When she's 65
Oct. 27th, 2012 11:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI try to be cautious about liking living politicians, both foreign and local ones, but I always thought she was really interesting and remarkable:
65 reasons to love Hillary Clinton on her 65th birthday
Meryl Streep pays tribute to Hillary Clinton: the link includes both a transcript and the video.
I recently read her 2003 memoirs, Living History, which, as political memoirs go, are more focused and less rambling than those of several of her male counterparts (like Bill's, or Ted Kennedy's, or some German politicians you don't know); because Hillary actually started out as a Republican (her father was a die-hard one, and she is still full of admiration and affection for the idol of her teenage years, Goldwater) before the later 60s and coming of age made her change her mind for good, I was interested in where she sees the beginning of the radicalization that led to the current Republican party. For her it wasn't, as conventional media wisdom has it, the Reagan era, it was Nixon. The deep loathing of whom in her book didn't surprise me, given that I knew she was part of the impeachment comittee, plus, well, Nixon, but what I hadn't known is that it was mutual. In the midst of the first Clinton campaign, Nixon wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in which he said about the Clintons that any wife looking too strong and intelligent made her husband look like a weakling, and that he was sure the voters would agree that "intellect was unsuitable for a woman". You can bet she quotes that remark with relish. Incidentally, of course as time went on and especially after the Lewinsky scandal, the question on people's mind was "why does she stay with him?" instead of "why does he stay with her?", with the cynical "mutual political benefit" explanation running dry after her career as a senator and then secretary of state took off far beyond the point where she would have been dependent on his support. This is her own explanation in Living History: ""No one understands me better and no one can make me laugh the way Bill does. Even after all these years, he is still the most interesting, energizing and fully alive person I have ever met."
As of yesterday evening, they surely look like a couple who's still got it.
65 reasons to love Hillary Clinton on her 65th birthday
Meryl Streep pays tribute to Hillary Clinton: the link includes both a transcript and the video.
I recently read her 2003 memoirs, Living History, which, as political memoirs go, are more focused and less rambling than those of several of her male counterparts (like Bill's, or Ted Kennedy's, or some German politicians you don't know); because Hillary actually started out as a Republican (her father was a die-hard one, and she is still full of admiration and affection for the idol of her teenage years, Goldwater) before the later 60s and coming of age made her change her mind for good, I was interested in where she sees the beginning of the radicalization that led to the current Republican party. For her it wasn't, as conventional media wisdom has it, the Reagan era, it was Nixon. The deep loathing of whom in her book didn't surprise me, given that I knew she was part of the impeachment comittee, plus, well, Nixon, but what I hadn't known is that it was mutual. In the midst of the first Clinton campaign, Nixon wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in which he said about the Clintons that any wife looking too strong and intelligent made her husband look like a weakling, and that he was sure the voters would agree that "intellect was unsuitable for a woman". You can bet she quotes that remark with relish. Incidentally, of course as time went on and especially after the Lewinsky scandal, the question on people's mind was "why does she stay with him?" instead of "why does he stay with her?", with the cynical "mutual political benefit" explanation running dry after her career as a senator and then secretary of state took off far beyond the point where she would have been dependent on his support. This is her own explanation in Living History: ""No one understands me better and no one can make me laugh the way Bill does. Even after all these years, he is still the most interesting, energizing and fully alive person I have ever met."
As of yesterday evening, they surely look like a couple who's still got it.
Shallow, unfeminist reaction
Date: 2012-10-27 01:58 pm (UTC)Re: Shallow, unfeminist reaction
Date: 2012-10-27 02:07 pm (UTC)Hillary and her various hairstyles went through some tough times together, true. :) But you're right, she's currently looking terrific. She's exactly my mother's age, and while they don't have much else in common my mother spent the last decade trying out what worked for her best hair wise, too, so I empathize.