Up In Arms

What did Hillary say? Her exact words were these: "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June." (In fact, while celebrating his win four hours earlier in the California primary.)

Suddenly, everyone is accusing her of saying that she is staying in the race because if Obama were to be assassinated, she would win the nomination by default. While I repeat that I am by no means a great fan of Hillary, I can't understand how you could listen to what she actually said and reach that conclusion—unless, of course, you are predisposed to hear everything she says in the worst possible way. I tend to believe her explanation:

"Earlier today I was discussing the Democratic primary history and in the course of that discussion mentioned campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June 1992 and 1968. I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That's a historic fact."

She went on to add that "the Kennedys have been much on my mind that last days," and this rings true. The Kennedys have been much on my mind as well; any mention of tragedy and Kennedy in the same sentence brings me back to my preschool self, hearing the news from Dallas and seeing everyone around me stuporous with shock and grief. I must admit that one of my first thoughts when I heard the recent news about Senator Ted Kennedy's brain cancer was not, perhaps, in the best of taste. Rather, it was a dark thought equating the effects of a bullet with that of the admittedly slower but just as devastatingly fatal effects of a glioma, and mourning the fates of all three Kennedys.

What I really wanted to point out was that even if she had somehow meant to suggest that there was a chance that Obama might be assassinated, she would hardly have been anything like the first to think it, or even to say it out loud. More than a few African-Americans have admitted (e.g., from February 2008) to the fear that supporting Obama in his bid for the presidency might somehow put him in danger. Read the daily news. It is all too easy to imagine some whack job feeling compelled to pull a trigger to "protect" his racist existence. Reading the news, though, will also remind you that there may be even more whack jobs out there willing to do whatever it takes to prevent a woman holding the country's highest office. After all, women hold fewer than 15 out of every 100 board seats in the Fortune 500 companies today. (An aside: you may recall that John McCain opposed the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, on the grounds that women weren't earning the same amount of money as their male counterparts because they needed more "education and training," not because of any silly old glass ceiling or the prevalence of misogyny in the workforce.)

But I digress. My main point is that I don't think Hillary is staying in the race with the thought that her opponent might be "taken out" of the running. Secondary to that is my acknowledgment that even if she did think such a thing—and only the most bitter of cynics could believe this—she would only be speaking aloud what so many of us are afraid of, which is that the U.S. may still be so far behind other developed countries that many voters can't imagine having anyone behind that desk except a wealthy white man.

Dear Hillary

I'll be honest. You weren't my first choice as nominee. That would have been Al Gore, but unfortunately he has thus far declined to run. Given the choice between you and Mr. Obama, I must admit that I have reservations about both options. While I suppose if I were l leaning even slightly it would be toward you, overall, I cannot heartily endorse either of you as things stand. That being the case, I thought I'd pass on some of those concerns in hopes that my thoughts might actually reach you, or someone with some standing in the campaign who can evaluate and perhaps pass on these thoughts. If nothing else, it gives me a chance to speak up—though I may be speaking to an empty room.

1. Everyone who is paying attention would have to say that while Bush has been the worst U.S President EVER, his largest failings have been in the area of Foreign Relations. Clearly you have more expertise and experience in this area, yet so far your campaign's failings have all been mostly errors of, well, diplomacy and communication. There is no doubt that you are brilliant, dedicated, knowledgeable, and (on paper) the best candidate, but I worry that if you cannot run a campaign on your strengths rather than someone else's failings, as a "diplomat" you might prove no better than GWB. Obviously you are at an immediate disadvantage: a man can say almost anything and not be accused of having a character flaw, but anything faintly contrary that a woman says earns her the sobriquet "bitch." Nevertheless, you CAN disagree without denigrating simply by always having the better answer. Can you do this?

2. I think your husband was an excellent president, and his personal peccadilloes don't interest me; that's between the two of you to hash out. But I do think that he, and you, are too heavily invested in the status quo and what is generally called the "political machine." I am not naive enough to believe that any president can stand alone—compromise and negotiation are inevitable given the number of people and positions involved—but I do worry that you are too fearful to propose any real change…that is, any progressive change. I would love to hear you (or any of the candidates, for that matter) stand at a microphone and state unequivocally where you stand on every issue without pandering to a specific audience. For example, if it were me forced to state clearly what I believe, I would say the following:

• the government should NOT be allowed to run a deficit…
• the country should adopt a preferential voting (run-off) system at all levels, every vote should have both a paper backup and off-site digital duplicate, and the first Tuesday of every November should be a national holiday (paid with proof of voting, otherwise unpaid)
  
• a woman should be allowed to terminate any pregnancy under any circumstances up until the point of healthy viability without having to get the permission of anyone but her own conscience…
• capital punishment is always wrong…
• gay adults should be granted the exact same rights and privileges—and be held to the same standards and responsibilities—as heterosexual adults, including the right to marry, to adopt children, to be foster parents, and to hold any job for which they are qualified…
• social security, health care, and education should all be the responsibility of the Federal government, not private enterprise…
• all the troops in Iraq should be withdrawn as quickly and in as orderly a fashion as is technically feasible, starting today…
• and so on.

3. You need to look constituents in the eye and say something along these lines: "If I react calmly and with logic, people call me a cold, heartless, and controlling bitch. If I tear up or show any sort of concern or sympathy, people call me a weak, emotional lightweight. The truth is, I am human, just like you. I make mistakes like everyone else, but when you come right down to it, I am the best possible choice you have available to you right now to clean up after George Bush. I will need a lot of help, and I will appoint the best possible people to join me—not my friends, not people who donated money, not figureheads, not people I owe favors of any kind—the people who are the best suited for each and every job. It's not my job to ensure that the Democratic Party regains control of the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court for decades to come; it is my job to take care of all our citizens now and ensure that four years from now they will be better off than they are now. And if I do my job well, there WILL be Democrats in positions of power in the future, and they will remain there until they lose sight of the real prize: Democracy, not "Democrat-ocracy."

What Would Marjorie Say?

As the clamor for Hillary Clinton to concede the race for the presidential nomination grows ever more bitter and shrill, I find myself wondering what Marjorie would think.

Without a doubt the most brilliant person, bar none, I have ever had the privilege of meeting in person, Marjorie Williams was someone whose opinion on the matter would be guaranteed to be rational, well informed, and incisive, delivered with a deliciously wry wit. She wrote so fluidly as to make it seem effortless, and perhaps it was, for I saw her do it often enough in person: draw instantly upon some vast internal mental filing system for just the right fact, the right quote, the right word, then deliver a word-perfect analysis that left me in awe—and often in hysterics as well. She could toss off gems from obscure corners of the lexicon without ever seeming pretentious (feckless! insouciant! comity! encomium!), and listen to or read the most obtuse information and instantly synthesize a keen summary or commentary. She was amazing.

Her opinion on the current Democratic nomination would hold great weight. As an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post and the author of numerous trenchant political profiles for Vanity Fair on people in and around the DC political scene, she would have had no trouble sizing up this unprecedented situation and penning a clever, concise, and illuminating opinion. I'd be particularly interested in hearing her riff on the roles that gender and race have played in this particular contest.

Recently presidential historian (and alleged serial plagiarist) Doris Kearns Goodwin was quoted as saying, "When people look at the arc of the campaign, it will be seen that being a woman, in the end, was not a detriment and if anything it was a help to [Clinton]." Marjorie wouldn't have repeated the oft-repeated, egregious contradictions to this (the men in New Hampshire asking her to iron their shirts, McCain calling her a bitch) and found a string of instances proving that Ms. Goodwin may have been spending a little too much time copying off the papers of her C-student subjects. She would certainly have reminded us how Hillary was staked out for the jackals for her husband's transgressions, and pilloried for failing to play her part as the wronged wife, neither falling tearfully to pieces and blaming herself nor filing for divorce.

Instead Hillary behaved with stoic dignity. For this she was accused of being cold and brittle—not to mention a lesbian. (Trust me, not all lesbians can pull off the "stoic dignity" thing. I'm proof of that.) Stoic dignity, apparently, belongs to the male of the species. When she teared up with joy after winning the NH primary (deservedly so), she was being a typical, emotional woman. Real presidents don't cry.

But Marjorie being Marjorie, she would have had a dozen perfect examples of blatant sexism, ones gleaned first- or second-hand and never before seen in print, and they would have inspired the proper amount of outrage among voters. But she would not have presented a one-sided condemnation of the prevalence and apparent sanctioning of woman-bashing in politics. She was always even-handed. In the late 1990s, she and her husband Timothy Noah wrote a back-and-forth email feature for Slate magazine called "At the Breakfast Table" in which they commented on the latest news. Marjorie wrote, "Smart feminists never strove (nor even wanted) to accomplish the impossible task of taming the male id, only to make it think twice before disporting itself in the public sphere." She herself was the ideal feminist: strong, independent, and unafraid to leap into a traditionally male bastion (in this country at least, the world of politics—even political commentary—is still populated for the most part by white men), and at the same time an adoring mother to two small children and passionately in love with her husband and the challenges and gifts of raising a family.

Unfortunately, you don't have to take my word for any of this. You can actually read about it in her book. The first half of The Woman at the Washington Zoo (PublicAffairs/Perseus Book Groups, 2006), you'll find some of her elegant political profiles. The second half of the book, though, is pure Marjorie: family vignettes, personal glimpses into her life, and—most heart-wrenching—the story of her own battle with the rare form of liver cancer that finally ended her life at age 47 in January 2005. It's a rare talent that allows someone to write in such poignant detail about her own diagnosis, her treatments (though told she had only several months, she nevertheless lived another 3 years), and her realization that she would never see her children grow up, and yet never sound morbid or self-pitying.

Oh, just read the book. You, too, will feel the loss. There will be so many things you'll wish you could ask her…and not just about politics.

* * *

By the way, in her piece on weddings, Marjorie mentions having been the "best man" at a wedding; she stood up for the groom, her high-school sweetheart and my then husband-to-be (I was young, okay? If she'd been gay, it might have been him playing bridesmaid for her; I loved her that much. He and I divorced almost two decades ago, but she was no longer single by then).

Photo by Elizabeth Kastor, from "Marjorie Williams: A journalist who made feminism matter," by Meghan O'Rourke, posted at Slate.com on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005, at 11:07 AM ET.