It is yet another tragedy in the life of Hillary Clinton that the poisonous drip about her motivations manufactured by the Republican white male establishment seems to have entered the DNA of not just women Republicans but also so many Democrats of all genders and colors. I see it among my own Democratic and Independent friends, male and…
It is yet another tragedy in the life of Hillary Clinton that the poisonous drip about her motivations manufactured by the Republican white male establishment seems to have entered the DNA of not just women Republicans but also so many Democrats of all genders and colors. I see it among my own Democratic and Independent friends, male and female. It is hurtful to me, and scary, to contemplate how undefended women in all professions are against such destructive and malicious speech.
What scares me most, however, is the lack of empathy and understanding for an outstanding female public servant whose life was (and is) dedicated to a better future for all, especially women and children, everywhere in the world. Yes, she voted for the Iraq war, a very bad mistake. So did virtually every other senator, most of them male. Ask yourselves: has it disqualified these men in the eyes of the voting public for the rest of their lives the way it did Hillary's standing?
Yes, Bill Clinton made terrible mistakes in his relationships with women. I recall the long-ago senator from Colorado, Pat Schroeder, describing a room (or rooms) in Congress for male politicians of both parties to retire to with their paramours. Bill Clinton was one in a long line of men who behaved (and behave) badly. But whose business is it to condemn Hillary for marrying Bill Clinton and/or staying with him after the roof blew off their private lives over private decisions, however bad? She forgave him. He mattered to her. She mattered to him. She understood him. He understands her. They have a child they raised lovingly and courageously. Who are we to condemn them if we consider ourselves, our own decisions, the poisonous culture we have been asked to navigate while going through our days, fighting for what we believe in, raising our children, taking care of our families?
I met Hillary Clinton during a weekend in the early 2000s for a dozen or two donors from the Boston area who were invited to meet her at the Senate and, later, at her home in Georgetown for dinner. At the Senate in the early afternoon, she spoke with us patiently while managing numerous interruptions and calls for votes. She wore a green pantsuit. At night, she arrived at the dinner table around nine, still wearing the same pantsuit, exhausted, but gracious. Guests could ask questions.
The second question was about the situation in the Middle East. She began to talk, without pause, for more than twenty minutes, with passion and empathy for all those she knew and had known there, and had interacted with, and had listened to, for decades. She knew everyone, on all sides. She knew everything, from a day ago and from decades before. She wove it together for us so we could understand what she understood. She was the most informed, lucid, compassionate politician and human being we could have had to represent us, who would have, and could have, made a difference in our politics. Her losses were a victory for the Republicans. They knew what they had to do when they first noticed her, many decades ago.
Mine, too, Marleen. Hillary Clinton is, to me, a role model and a hero. Blazing trails takes so much courage and energy, and it’s so easy for those of us who came after to forget that. Our success stands on her capable shoulders, and the country is immeasurably worse off because she lost in 2016. Thank you for writing this for us to see her as you did and do.
When you read” It Takes a Village” you understand HIllary Clinton’s passion and professionalism in caring about our children, all children and how governments can make a positive difference. And if you look at the reviews you will also read abundant criticism, not only of her book, but just who she is. It’s more than challenging to prevail in a system that itself continues to legislate against women and women’s rights, including Roe v Wade, ERA. Women’s suffrage was a battle, not just an amendment.
Thank you so much, marleen. A worthy tribute to a wonderful person. I believe she is a woman that absolutely could have led this country as president. Her tenacity is unmatched. I did not agree with some of her politics but I never disagreed with any of her values.
I am glad that she still wields influence today on many issues being contended with.
I agree with you. A hundred years from now, the loss in the electoral college for Clinton will be seen to be as politically life-altering (in a very bad way) as the JFK assassination, Watergate, or the election of Reagan.
The media's decision to ride the email train, Comey's election interference, all that will be put in it's proper perspective.
Don't know if you are familiar with the former NPR show, The Diane Rehm show. I once called in and actually got on the air while they were blathering, once again, about the emails. A Friday News Roundup show. My comment was that the media had taken a GOP talking point and elevated it into a scandal, then when she apologized, several times, in several different ways, the media narrative changed to "she hasn't apologized properly". I said that they were beating a dead horse. I actually got yelled at by Diane Rehm, one of the few times I ever heard her screech. "You don't understand. We have to cover it because it's a top news item". I hung up realizing that the stupidity virus was more invasive than I thought.
Yeah but no one put a gun to her head and forced her to shit on Juanita Broadrick (sp?) and that’s where she lost a lot of us. Alumna from a woman’s college here, appreciate all her merits, but class and racial divide there was ugly. Then the choreographed walk to the copter with Chelsea proving ... what? Smile and take the Lewinsky abuse he perpetrated because he’s a rich president and she’ll get rewarded with a Senate seat later for making nice for the cameras? Fuck that shit. It was an insult to younger women everywhere, I don’t care HOW good he was in bed.
I’m not sure I understand you correctly. You’re saying that class and race divisions at your women’s college were Hillary Clinton’s fault? I’m guessing it wasn’t Wellesley since you don’t say so, so she likely wasn’t even there. This is a woman who has spent her entire career battling class and race and gender divisions. You’re also saying that her efforts to keep her family intact were all a front so that she could become a senator more than a decade later? Can you see how none of that makes the slightest bit of sense?
Marriages are private places. None of us can or should judge the compromises and forgivenesses people make in their marriages, especially when there are children. Not even hers, and not after her public humiliation. Don’t be so quick to cast judgement on something you likely know nothing about. None of us do, only the two of them do, and it’s none of our business. Her decision to stay in her marriage wasn’t an insult to anyone. Reducing what was almost certainly an agonizing decision to Clinton’s sexual prowess speaks ill of you, not her.
You know what didn’t “make the slightest bit of sense,” KR? Her deciding to move to suburban NY (not from there, never lived there, dodn’t work there; it was demographically selected) and decide she was owed a Senate seat from there, expensive “listening tour” the state, and sit back and be given that little bauble just like an NBA wife recently sported some “I’m sorry” bling. We’re a welcoming people to immigrants, New Yorkers, but how about acknowledging the truth?
And: what else would make a woman of substance set the example to a daughter and Our nation’s daughters that you put up, shut up, and parade your family so that you keep what’s coming to you? What they said to each other is THEIR business but what they used OUR country’s political pomp/pageantry given OUR nation’s press documenting every gesture is fair visual rhetoric for analysis and what it says about me is that I understand verbal and non-verbal Presidential rhetoric, KR.
I find this offensive. This was breaking while I was in the middle of an harassment suit against my company. The choices I made were for self preservation considering the times. It’s easy to judge through a mis shaped lens.
She wasn’t battling race and class divisions when she had people like Carville say things like “drag a $20 bill through a trailer park” and let the dogs our on (white and bipoc) women to whose bodies her husband allegedly helped himself without obtaining consent.
Laura, none of that is anything she herself did. I get it, you don’t like her. Because Bernie, neo-lib, blah blah blah. I hope you’re never in the position of having to decide to save your marriage or bail after your husband’s infidelity, do it publicly, and have people 25 years later judging you for it. I’m going to go work in the garden. It’s too nice of a day to spend it arguing with you.
❤️❤️❤️❤️ there was a reason these fascists bturds invented every lie they hoped might stick to keep her away from power. They knew exactly how dangerous she would be to their plan to bully us into a fascist state
It is yet another tragedy in the life of Hillary Clinton that the poisonous drip about her motivations manufactured by the Republican white male establishment seems to have entered the DNA of not just women Republicans but also so many Democrats of all genders and colors. I see it among my own Democratic and Independent friends, male and female. It is hurtful to me, and scary, to contemplate how undefended women in all professions are against such destructive and malicious speech.
What scares me most, however, is the lack of empathy and understanding for an outstanding female public servant whose life was (and is) dedicated to a better future for all, especially women and children, everywhere in the world. Yes, she voted for the Iraq war, a very bad mistake. So did virtually every other senator, most of them male. Ask yourselves: has it disqualified these men in the eyes of the voting public for the rest of their lives the way it did Hillary's standing?
Yes, Bill Clinton made terrible mistakes in his relationships with women. I recall the long-ago senator from Colorado, Pat Schroeder, describing a room (or rooms) in Congress for male politicians of both parties to retire to with their paramours. Bill Clinton was one in a long line of men who behaved (and behave) badly. But whose business is it to condemn Hillary for marrying Bill Clinton and/or staying with him after the roof blew off their private lives over private decisions, however bad? She forgave him. He mattered to her. She mattered to him. She understood him. He understands her. They have a child they raised lovingly and courageously. Who are we to condemn them if we consider ourselves, our own decisions, the poisonous culture we have been asked to navigate while going through our days, fighting for what we believe in, raising our children, taking care of our families?
I met Hillary Clinton during a weekend in the early 2000s for a dozen or two donors from the Boston area who were invited to meet her at the Senate and, later, at her home in Georgetown for dinner. At the Senate in the early afternoon, she spoke with us patiently while managing numerous interruptions and calls for votes. She wore a green pantsuit. At night, she arrived at the dinner table around nine, still wearing the same pantsuit, exhausted, but gracious. Guests could ask questions.
The second question was about the situation in the Middle East. She began to talk, without pause, for more than twenty minutes, with passion and empathy for all those she knew and had known there, and had interacted with, and had listened to, for decades. She knew everyone, on all sides. She knew everything, from a day ago and from decades before. She wove it together for us so we could understand what she understood. She was the most informed, lucid, compassionate politician and human being we could have had to represent us, who would have, and could have, made a difference in our politics. Her losses were a victory for the Republicans. They knew what they had to do when they first noticed her, many decades ago.
These were our losses, too, and certainly, mine.
Mine, too, Marleen. Hillary Clinton is, to me, a role model and a hero. Blazing trails takes so much courage and energy, and it’s so easy for those of us who came after to forget that. Our success stands on her capable shoulders, and the country is immeasurably worse off because she lost in 2016. Thank you for writing this for us to see her as you did and do.
When you read” It Takes a Village” you understand HIllary Clinton’s passion and professionalism in caring about our children, all children and how governments can make a positive difference. And if you look at the reviews you will also read abundant criticism, not only of her book, but just who she is. It’s more than challenging to prevail in a system that itself continues to legislate against women and women’s rights, including Roe v Wade, ERA. Women’s suffrage was a battle, not just an amendment.
Thank you so much, marleen. A worthy tribute to a wonderful person. I believe she is a woman that absolutely could have led this country as president. Her tenacity is unmatched. I did not agree with some of her politics but I never disagreed with any of her values.
I am glad that she still wields influence today on many issues being contended with.
UNITA!
I agree with you. A hundred years from now, the loss in the electoral college for Clinton will be seen to be as politically life-altering (in a very bad way) as the JFK assassination, Watergate, or the election of Reagan.
The media's decision to ride the email train, Comey's election interference, all that will be put in it's proper perspective.
Don't know if you are familiar with the former NPR show, The Diane Rehm show. I once called in and actually got on the air while they were blathering, once again, about the emails. A Friday News Roundup show. My comment was that the media had taken a GOP talking point and elevated it into a scandal, then when she apologized, several times, in several different ways, the media narrative changed to "she hasn't apologized properly". I said that they were beating a dead horse. I actually got yelled at by Diane Rehm, one of the few times I ever heard her screech. "You don't understand. We have to cover it because it's a top news item". I hung up realizing that the stupidity virus was more invasive than I thought.
Yeah but no one put a gun to her head and forced her to shit on Juanita Broadrick (sp?) and that’s where she lost a lot of us. Alumna from a woman’s college here, appreciate all her merits, but class and racial divide there was ugly. Then the choreographed walk to the copter with Chelsea proving ... what? Smile and take the Lewinsky abuse he perpetrated because he’s a rich president and she’ll get rewarded with a Senate seat later for making nice for the cameras? Fuck that shit. It was an insult to younger women everywhere, I don’t care HOW good he was in bed.
I’m not sure I understand you correctly. You’re saying that class and race divisions at your women’s college were Hillary Clinton’s fault? I’m guessing it wasn’t Wellesley since you don’t say so, so she likely wasn’t even there. This is a woman who has spent her entire career battling class and race and gender divisions. You’re also saying that her efforts to keep her family intact were all a front so that she could become a senator more than a decade later? Can you see how none of that makes the slightest bit of sense?
Marriages are private places. None of us can or should judge the compromises and forgivenesses people make in their marriages, especially when there are children. Not even hers, and not after her public humiliation. Don’t be so quick to cast judgement on something you likely know nothing about. None of us do, only the two of them do, and it’s none of our business. Her decision to stay in her marriage wasn’t an insult to anyone. Reducing what was almost certainly an agonizing decision to Clinton’s sexual prowess speaks ill of you, not her.
You know what didn’t “make the slightest bit of sense,” KR? Her deciding to move to suburban NY (not from there, never lived there, dodn’t work there; it was demographically selected) and decide she was owed a Senate seat from there, expensive “listening tour” the state, and sit back and be given that little bauble just like an NBA wife recently sported some “I’m sorry” bling. We’re a welcoming people to immigrants, New Yorkers, but how about acknowledging the truth?
Cough cough Bobby Kennedy in 68 cough cough
And: what else would make a woman of substance set the example to a daughter and Our nation’s daughters that you put up, shut up, and parade your family so that you keep what’s coming to you? What they said to each other is THEIR business but what they used OUR country’s political pomp/pageantry given OUR nation’s press documenting every gesture is fair visual rhetoric for analysis and what it says about me is that I understand verbal and non-verbal Presidential rhetoric, KR.
I find this offensive. This was breaking while I was in the middle of an harassment suit against my company. The choices I made were for self preservation considering the times. It’s easy to judge through a mis shaped lens.
She wasn’t battling race and class divisions when she had people like Carville say things like “drag a $20 bill through a trailer park” and let the dogs our on (white and bipoc) women to whose bodies her husband allegedly helped himself without obtaining consent.
Laura, none of that is anything she herself did. I get it, you don’t like her. Because Bernie, neo-lib, blah blah blah. I hope you’re never in the position of having to decide to save your marriage or bail after your husband’s infidelity, do it publicly, and have people 25 years later judging you for it. I’m going to go work in the garden. It’s too nice of a day to spend it arguing with you.
❤️❤️❤️❤️ there was a reason these fascists bturds invented every lie they hoped might stick to keep her away from power. They knew exactly how dangerous she would be to their plan to bully us into a fascist state