Hillary Clinton: The Villeinous Victim

There is something about Hillary Clinton that brings out the worst even in misogynists. Either she is a villein or a victim, but she is just never who she is.  Yet, Hillary never refers to her husband's extracurricular activities unless asked, and she is always asked. No one ever asked Ronald Reagan about his failed marriage, or the short time between his marriage to Nancy Davis and the appearance of the eldest child. But the salacious questions about Democrats never seem to end, particularly when it comes to Bill Clinton. And no one ever asks how an investigation into a land deal somehow focuses on the President's interesting hobbies. But the Republicans will have us believe that Hillary runs as the victim of a cheating husband--that is, when she is not the architect of everything that went wrong with the current administration.

The opposition stubbornly clings to the fiction that Hillary got where she is because of her husband and his infidelities. Not only is that insulting, it simply is untrue. MSNBC's Chris Matthews was recently made to apologize for positing on his TV show that Hillary got where she was because her husband cheated on her. The people of New York seem to think that Hillary is a good senator. 

As a woman, Hillary has to work twice as hard for recognition that comes easily to her male counterparts. There are a lot of women in the US who honestly believe that women should not be allowed to run for elected office. The second class citizenship of women in the United States is well documented. As a woman who is bucking the system, Hillary is running an uphill battled, and I don't think she is helped when people drag her dirty laundry out for a second or third or fourth look.  He cheated on her, which should have remained private, and how they dealt with it is private. If you don't like her politics, don't vote for her. If you don't like her voting record, don't vote for. But don't make your decision based on what you think she should have done, or what you have done, when resolving a personal situation.  Hillary Clinton is a victim only in that is the role the opposition has cast her. And maybe we should ask why that, of all her other decisions, sticks in the collective craw the most.

And some point we will have a female head of state. It's bound to happen. Maybe it will be Hillary Clinton, maybe not. But I would hate to think that she lost an election because she remained married to an unfaithful man. And if that is the benchmark, why doesn't it apply equally to men?