'Tis a pity she's a commissar - Hillary Clinton's political drive

National Review, Sept 2, 1996 by Kate O'Beirne

WHERE was the nation's First Stepmother when, according to the best liberal opinion, the future of America's children was being destroyed by the passage of welfare reform? The welfare-rights coalition and Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman were frantically lobbying the White House for a presidential veto. In their effort to influence the President, NOW members even launched a hunger strike (and they might just have caught his eye if they had slimmed down). But while this pitched battle was going on, Hillary Clinton -- missing in action.

Yet the First Lady, whose public life has been ostentatiously dedicated to the well-being of children, has curiously escaped being held to account by her liberal allies. She may have persuaded them that she was pleading their case behind closed doors, but it's more likely that Edelman and Co. recognize what one liberal advocate in Arkansas reluctantly concluded long ago: "We learned not to expect anything of Hillary. What was the one thing she would go to the wall for? Bill's Presidency."

Yet with the Administration deeply divided over whether or not to sign the welfare bill, there's little doubt that Hillary's influence would have been decisive. Richard Reeves enjoyed lunch at the White House with the Clintons recently and reported that the President glanced guiltily at Hillary to seek permission before ordering a piece of blueberry pie. If Hillary controls Bill's pastry consumption, she certainly could have prevented him from swallowing the distasteful gruel of welfare reform. But although Hillary has been committed to spending other people's money on behalf of liberal causes, she has been unwilling to spend Bill's political capital to advance the agenda. In the Clinton household, politics counts for more than principles and even friendship (just ask Lani Guinier).

Confronted with the First Lady's unprecedented unpopularity -- the latest polls show her favorability rating below sea level (30 per cent) -- one defender argues that Hillary makes us uncomfortable because she is so good. Ruth Rosen, professor of history at the University of California at Davis, explains that Hillary is "the perfect scapegoat because she has a moral compass and is not afraid to follow it."

In fact, Hillary's compass always pointed straight to the White House. Betsy Wright, Clinton's chief of staff when he was governor, speculates that the Clintons thought that Bill could win the Presidency from the time they married. Bill had the vision, Hillary provided the focus and discipline. When his mother had trouble accepting a daughter-in-law whom she regarded as a prickly, unattractive feminist, he reportedly explained: "Look, Ma, I have work to do. I don't need to be married to a sex goddess."

A politically successful partnership with a division of responsibility was formed from Clinton's early days as governor. Bill bobbed about in the centrist waters of Arkansas and joined the moderate Democratic Leadership Council in the mid Eighties. It fell to Hillary, with her collegiate history of liberal activism, to nail down the Democratic base. Hillary accordingly served on the national boards of the Legal Services Corporation, the Children's Defense Fund, and the leftist New World Foundation.

But her espousal of liberal causes was strictly for export. Back home she had shed her maiden name, thick glasses, 15 pounds, and opposition to capital punishment. In particular, her advocacy on behalf of neglected children was a wholesale, out-of-state operation. While she toiled on the national scene urging Congress to live up to its moral responsibilities, the child-welfare system in Arkansas became a national disgrace. Its comparative infant mortality rate increased during her husband's 12-year tenure. But national reputations are not made by small local improvements.

Following Bill Clinton's jarring defeat for re-election in 1980, Hillary was better able to protect her investment in him than in Whitewater. Having already reformed her feminist appearance, she went to work on her irritating tendency to aloofness and superiority. An aide to Governor Clinton explained, "This is a very personal state. Now, for Clinton that empathy is natural. But Hillary learned how to project it."

BUT not convincingly. Her sense of superiority is still apparent. People aren't having trouble -- as Ann Lewis endlessly insists they are -- reconciling themselves to a new kind of First Lady who is independent, accomplished, and outspoken. The dislike of the First Lady has nothing to do with people's inability to adjust to "the changing nature of women's roles" or with any discomfort we mortals might feel when confronted by the noble and virtuous. People dislike the First Lady because they reasonably resent someone who believes herself to be morally superior to them even as she pursues power and status like the most cynical of politicians.

In short, Hillary Clinton wants to be influential and prominent without the scrutiny and accountability that politicians must endure. She wants to be viewed as having a successful, independent career while having traded on her influence and access as the governor's wife. Her formidable skills of advocacy are used to attack Bill's opponents, who can't fight back against his wife as they would against the President himself. Above all, she wants the rewards associated with success in the private sector while pursuing political advancement in the foundation world and public sector.