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

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

Hillary insists that pro-bono legal work is "the heart and soul of the law," but her own work in the cause of legal aid or children's rights was either compensated or politically useful. The righteous Wellesley graduate who told her fellow students that the "acquisitive, and competitive corporate life . . . is not the way of life for us" earned $129,000 in directors' fees from Arkansas corporations.

She notes in addition the burden she has carried to support the family. When questioned about apparent influence peddling, conflicts of interest, or cattle futures, she impatiently cites the enormous financial sacrifices the Clintons have made to permit Bill's public service. But while the Clintons were making these sacrifices for the common good in Arkansas, the state's taxpayers footed the bill for food, shelter, servants, and entertainment; the Arkansas state auditor estimated their upkeep cost at $750,000 annually.

Hillary bitterly resents being questioned about such matters. She has always hated the media and now believes the press is becoming "the handmaiden of the Right," no less. But the press rises above it, and women journalists in particular would rather burnish the feminist icon than examine its calves of clay. We're told about the unswerving "sense of mission" that has kept Hillary too busy to respond cogently to accusations of improprieties. It's Hillary's "do-good energy" that makes her "fierce and protective."

These warm maternal qualities are not always evident to those who know her well. An admiring friend whose divorce Hillary handled confessed that she was fearful of her own attorney. "I would never cross her," she declares. Hillary encouraged the media to investigate some alleged infidelities of George Bush during the 1992 campaign -- that "sense of mission," no doubt. And her temper in general has been well documented. When she advised in her recent book that, in order to stay married, sometimes "you have to bite your tongue," one can't help wondering if that's in order to improve her aim.

Fortunately, Hillary's brusque self-confidence trumped her pragmatism when it came to reforming the health-care system. This was one reform that wasn't about Bill; it was her baby, to be loved, cherished, and delivered on time. She was fighting not for ClintonCare but for Rodham Rx. Convinced that her efforts had produced a near-perfect product, she would brook no criticism and make no compromise. If Hillary Clinton had a dash of modesty, our health care would probably have been socialized. But she allowed the worst to be the enemy of the bad.

Despite her withdrawal into purdah, Hillary remains the motive force behind ideological liberalism in the White House and the Administration generally. She had a hand in the major liberal appointments, like that of Donna Shalala as Secretary of Health and Human Services. She has salted the agencies with her followers. And she is a presence who inspires awe and even fear in senior aides.

Her legal writings, her Arkansas practice, and her record in the world of legal activism all show her to be a devout believer in the power of government to transform human lives for the better. Her sense of mission, which this belief inspires, allows her to bend the rules -- whether in Whitewater or in organizing the White House Health Care Task Force -- with a clear conscience. She is one of nature's Commissars. Among New Democrats, that makes her a Lenin in a den of Daniels. But it is her ill fortune to come within a heartbeat of power in a conservative age of diminished expectations for centralized power and what government can achieve.