The Fear and Trashing of Hillary Rodham Clinton

The Ironic Cherry reads...

What Happened

by

Hillary Rodham Clinton

A few years ago, as I began to listen to the audiobook of Hillary's years as Secretary of State, Hard Choices, I became aware that I was listening for signs of duplicity.  I have been an admirer of Clinton's since It Takes a Village way back in 1996, and actually from the time she became First Lady.  But sad as this may be, the doubts creep back whenever I have lost touch with her.  As I read, I found not any trace of duplicity.  Rather, she spoke as she always does, from her heart, and with a great deal of knowledge.  She spoke with self-awareness and even a touch of self-deprecation.  Her words were measured and intelligent.  She is, was, and will continue to be, a masterful writer, and one with a lot to say.

So I was discouraged, but not entirely surprised, when the reaction I heard to her new book from way too many women was: the election is over, and Hillary should just go away.  That is the tragedy of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

She has been trashed mercilessly, and quite stupidly, for decades.  Politicians and the media were tickled to put her in the headlights over Bill's sexual indiscretions.  Men were more than happy to attack her victimhood, and saddest of all, women joined in to critique her behavior during this most personal of difficult times.

And so it goes.  We have heard about her hair and her pantsuits ad nauseum.  Before she was First Lady, she had had to deal with Bill's inability to get re-elected in Arkansas with a wife who practiced law and went by her given name.  And then, when she reached the White House, there was the national incident over her comment that she chose not to stay home and have teas and bake cookies.  If you recall, that was such a focus of our attention that she ended up sharing her mother's chocolate chip cookie recipe with the world, to prove she actually could bake.

Then things got serious, as republicans decided that the Clintons were too popular.  The road to the Clintons' demise, began with Bill's womanizing; those headlines were such a hit, that the mudslingers at the republican party turned over every damn leaf to find dirt to aim at them.  They hit the mother lode with investigations over the business venture Whitewater.  Those of you who wheel and deal in business know that there are way too many grey lines in big deals.  And even though Bill and Hillary were never found guilty of misconduct, some were, and that, my friend, is all you need to fuel the fires of suspicion.

Headlines.  That is all most of us have time for.  And when there was no proof, allegations and innuendo were enough.  And since Bill and Hillary ended up with a fair amount of wealth, it is even easier to stoke the fires.

Add to that the internet, and we have gone from rumors that Bill had murdered his friend Vince Foster, which keeps popping up like rats in sludge, to the absurd near tragedy of last year's Pizzagate.  Fact is, when there are no facts to denigrate Hillary Clinton, a lie will always do.

And add to that the absolute cruelty of those who hate Hillary, armed with Facebook and Twitter.  And the sad, sad fact that the news media can NOT turn away from potential scandal, the uglier the better, but if ugly isn't available, stupid will do, as proven by video loops of her falling.

There we were, then, in 2016, with smart women shaking their heads and saying, "I just don't trust her."

Why don't you trust her?  Either we don't know enough about her or we know too much about her.  She shows too much emotion or not enough.

Fact is, we probably know more about Hillary than we do of any candidate who has ever run for president.  We know more personal stuff about her than we have any right to know.  We know more about her finances than any other president (I don't even need to mention the secretive crook that is skulking around the White House these days).  For all the millions of dollars that have been spent to try to dig up financial irregularities about Hillary and Bill, you might think there would be something to show for it.

The republicans may not be able to get the dollar signs out of their eyes in order to see how their financial fantasies erode our economy, but they do know how to spread contention and distrust.  Let us not give Trump all the credit; the republican party spread manure over the soil to make it fertile ground in which to grow all of Trump's hate.

We liberals like to talk with disdain about the uninformed American, but there are levels of being uninformed.  As I said earlier, most of us don't have time for more than headlines.  Some of us, who work too hard and struggle to raise families, don't even have time for that.  But if you are going to make an informed decision about a candidate, you just have to go underneath the headlines.  To the source.  And the source is out there.

From the time that reality show host rode down the escalator, the media was a captive audience.  Every ugly word was captured in prime time, every day.

But Hillary's campaign wasn't about invective.  It was about policies.  And she had plans, lots of them.  That is what Hillary does.  She looks at a problem and figures out how to make it better.  And she doesn't let anything slip by.

We don't know that because while we were watching the republican car wreck, Hillary was making speeches about the economy and women's rights, education and technology.  I watched a couple of her speeches, so few because I had to actually remember to take the time to find them on C-Span or the internet.  But let me tell you, they were wonderful.  Those of you who think she neglected the middle class, the white middle class, didn't focus enough on jobs, focused too much on "identity politics," you weren't there.  You were listening to her campaign through pundits, who were obediently repeating rumors about emails.

And we women, myself very much included, have the quality which makes our daughters strong and smart and determined:  we are incredibly hard on women, ourselves, our friends, our daughters.  We had criticisms for Hillary that were ridiculous in comparison to all the others who ran for president in 2016.  And we also had the cloud that had been polluting her space for thirty years.

As with all things Hillary, in talking about her book pre-publication, the media highlighted two of the most tantalizing tidbits:  1) James Comey's part in her defeat; and 2) Trump stalking her at the town hall debate.  Which led us to believe that the book would be an obsessive rant about her defeat.

I would not have blamed her if that was what it had been.  After having to take more crap than any other politician ever, she certainly would have been entitled.  But that is not at all what this memoir is about.

The content of What Happened is much like the title, which is much like Hillary herself.  In the book she explores the state of women in politics, her relationship with Putin as Secretary of State and the involvement of Russia in derailing an already dysfunctional political system, and yes, the email nonsense.  She does it in a down-to-earth and objective way, while also honestly acknowledging her feelings and perceptions throughout and since.  She also tells us about a day on the trail, because she gets asked about it a lot.  She tells us about her grandchildren and her friends, and how they have helped her heal and given her hope.

Except she has always had hope.  The thing that I love about Hillary, besides her intelligence and morality, is that she always has hope.  She is always going to get up and fight again, and it infuriates her enemies.  I believe her willingness to look at herself critically and admit mistakes also drives her enemies crazy, because you have got to be tough to admit to your faults and come away better.

Since publication, Hillary has given some great interviews, the latest with Fareed Zakaria on Sunday.

What Happened provides so much more important and fascinating detail about, yes, what happened.  Most important, as Hillary has said in the book and in interviews, we need to truly understand what went on so that it won't happen again.  In this book, she talks about it as though she were sitting in the room with us, sharing her ideas and experience.

After all these years, we owe it to ourselves to get to know Hillary Rodham Clinton, who I believe will go down as one of the greatest and most influential women in American history.

Hating Hillary

About a year ago I decided it was time to read Hard Choices, Hillary Clinton's account of her years as Secretary of State.  As I began to listen to the audiobook, I was aware that I was listening for signs of dishonesty, superficiality, dodging important questions.  My approach to the book astonished me.  I had read everything she had written up to then, and was thrilled, along with so much of America and the world, by It Takes a Village, which she wrote in 1996 as First Lady.  Of course, back then the attack machine was already in full swing, with Whitewater and the idiotic Travelgate investigations.  The rumor mill was churning out lies that she murdered Vince Foster (who had committed suicide).  But I was a liberal Democrat, the internet wasn't in full political porno mode just yet, and I saw all the attacks on the Clintons as politically motivated bullshit.

Hillary sounded good then, and as I listened to Hard Choices, I realized that nothing had changed.  She was still smart, honest and caring.  But now she had the knowledge and skills that made her sound indeed like a world leader.  She dealt with the chapter on Libya and the attack in Benghazi with honesty and integrity, and provided detail that made the tragedy come alive.  What had changed, tragically, was that all those years of lies and attacks had influenced my perception of her.

This presidential election has been, really, about two people whose personas have come from decades of media attention.  For Donald Trump, it began with a very conscious effort to mold his public image.  As told in some of the excellent biographies that have come out this year, notably, Trump Revealed, The Making of Donald Trump, and Never Enough, his need to break free of his father's more modest ambitions led him to set his sights on Manhattan real estate, and on becoming known around town:  known as a lady's man, as someone who hung around in the most desirable establishments, with the most important people, and mostly, as a man of great wealth and power.  With the aid of his father's money he got his foothold in Manhattan and obsessively pursued those goals.  There was absolutely nothing Donald Trump would not do to promote his successes, even lie.  Ghostwriter of The Art of The Deal Tony Schwartz claims he's never seen Trump pick up a book to read it, but he has "written" a dozen of them, all with co-authors.  It wasn't until this presidential campaign that we saw a number of objective biographies hit the shelves.

On the other hand, hate books about Hillary have been a cottage industry for decades.  She has not ever had the luxury of building a public image on her own terms.  Hillary's public career began as Bill's wife, in Arkansas, where she immediately became ostracized for having a mind of her own and daring to speak it.  From attempting to keep her family name of Rodham when she got married, to her independent work as an attorney, it seemed everything she did riled the people of Arkansas.  And there were no worse critics than the women.

As First Lady, and with Bill's enthusiastic support, she continued to set goals that had been beyond former First Ladies.  As the left-leaning wife of a centrist president, she was charged with developing a health care proposal and ended up getting battered with the full force of the animosity of the corporate fueled right-wing political machine.  Misleading headlines and a $20 million dollar advertising campaign sponsored by the health insurance lobby fired up the public, and led to the death of badly needed health care reform.

Oh, and while she was First Lady, the press never met an issue that was too petty to critique:  along with her name, there was her hairstyle, and of course, those pantsuits.  Throughout her campaign for president, the press couldn't decide whether to ask her about her emails or go on about what she is wearing.  They mock her laugh, then complain that she doesn't smile enough, and then Breitbart comes in and attributes evil connotations to her grin.

Especially interesting is that, for all the people who hate Hillary, the best you can get from them are vague but passionate claims that "She lies," or the one word "Benghazi."  How about asking somebody what was in a single email that cost us so much in tax dollars and goodwill.  And then contrast that to the criminal activity that has, is and will continue to go on during Trump's political life.

I would like to put this into a popular culture historical perspective.

Since he threw his silly hat in the ring, Donald Trump references seem to be everywhere.  I was listening to a 1993 book by the wonderful travel writer Bill Bryson recently.  There was something in his travels that he enjoyed so very much that he would "sell his grandmother to Donald Trump" in order to be able to take one home with him.  Funny at the time, I guess.

And then there are the movies and television.  I don't believe Trump has ever said no to a cameo.  And of course, his celebrity coup was his role in The Apprentice, which I am proud to say I have never seen.  But, as I said, you never know when he will pop up on the screen.

Because I do a lot of reading and writing about the horrific state of our country these days, my nightly movie watching has taken a radical turn into rather juvenile escapism.

A couple of days ago, the movie was Home Alone 2 (1992).  Spoiler alert, Macaulay Culkin ends up in New York City.  In the Park Plaza Hotel, he stops and asks Donald Trump where the lobby is.

The following night, for a change of pace, it was Hot Shots: Part Deux (1993).  A very funny spoof of Rambo, with lots of other movies tossed in, and featuring Saddam Hussein.  But for no apparent reason, during the big fight scene with hero Topper Harley and Saddam, the phone rings, Topper picks it up, listens, then says, "It's your wife, Hillary Rodham Hussein."  Turns out that all the female characters had the middle name Rodham.

Two candidates for president, one with a nurtured public persona, the other carved over the years with rusty knives by politicians and media.  Oh, and did I mention that one of them is a woman?

Samantha Bee, also a woman, and by the way, one who was passed over to replace Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, is burning up late night TV these days with her hysterically funny and passionate political diatribes.  On her last episode before the election, she narrated a memorable history of Hillary Rodham Clinton that tells her story far better than I have.




I still wake up thinking about what we could have had.  It happened this morning.  But then I remember that, if Hillary was now president, congress would be preparing to investigate and impeach her for her imaginary crimes.

And even knowing that the hate machine would grind on, she was willing to step up and fight for us.  And she still is.