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No doubt Hillary Clinton could fill Condi's high-heel boots and still have time left over to advise Michelle on what not to do as first lady. (Remember when Rice took the job almost four years ago and described her mission as building on the foreign policy achievements of the previous four? Quick work, when you think about it; wonder what she turned to after lunch?) Only, if America wanted a third Clinton administration, wouldn't it have gone for the real thing? I get that in tapping some of these Clinton folks for his transition team and new administration Obama is trying to avoid some of the mistakes the Clintons themselves made when they blew into town with their Arkansas friends and '92 campaign team and made clear they didn't need anybody to show them around or tell them anything. But at what point does this "new'' team start to seem a little too familiar with the way things have always worked and a little too much like the "old Washington'' that Obama campaigned against? I hope he doesn't forget that in both the primary and the general, voters saw experience as less important than a new direction and a new way of doing business.
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When I heard what Michelle Obama said, I thought uh-oh, classic DiKinsleyan gaffe: She said something true but unflattering, and thus a total no-no for someone in her position; that's why they call it impolitic. I also assumed she was talking about race, though that might be a total projection, because when I say I've never been prouder of my country, what I mean is that though the sickness of racism has afflicted us from the beginning, we may finally be ready to prove ourselves better than that.
The more scandalous quote, if we took it at all seriously, would be the one from Cindy McCain, about how she has always been and always will be proud of her country. I'm sure she did not mean that Abu Ghraib or water-boarding or cherry-picking intel to justify the wrong war have filled her with pride; and honestly, under her husband, I don't think any of those occasions for shame would have occurred. But, apparently, you can never go wrong saying things that everyone knows not to take too literally. Which may be why Hillary carries on giving victory speeches.
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I agree, Emily, that we don't have to go to Lady Macbeth territory over Michelle Obama's ill-considered remark. (If only she had said, "I am really proud of my country" instead of "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.") But the first job of a spouse on the campaign trail is: Don't embarrass the candidate. How much damage a spouse can do is evident by the work of Bill Clinton. But as this smart column by Carol Marin points out, an Obama campaign's central belief is that "words matter"—so it matters what Michelle Obama says. Now Barack himself is giving a defensive explanation of her remark. Wouldn't it be better to have Michelle say that of course she is proud of her country and that she expressed herself poorly?
And speaking of Hillary, how can she lose nine (now 10) in a row and make no mention of it in her "victory" speeches? I have a different take, Dahlia, than that the problem is that Hillary makes us respond in sexist archetypes. Watching her last night, I began to wonder about her ability to talk about, and to face, difficult truths. Sure, she has to plaster on a game face, but she's so plastered, she starts to make you worry that the caulking is going to crack. (These post-rout speeches have given me a better understanding of her marriage: ignore painful reality until it bites so hard you're forced to scream.) But it's one thing to be resolute and tough; it's another to come off as if you prefer to stay oblivious when things are bad. Don't we want a president who can deal with reality, even if it's unpleasant?
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Emily, your passing reference to Lady Macbeth just now reminded me of something I’d been meaning to post for a while. A friend suggested yesterday that one of Hillary Clinton’s great weaknesses as a candidate is that—fair or not—she seems so completely familiar to us. Not just because she’s been around for years but because the characteristics for which she's inevitably criticized are themselves these centuries-old archetypes: the castrating shrew, the righteous scold, the manipulative weeper ... I liked these characters the first time, by the way, when Chaucer did them. We often talk about all that Clinton baggage, but we forget that she’s carrying Lady Macbeth's duffel bag as well.
No matter what people say about Obama, I very rarely hear about him in shopworn, centuries-old literary clichés. That may explain some of the media hagiography. She is such a familiar type and the folks who hate her can just repurpose the stuff they've hated about strong women for centuries.
Maybe this is a discussion better suited for Meghan or some of you more literary lionesses, but I can’t help but think that Hillary pushes buttons that light up at Sigmund Freud’s house.
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