If Hillary Clinton wins next week, she’ll be the first female executive in American history. Should Donald Trump pull off a miraculous upset though, he won’t be the first politician to keep a woman from entering the Oval Office. That distinction belongs to President Obama.
It’s ironic then that the outgoing executive chose to lecture the nation yesterday. With a special message for “the guys out there,” Obama told a crowd at Capital University that “there’s a reason why we haven’t had a woman president before.”
The answer isn’t the nation’s latent sexism. Most recently, the reason was Obama. In the 2008 Democrat primary, the candidate and his campaign readily embraced sexism to sabotage Clinton’s political machine and win the White House.
Or so Clinton thought. Before accepting her post as secretary of state, Clinton had her own special message for the guy who was about to take up residence in the Oval Office: knock it off with the chauvinism.
She came forward with her testimony, first in print and then on national television. “We had, as I described in my book,” Clinton told “Good Morning America” in 2014, “an awkward but necessary meeting to clear the air on a couple of issues. And one of them was the sexism that, unfortunately, was present in that ’08 campaign.”
In an impressive example of identity politics jiu-jitsu, she took him to task for his chauvinism during the debate before the New Hampshire primary. When asked about her personality deficit and lack of charisma, the former first lady made fun of herself. In a moment of grace and charm, a self-deprecating Clinton quipped “Well, that hurts my feelings.” It was Obama that stumbled. His interjection — “you’re likable enough” — had an immediate effect, and was widely interpreted as sexist.
The room filled with nervous laughter at the time, but subsequently women flocked to the polls and gave Clinton a surprise victory in the Granite State. This meant Obama wouldn’t wrap up the primary early. Eventually his campaign switched gears to pedal a softer — yet still arguably sexist — argument about her hard-edged personality.
Although there are 18 million cracks in the Oval Office’s glass ceiling, there’s open air everywhere else in politics. Three women sit on the bench of the Supreme Court. There are twenty female senators and a woman just recently wielded the House Speaker’s gavel. Obama’s daughters, as he noted, can do any of those jobs and even follow in their father’s footsteps to the presidency. He’s helped blaze a way by advancing women to the high court and his administration. But not because of their gender; because of their politics.
The White House doesn’t take interest in sexism or misogyny until it becomes useful. Obama couldn’t be bothered to comment when Donald Trump viciously attacked Carly Fiorina or Heidi Cruz for their appearance.
And it’s obvious why. Obama doesn’t care about the gender of his successor. He cares about his legacy, and that’s why he wants to ensure a Clinton win. Now he’s telling the nation to do as he says, not what he did in 2008.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
