I am not usually much of a one for reading political biographies but I do find Hillary Clinton fascinating and to my own surprise picked up this book at the airport, and, even more surprisingly, I read it.
So it’s not quite as rock ‘n’ roll as a Madonna biography I can’t quite see Hills in a Gaultier conical bra but it is every bit as revealing, especially as it’s written by two Pulitzer prize-winning investigative journalists, both with impressive histories at the revered New York Times.
Hillary Rodham was an enormously brainy student with an enlarged social conscience right from the word go. And when she met up with Bill Clinton, they decided pretty much then and there that they’d both like a shot at being president.
Bill’s had his turn. Along the way he cheated on her and lied about it but remained enormously popular. She, on the other hand, bust a gut trying to get Americans cheaper health care but remained enormously unpopular.
In fact, it wasn’t until she was shown as a victim of her husband’s philandering that the public started to warm towards Hillary. She was indeed a contender for the world’s most important role, and one could argue that she has the best qualities imaginable. She is intelligent, strong, ambitious, passionate and hard-working – all the qualities voters like in a bloke plus she has never so much as snogged a guy from accounts at the Christmas party.
The things Hillary has done wrong pale into insignificance compared to what Bill and George W Bush buggered up. The dirt they can dig up on Hillary equates in your and my world basically to, “oh, didn’t I send that email? I thought I had.”
Sure, she flip-flopped on the war in Iraq, but remember, no weapons of mass destruction were found, which was what the war was built on, so who in their right mind wouldn’t change it? (Although, as the authors point out, only six US senators actually read a classified report on Iraq before voting to give George the right to press the red button. Had they read the report, of course, they’d have known Saddam Hussein had only the most tenuous of links to osama bin Laden.)
So, she’s not perfect, but what politician is? I find her courage and determination inspirational and, to me, one telling factor is the loyalty that exists among Hillary’s huge number of staff. The folks at Hillaryland, as it is called, are known for their uncompromising devotion to their leader. Plus, she of all people knows what a difficult, thankless, impossible, heart-breaking job being President of the United States of America can be and she still wants it. If I was American, I’d vote for her, and I’m not just saying that because I already have a Hillary Clinton T-shirt.
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