There's Something About Hillary

By Marie Cocco, Washington Post Writers Group. Posted May 22, 2008.

WASHINGTON -- A woman? Yes. But not that woman. It is the platitude of the moment, an automatic rejoinder to any suggestion that Hillary Clinton has struggled so desperately -- and so far unsuccessfully -- to grasp the Democratic presidential nomination in some measure because she is female.

It isn't the woman part, the rationale goes. It's the Clinton part: That "polarizing" persona and "unlikable" demeanor. The unappetizing thought of President "Billary." The more inspirational quest by Barack Obama to become the country's first black president.

....

So which woman, exactly, would be acceptable?

Readers -- that inexact approximation of vox populi -- typically answer: Someone like Margaret Thatcher or Elizabeth Dole or Condoleezza Rice or Christine Todd Whitman or maybe Kathleen Sebelius, the Democratic governor of Kansas. The roll call itself illuminates the barriers.

Thatcher, for instance, never ran for executive office on her own. She became the first (and only) female prime minister of Britain by reaching the leadership of the Conservative Party. That is how many women heads of state have risen -- through parliamentary systems that often use quotas to guarantee women legislative seats. Americans don't like quotas much.

And we don't like political wives who strike out on their own. Yet around the world, presidential spouses, widows and daughters are elected with stunning regularity. Indira Gandhi of India, Corazon Aquino of the Philippines, Violeta Chamorro of Nicaragua, Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, Cristina Fernandez, the current Argentine president -- who succeeded her husband -- all rose to power through family connections.

http://www.alternet.org/election08/86094/

Further affirmation that we'll have a female president not when the voters are ready, but when power-brokers (on both sides of the aisle) have settled on a woman they approve of holding the office.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7402907.stm

In a survey this week, by Marketing magazine the respondents' top five most loved celebrities were men - Paul McCartney, Lewis Hamilton, Gary Lineker, Simon Cowell and David Beckham. Of the five most hated, the top four were women - Heather Mills, Amy Winehouse, Victoria Beckham and Kerry Katona.

"There has been a conspicuous trend in the last five years towards the production of negatively-valued women in the public sphere. People respond to the pleasures of hating these kinds of figures.

"There is incredible ambivalence in a post-feminist culture towards women in the public sphere."

In a nutshell, despite years of equal opportunities, the media - and the people who watch and read - prefer the stay-at-home mother over a woman who lives her life in public, particularly one who is overtly ambitious or successful in making money. There is great satisfaction among many people in seeing them humbled, Ms Negra suggests.

And I'd never take Hillary.

Gratefully, the voters still have a say in the matter.

That was back when policy mattered. Le sigh.

Both?

I didn't hear that but am not surprised. That's the joke of it, isn't it?

I prefer jokes that are funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI6PA4v6dZg