Who is Hillary Clinton?

This is a fascinating book, although I think you have to have followed US presidential politics since the early 90s to appreciate it. The book reprints articles from the leftist magazine [[ASIN:B000PATZGK The Nation]] spanning the national public career of Hillary Clinton. Individually the articles range from mediocre to brilliant, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It doesn't come close to answering the title question, but it goes a long way toward answering, "How did the Left react to Hillary Clinton?"

The first interesting discovery is Hillary was distinguished sharply from her husband even in the earliest coverage, before Bill Clinton's first election as president. As you would expect, The Nation was deeply suspicious of Bill's conservative Democrat positions, but preferred him to his Republican opposition. But they were not taken with the (at the time) trailblazing idea of emphasizing the marital partnership with "Elect Hillary's Husband" buttons and "Two for the Price of One" slogans.

In the 90s, The Nation still had some old-leftist contributors who were resentful about how feminism had distracted from Marxist class struggle, but the early 90s articles reprinted here were written by feminists. The articles complain about the sexist attacks on Hillary, but for the most part conclude that they are accurate. All successful women risk being called ruthless and calculating, but The Nation saw her that way from the start, and also gave early credence to the various Arkansas stories of corruption and philandering that were a preview of mainstream news coverage of the Clinton Administration. In the first-term Washington scandals, Travelgate, interference with the Foster investigation, perjury allegations and others; The Nation (in these articles anyway) believed the charges and blamed mainly Hillary rather than Bill. The collapse of Hillary's healthcare initiative was a double whammy, she was blamed for proposing a system designed by big insurance companies, and then for not getting it enacted. Moreover, the authors were upset about many of Hillary's activities in Arkansas that didn't bother the Right, such as serving on the WalMart Board of Directors.

It wouldn't be The Nation without some over-the-top silliness. For one example, Katha Pollitt claims that it is sexist to refer to her as "Hillary" as if the name "Clinton" belongs only to Bill. Most prominent leaders are referred to by their last names, male or female. It's Thatcher, Palin, Warren and Merkel; not Margaret, Sarah, Elizabeth and Angela. But when two politicians share a name, they have to be distinguished. There's President Adams and John Quincy; Teddy and FDR; JFK and RFK; George, George W. and Jeb. But for the most part, Hillary was judged as a politician, distinct from her husband, and mainly found wanting.

Beginning the the Lewinsky scandal, the attitude of the women writers changes. It seems that victories by the Republicans in the 1994 midterm elections, and some centrist successes by the Clinton Administration, made Bill seem more like a barely acceptable bulwark against crazy rightwingers, and less of a corrupt, racist Southern politician beholden to corporations and Wall Street. Now that Bill was under serious attack, including impeachment, The Nation's writers showed more appreciation for Hillary's defensive prowess and crisis management skills. She may be a ruthless schemer, but sometimes you need a ruthless schemer. There isn't a peep about the second-term Clinton scandals, the selling of pardons, the gift registry, stealing the White House furniture.

There is no such change of heart among the male authors. Hillary continues to be excoriated for militarism, social conservatism and tightfisted fiscal policies. She is apportioned much of the blame for "don't ask/don't tell," the Defense of Marriage Act, the Communications Decency Act, and other offenses against gay people, progress and civil liberties. I suspect there were other articles blaming Bill and others for these things, but in the articles printed here, Hillary is [[ASIN:B00P1FH19W Cruella de Ville]].

Attitudes soften a bit when Hillary runs for the Senate in New York. While there is criticism of the Clinton's finances, the opulent lifestyle, large speaking fees and book deals, several of the columns offer hopeful assessments of her legislative prospects. Over the next few years, these hopes are largely dashed as she votes in favor of the Iraq War and most of the Bush agenda. The odd thing about this is her Congressional voting record, at least according to conventional ratings, was as liberal or more liberal than Barack Obama and John Edwards, and almost as liberal as Bernie Sanders. But for some reason, The Nation didn't seem to buy it.

The columns turn scathing again at her performance as Secretary of State. Her hawkish views with respect to Iran, Libya and Syria; combined with a reluctance to speak up for human rights violations among allies; her frenetic traveling without accomplishment; her grandstanding and untrustworthiness; all come in for criticism. There is even harsher language for her tactics in fighting Barack Obama for the 2008 Presidential nomination.

There are some positive columns sprinkled throughout, but they are the exceptions. Many of them are explicitly written as pro/con combinations, but the pro-Hillary are more qualified and tepid than the anti. A lot of words are devoted to discussing how important it was to elect a woman President, mostly concluding that the wrong woman was worse than a man. The biggest single objection seems to be that Hillary is perceived as using the Left as a foil to gain power, sucking away support from genuine leftist initiatives,

The most interesting thing about this book is how the same basic leftist attitudes about Hillary have persisted for 25 years, and how similar those attitudes are to those held by people on the right and in the middle (albeit with different emotional temperatures attached; the things that arouse leftist contempt are accepted with weary resignation by many in the middle and cause apoplexy on the right). It's impossible not to notice that many of the things are prejudices aimed at all successful women. Does it mean that sexism is so deep and indelible that even after decades in the spotlight Hillary is still ravaged by it? Or does it mean that the stereotype happens to be true? This book does not answer those questions (and no doubt the truth is a complex mixture) but it does help to think about it with a long time scale to gain perspective.

Recommended for: Those looking to learn more about Hillary before the upcoming election, anyone researching for the election, obviously those who are already readers of The Nation.

This book is a collection of articles from The Nation about Hillary Clinton starting in 1992 and spanning into the present day, perfect for a reader seeking this two-decades’-long perspective. Of course they aren’t completely unbiased given it’s from the Left, as stated in the title, but what’s great is that none of these were glowing endorsements but rather differing, critical opinions on her and her politics.

I would have liked this book more if it had fit my expectations, mainly that the articles compiled would be taken from multiple sources instead of one sole Leftist publication (The Nation), but it definitely makes this book unique and of course very interested to Nation readers then and today. I’m not really the best fit as a reader for this book because, well, I was born right around the time the first articles in this collection were first published. However, I picked it up because I wanted to learn more about Hillary past and present without the sole opinion of some millennial making statements about past Hillary. I wanted to read from the perspective of someone who had been there and written about her without the new revelations of today, so this was a great choice.

One thing of note is that I was pleased to see feminists defending Hillary’s unfair sexist criticism twenty years ago. As a “baby” (newish) feminist/activist and only fairly recent graduate, I think it’s easy to see these same defenses as new or urgent. While it’s true that they’re important, they’re not by any means new. Hillary’s been unfairly judged because she’s a women from the beginning of her time in the spotlight, and it’s very discouraging to see that apparently people haven’t gotten beyond that yet. Like, really? You’re still at this?

It’s harder for me to bring much else to the table in terms of this review and what’s contained in these articles because I was a child and teen through much of it, and, let’s be honest, none of my history courses focused much on the last 20 years in as much depth as was needed. I recommend this book to anyone seeking to read more information about Hillary or wants this journalistic perspective of her.