The Privilege Of A Clinton

Chris Crain notes:

Gloria Steinem’s asks whether a woman born in exactly Barack Obama’s circumstances would ever have made it to the U.S. Senate, much less have a shot at the presidency, but she never stops to ask whether a black woman with Hillary Clinton’s bio would ever have enjoyed the advantage of her husband’s success at the highest level of politics to slingshot her on her way.

The point is that Hillary’s path is the privileged one here, in a way that only a female candidate could be. She emerged into regional and national prominence because of her husband, not because of herself. His career opened her door, however admirably she has taken advantage of that fact.

The Tears Of A Clinton

And, yes, a double-standard:

When George Bush senior cries in public, it’s considered moving. Ditto his moist-eyed son. But in fairness, they have tended to appear moved about things apart from themselves, apart from their own predicaments. Mrs. Clinton was weeping about Mrs. Clinton. If a man had uttered Mrs. Clinton’s aria–if Mr. Obama had said, "And you know, this is very personal for me . . . as tired as I am . . . against the odds," and gotten choked – they would have laughed him out of town.

Maybe they shouldn’t have.

Quote For The Day

"It is a bit of a problem, the title "Atheist"–No one really wants to be defined by what they do not believe in. We haven’t yet settled on a name, but you wouldn’t expect a Baptist minister to go around calling himself an a-Darwinist. But it is crucial that people who do not have a sky god and don’t have a set of supernatural beliefs assert their belief in moral values and in love and in the transcendence that they might experience in landscape or art or music or sculpture or whatever. Since they do not believe in an afterlife, it makes them give more valence to life itself. The little spark that we do have becomes all the more valuable when you can’t be trading off any moments for eternity," – Ian McEwen, in TNR.