From Scratch

Mrs. Clinton:

First, please know I did not choose that form of address just because protocol dictates it, when not addressing you as Senator Clinton. I chose it because, for all your lip service to feminism, you quickly come to mind when I think of women whose success is tied to their husbands’. Without him and his White House, let’s say you married a dry cleaner from Omaha, you’d probably not have run for president and certainly would never have been considered a front runner.

When you flunked your bar exam in Washington you did not do what most people would and sit for it again there. Instead, Hillary Diane Rodham scurried to Arkansas and got her MRS degree. And you’ve been Mrs. Clinton ever since.

It’s hard to imagine you without Bill although it’s easy to imagine him without you, and as we learned from Carl Bernstein, Bill imagined himself without you too, quite easily. Wanted a divorce. But you said no.

No seems to be a favorite response of yours, however expressed. Subpoenaed billing records related to Whitewater? Don’t know where they are. Monica? A vast right-wing conspiracy . (Really, Hillary. That was years after you refused the divorce. Years after Gennifer Flowers. Years after who knows who else? How could you doubt or deny it? And so publicly?)

And your response to any suggestion to quit the presidential race with a shred of dignity intact? You trot out Harold Ickes to speak for you after the Florigan compromise, to threaten to carry this to the convention. Your response after Barack Obama clinched the nomination? Denial. Nope, not leaving. What part of you lost do you not understand?

To echo a sentiment of the estimable Eleanor Clift - you lost, now don’t whine about it.

But you’ve done worse than whine. In your combative speech of denial tonight, you repeated the falsehood of having won more votes, you spoke about November, you had the unmitigated gall to speak of wanting to end a war you voted to authorize.

Obama just hit the nail on the head in his speech: “The primary season has come to an end.” Say it with us, Hillary. Yes, you can. Instead of asking your supporters to let you know their opinions so you can decide what to do, admit your time is over and leave the stage.

Face it, you blew it. You ran a lousy campaign, you showed us what you’re really made of and many of us said, no thanks.

It’s been historic, a black nominee and a woman also-ran. You could have done better.

You lost. Deal with it. Going back to the Senate won’t be easy. You’re a junior senator, without the chairmanships and gravitas that made it simple for Ted Kennedy to return after his unsuccessful bid against Jimmy Carter. And Kennedy’s a team player, which always helps. After all, the textbook definition of politics is The art of compromise. Hillary compromise? Puh. You can’t even find it within yourself to drop out of a race you’ve lost and spare your party further division and dissention. Magnanimous is not in your vocabulary.

It’s all about you, isn’t it? Always has been, always will be. Even before your post-Monica sense of entitlement to an elected position of your own — it was “your turn” — it was you, you, you. I think you’d find it almost impossible to defer politically to a President Obama.

Maybe the outcome everyone’s been whispering about, even discussing openly now, will come to pass. I don’t mean your desire to settle for the vice presidency; I think your selfish speech tonight put paid to that. No, I mean the talk that you won’t stay in the Senate at all, not for long. You’ll take the Governor’s mansion in Albany and Lord knows, if ever there were a troubled governorship that is it. You can be the Queen Bee, the center of a little universe, the one to whom others will defer. You can be as bitchy as you want to be, and underlings will kiss your behind and many New Yorkers will embrace you.

With. Or without. Bill Clinton. As your husband.

Copyright (C) 2008 From Scratch All Rights Reserved

Sphere: Related Content

Tags: commentary