The XX Factor: What women really think.

Hillary Sends her "Best Wishes" to the Governor

No, this is not cool. Asked to comment on Spitzer, Hillary Clinton told reporters, "I obviously am sending my best wishes and thoughts to the governor and to his family."

What? This is all she can think of to say? Mr. Ethics turns out to be patronizing pricey prostitutes, a sleazy, sexist, act which may yet cost him his career, and Hillary sends him ... her "best wishes?" (Is there a Hallmark card for this?)

Asked if she thinks Spitzer will survive politically, Hillary would comment no further, saying, "Let's wait and see what comes out of the next few days."

Noreen, you commented that Spitzergate makes you less dismissive of the idea that there might be a "feminist 'obligation' to vote for a woman." I understand your reaction—my initial, visceral reaction to Spitzergate was also something along the lines of "Men! I've had it with the bastards! Let's toss 'em out, girls!"

But. Here's why that does not, in the end, lead me toward Hillary. To say that her history with sexual peccadilloes isn't uncomplicated doesn't quite capture the reason so many feminists feel queasy about HRC. She stood by Bill—but standing by him required her to become complicit in the trashing of "that woman's" reputation. (Not just that woman—there was also that woman, that woman, and a whole bunch of other women.) Married to a guy who couldn't keep his pants zipped—and who had an unpleasant habit of getting into sexual relationships with women who tended to be much younger and much less powerful—Hillary consistently sided with Bill.

On one level, fair enough; marriages and marital loyalty are complicated, and hey, he was the president. And she believed that there was a vast right wing conspiracy. (And, whaddaya know, there kinda was one, at that!) But on another level, she didn't have to let Bill off the hook quite so easily, and she sure didn't have to look the other way (at best) while her political allies demonized the women in question as cheap. That, though, seems to have been the Faustian (and not exactly feminist) deal she struck with Bill: I'll stand by you now, Bill, but the deal is that I get to run for president and you have to help make it happen. Sure, it's good that Hillary "learned other ways of manipulating power" than sleeping with powerful older men—but the "other ways" she learned were also time-honored and not exactly great: stand by the powerful older men; pretend their sexual misbehavior is just boys being boys; let the "cheap" women be the ones who pay any price that gets paid.

That's what's so depressing about Hillary's reaction, so far, to Spitzer: It's just more of the same. Hillary has an opportunity here to say something from the heart: about what it's like to be a woman in a world where too many of her male peers think sex is a perk of the job—about what's wrong with a society where so many powerful men, including "progressive" men, secretly think it's fine to just buy a women's body on the open market—about the factors that drive young women into prostitution—about sex and power and money and inequality—about the nasty links between these high-toned escort services and global sex trafficking, an issue she's crusaded on in the past.

But instead, she sends Spitzer her "best wishes."