she has passed what I might call the reality based threshold. I don't think this is a question of an affair by her spouse but more about her response to it and what that should indicate about how we might expect her to respond to other challenges and circumstances as President.