Today, with a twenty-four-hour news cycle that has gradually blurred the line between entertainment and information, it took only seventeen months—between the announcement of her candidacy in April of 2015 and the presidential election in November of 2016—for the accomplished and poised former secretary of state Hillary Clinton to be turned into someone—or something—hardly recognizable.
Many books have been written about the way racial differences among feminists both divided and pushed feminist thinking and practice forward over the past several decades. In the 2016 election, however, it was not race but generation that was the dynamic factor among left-leaning women.
No, I’m not referring to the apology that Donald Trump owes Barack Obama for falsely and recklessly accusing him of wiretapping Trump Tower.
On October 4, right before the Access Hollywood tapes broke, an article appeared in the Washington Post, describing the disappointment of Roger Stone and other backers of Donald Trump that the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks had not yet produced the “October surprise” it had been promising. “For weeks,” the article read, the Trump contingent had “hyped the tantalizing possibility” that a set of documents would be released that would “doom Hillary Clinton’s chances in November.” The promised leaks, whose origin Julian Assange would not reveal, was touted as “historic” and Texas radio host Alex Jones pronounced that “the Clintons will be devastated.” Assange recommended patience; he promised to reveal documents every week for the next ten weeks, and said that “some will have a direct bearing on the U.S. election.”
We now know, thanks to a 14-page U.S. intelligence finding released on January 6—a joint product of the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency–that the leaks were part of an intelligence operation personally ordered by Vladimir Putin with the purpose of “denying Hillary Clinton the presidency” and “installing Donald Trump in the Oval Office.” Putin had held a grudge against Clinton since 2011, the report stated, blaming her for inciting mass protests against his regime.
She wasn’t the wrong candidate. Rather, she was turned into one — by journalists and her political adversaries.
Amidst the controversy about James Comey’s most recent breach of FBI protocol, we’ve lost sight of the fact that James Comey’s conduct has been disturbingly irregular from his first excursion into the political minefield of the 2016 election. His sins, however, have been those of omission as well as commission. In fact, what he failed to do is actually far more disturbing than what he did do.
I am a baby-boomer. In fact, I am part of the very first cohort of baby-boomers, as is Hillary Clinton. I was born in 1947, almost exactly nine months after my father returned from naval service in WWII. And, like many others born roughly the same time, my life was profoundly affected by both the gender restrictions of the fifties and early sixties and the social revolutions that took place in the late 60’s and early 70’s — especially feminism (which we used to call “women’s liberation.”)
I am a baby-boomer. In fact, I am part of the very first cohort of baby-boomers, as is Hillary Clinton. I was born in 1947, almost exactly nine months after my father returned from naval service in WWII. And, like many others born roughly the same time, my life was profoundly affected by both the gender restrictions of the fifties and early sixties and the social revolutions that took place in the late 60's and early 70’s--especially feminism (which we used to call “women's liberation.”)
To begin by being thoroughly “transparent,” I am one of those post-65-year-old women with a Hillary sign in my front yard. Or, to be more exact, who had a Hillary sign in her front yard. Two actually. They both were stolen and I don’t believe it was so the folks who stole them could put them in their own front yard. So I guess the more precise word is that they were confiscated.
Lacey Baldwin Smith has written that “Tudor portraits bear about as much resemblance to their subjects as elephants to prunes.” A slight exaggeration, maybe. But it is true that the historical accuracy of the depictions in Tudor portraits, particularly of royalty, was often at war with “symbolic iconizing”—the use of imagery to represent the person’s character, position or role.