According to the Clinton campaign’s narrative of choice, Senator Clinton is the most sensible choice for president because of her “experience.” This “experience” obviously doesn’t refer to her single full Senate term–even John Edwards has one of those. The “experience” that separates Hillary from the pack is her time in the White House, where she purportedly served as some sort of co-president/consigliere to her husband.
On December 26, the New York Times published a lengthy article that gave the lie to such claims. In her time as first lady, Hillary Clinton didn’t hold a security clearance. She didn’t attend National Security Council meetings. According to the Times‘s strange formulation, “She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda.” Left unanswered is the nagging question of who would have cared if she had “asserted herself.”
The Clinton campaign tried to strike back by insisting that her tenure in the White House featured some serious business. The candidate herself highlighted a perilous goodwill mission to Bosnia in which her airplane had to make a harrowing corkscrew landing to avoid danger. Among those accompanying the first lady on this daring errand were singer Sheryl Crow, the comedian Sinbad, and first daughter Chelsea.
Some in the conservative blogosphere took the trouble to fact-check the candidate’s account of her dangerous voyage and found the story, like many other things related to the Clintons, to be factually deficient. Not surprisingly, her account didn’t square with official White House records or the actual situation in Bosnia. Senator Clinton claimed the trip took place in 1995, but White House records indicate her two visits to Bosnia occurred in 1996 and 1997. American soldiers based in Bosnia offered a starkly different view of Tuzla, the site of Hillary’s (not to mention Sinbad’s and Sheryl Crow’s) heroics. The soldiers referred to Tuzla as “Disneyland” because it was so safe and so starkly different from surrounding areas.
But arguing over the veracity of the story misses the point. Since even in her own telling, Senator Clinton’s adventure had all the accoutrements of a goodwill tour, how precisely did this trip differ from a typical activity of any first lady?
Of course, there was always something audaciously disingenuous about Senator Clinton’s claims to “experience.” To buy the senator’s story, one would have to believe the Clintons’ for-public-consumption narrative that their relationship was a uniquely close partnership. One would also have to believe that Bill and Hillary worked hand in hand even when Bill’s extracurricular activities troubled their marriage.
Only the unusually credulous would accept the notion that Hillary Clinton’s time in the White House gave her much more “experience” than that afforded the typical first lady. Indeed, one could plausibly argue that a different first lady of recent vintage, Nancy Reagan, had much more “experience” in running the executive branch than Senator Clinton did. And yet Republicans somehow resisted the urge to anoint Nancy Reagan as their savior.
Even for liberals who swallow hook, line, and sinker the bait of Hillary’s “experience,” some disturbing questions remain. How has her experience benefited her? Hillary’s impact in the Senate has been negligible. Her supporters would probably blame her virtual invisibility in the Senate on her lack of seniority. Yet other junior senators like Tom Coburn have influence in the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.
And then there’s the final question that one would imagine preoccupies liberal Clinton supporters: Hillary Clinton sat in the Senate when her colleagues debated the Iraq war resolution. (Despite her penchant for leadership, Senator Clinton reliably relegated herself to the sidelines whenever an important Iraq-related matter arose in the Senate.) As a true lefty would tell it, some senators like Russ Feingold saw through the farrago of administration lies and CIA incompetence. And yet Senator Clinton, in spite of all the benefits that her eight years of serving as co-president provided, blew the big one. She supported the Iraq war.
So one must wonder, What exactly is the rationale that supports Hillary Clinton’s candidacy? Her claims to “experience” crumble at anything more than a cursory inquiry. The myth that she served as co-president is transparently bogus. Her time in the Senate has been either undistinguished or ignominious, depending on your viewpoint. And yet some Democrats consider her the safe, predictable choice. Why?
Hillary Clinton has but one rightful claim to the presidency–her last name. In this regard, she is much like another modern politician, one whom liberals tend to dislike with some passion. That politician is none other than George W. Bush.
When the younger Bush hit the national scene, the only thing that distinguished him from dozens of Republicans who were more qualified on paper for the presidency was his surname. And his surname made him the frontrunner. Bush brought nothing special to the party. Other than that magic name.
The same can be said of Hillary Clinton. If you research her position papers, you’ll find nothing noteworthy or unique. If she has any exceptional insights or creative policy ideas, she has yet to unveil them. She also lacks the political talents that distinguish her principal Democratic rivals. But she, too, has a magic surname.
On Thursday night, Iowans acknowledged the patent hollowness of Senator Clinton’s campaign by rebuking her with an embarrassing third-place finish. Nonetheless, the senator, like a true political warhorse, greeted the setback with a strange “victory” speech. It went on and on, and was filled with empty, awkwardly worded platitudes:
What is most important now is that, as we go on with this contest, that we keep focused on the two big issues, that we answer correctly the questions that each of us has posed. How will we win in November 2008? By nominating a candidate who will be able to go the distance and who will be the best president on Day One.
The emptiness of her campaign was never more apparent. As she delivered these meaningless comments, assorted relics from the 1990s hovered like ghostly apparitions. To her right stood a beaming but ashen Wes Clark. Madeleine Albright mourned immediately behind her. And to her left stood the former president. As the New York Times‘s Adam Nagourney aptly put it, President Clinton’s “face [was] frozen in a smile.” It was never more obvious that the House of Clinton’s hour had passed. Its current leader stood in defeat, quite literally eight years into her presidential campaign, and still had nothing to say that didn’t predate the current millennium.
Senator Clinton should ditch the claim that she somehow has special qualifications for the presidency. As frankness has always been something of a Clinton trademark, she should embrace the single distinguishing rationale for her candidacy–the illusory comfort that a dynasty provides.
And to signal this candid new tack, she should change her middle name from “Rodham” to “W.”
Dean Barnett is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
