Michelle Goldberg: A tainted milestone (Hillary Clinton's run for the White House)

from the Guardian UK:


A tainted milestone
Like George Bush before her, Hillary Clinton is exploiting family ties and the weakness of American democracy to capture the presidency

Michelle Goldberg

December 3, 2007 10:30 PM | Printable version

The United States is still a rich country but it seems less and less like part of the first world. Obscene wealth grows side by side with obscene poverty. The dollar becomes more worthless by the day. New Orleans, despite the valiant efforts of many residents, remains a ruin: just a few weeks ago, USA Today reported that part of the city is being reclaimed by nature, like Troy or Angkor: "In swathes of the once-submerged Lower Ninth Ward... houses, trailers and sidewalks lie neglected and disappearing. The weeds appear to be taking over." Atlanta is on the verge of running out of water, an emergency that Georgia's governor has tried to head off by petitioning God. And Hillary Clinton is leading the race for the Democratic nomination.

That last bit might seem counterintuitive: isn't the prospect of a woman president, and a feminist one, an advance? It certainly would be, had Clinton followed a trajectory like Chile's Michelle Bachelet, whose journey from torture victim to president included years as a surgeon, activist, scholar of military strategy and minister of defence. A female head of state can be a sign that a country is moving beyond atavism: see, for example, Liberia's Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Or it can mean that it's moved so far forward that gender is barely an issue, as with Germany's conservative chancellor Angela Merkel.

Clinton's rise, though, isn't about a woman smashing through ceilings in a liberalising nation. It is, rather, an example of a phenomenon seen in many developing and crisis-ridden countries: the great man's wife or daughter promising to continue his legacy. Clinton is, with some variations, working in the mode of India's Indira Gandhi, Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto, Nicaragua's Violeta Chamorro, Philippines Corazon Aquino, Indonesia's Megawati Sukarnoputri and Bangladesh's Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina Wazed. All these female heads of state were carried aloft as the standard-bearers of their husband or fathers' movements. Their victories rarely signaled the modernization of gender roles. To the contrary: In dynastic politics, women are elevated as vessels carrying men's work forward. They are trusted as dutiful followers of family traditions as much as dynamic leaders of countries.

That doesn't mean they were mere proxies. Gandhi, the daughter of India's independence hero and first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, was known as the Iron Lady of India; driven from power after suspending the constitution during the infamous emergency, she managed a spectacular comeback two years later. Corazon Aquino, wife of assassinated opposition politician Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr, began her political career as a self-described housewife who referred important public questions to her priest, but she transformed herself into a real leader. Time reported how she brushed off the moniker "Mother of the Nation," saying, "I will remain a mother to my children, but I intend to be chief executive of this nation. And for the male chauvinists in the audience, I intend as well to be the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Philippines."

The point is not that these women were weak or undeserving. Rather, it's that they rose to power in fragile democracies where family connections and personality cults trumped individual merit. Women in these extremely traditional societies could rise to the top precisely because, at least initially, their campaigns weren't based on their own accomplishments, but on those of the men they were closest to. It is ominous to see this kind of legacy politics emerge in the United States; it suggests a country where the best one can hope for is restoration rather than progress. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michelle_goldberg/2007/12/tainted_milestone.html

...she's still a better choice (in my opinion) than the rest of the Dems, all of whom I could support, with the exception of Obama--Ron Paul, here I come!

Just curious...

I'm not a supporter of Clinton or Obama, but I'd vote for them in an absolute instant over that libertarian extremist.

Perish the thought that something in politics should be tainted. It is true that Hillary would not be where she is without Bill, obviously. But that doesn't mean she would make a bad president in and of itself. And it is not like her rise is blocking the emergence of some fantastic, worthy candidate, male or female. The granularity of the taintedness is too fine for politics. It blends into the background next to the patent, brute anti-woman glass ceiling keeping women out of the presidency so far. If Hillary breaks a great evil with a lesser evil, it is clearly a big win. I don't see purity anywhere.

That disease being rampant sexism and too much power tied to too much money.