December 1, 2008--The Ladies of Forest Trace: This Time One-for-One

“So,” my mother asked, “what do you think about my Hillary?”

“Your Hillary?” I couldn't restrain myself from responding. “I thought you had been an Obama supporter from the beginning even while the other ladies were for Hillary Clinton.”

“That was then but this is now.”

“And didn’t you get a lot of grief from them because you resisted voting for her? The first woman with a realistic chance of being nominated?”

“Also true, but that too is in the past. Now all the girls are happy. Obama is going to be a wonderful president and, in a few hours, he will be naming her to be his Secretary of State.”

My mother, who turned 100 last June, lives in Forest Trace, a retirement community in south Florida and worked hard, against the political tide there among the octogenarians and nonagenarians, to eventually convince most of “the girls” to come around and take a chance on Barack Obama.

During our daily calls last week she reported how pleased they all were to see their stocks rising after Obama named his economic team. “What’s wrong with a little gray hair,” she had said when I complained a bit about how a team that included Paul Volker could bring about the kind of change he had promised during the campaign. “You didn’t like what he did for the economy back in the 1980s and 90s? And did you hear what Barack said at the press conference when that reporter asked him the same question?” I had. “That he, Barack Obama, will be the one to be sure there is change. How did he put it? ‘That’s my job,’ I think he said. That’s what I like in a president. Someone who knows what his job is.”

“And you feel the same way now about Hillary?” I wondered out loud. “I’m not so sure I like this Team of Rivals business. Not when it comes her. And then there’s Bill. You think having the two of them running our foreign policy is such a good thing?”

“First of all you’re not listening to what I’m saying. Like last week he will make it very clear that he’s in charge. Barack of course I mean. Of foreign policy. That he will make the policy and she will take the lead in carrying it out. What’s so wrong with that? You don’t thinks he’s the most qualified to do that? Less so than that wimp John Kerry (who by the way has his own pretty big ego) or that nice but ineffective Richardson?”

“I agree she’d would probably make a good diplomat, but I’m concerned that she and Bill are still so ambitious that they will appoint all their own people to the top State Department jobs and run from there a version of their own government in exile.”

“This is not Charles de Gaulle during the Second World War; but in case Bill and Hillary had any inclination to do that, as soon as the people noticed that don’t you think that this would doom any thoughts they have about her ever again running for president? Americans hate disloyalty. We would see it for what it is—putting their interests ahead of the country’s. Some people are worried that Hillary is so powerful that if he wanted to Obama could never fire her; but if she and Bill acted to undermine him, the voters would clamor for him to get rid of them.

“Now he’s much more popular than either Bill or Hillary. So I don’t worry at all about any shenanigans. And you know what kind of worrier I am. Even about how cold it is now in New York and if when you go out you’re wearing a warm scarf.” She chuckled at that admission, which I knew was literally true.

“OK, you’ve got me half convinced not to worry about the Clintons running their own foreign policy. But what about Bill?”

“What’s to worry about?”

“You know, this two-for-one business. How if you appoint her he comes along in the deal. If you’re not concerned about her pursuing her own agenda what about him? Do you think he can be contained?”

“About this I know a great deal.”

“Just what is this ‘this’ you’re referring to? You’re losing me with that.”

“About husbands and wives. About that I’m an expert.”

“But they have never been your typical husband and wife. Look at what he did to her and what she had to . . .”

“I’ve seen that and worse. You don’t get to be 100 and not have seen everything.”

“But on such a large stage? And so much in public?”

“It doesn’t make that much difference where it happens. If it hurts it hurts. Though I will agree for what happened to Hillary to have been on TV day and night—including the jokes—made it worse. But still, what she went through is familiar to me. Not from personal experience of course I know you know. Though dad was at times difficult to live with he never strayed or did anything like that to me. But from the women I have know I could tell you stories.”

I must admit I hoped one day she would. But politics not gossip was on her mind. “So here’s how I think this will work. Obama will this morning appoint her, or nominate her or whatever. She will surprise you by how good a team player she will be. Let’s admit it, the Senate, especially being a junior senator, is too small a stage for her. And though there have been two other women before her who were Secretary of State, neither of them accomplished very much. Now, ironically with her rival as president, there is a chance that big things can be accomplished around the world. What would happen if she could take the lead in making a deal in the Middle East? I’ll bet she could even win a Nobel Prize. Like Al Gore’s.” Again I could hear my mother chuckling at that thought.

“And if Bill gets frisky, and I don’t mean like the way he did with that woman, Monica Lewinsky (I assume that after all his operations he’s by now a capon), if he tries to horn in on her job I feel certain she’ll send him right to the doghouse.”

“But won’t she inevitably ask his advice, especially about the Middle East where during his last months in office he almost brokered a deal?”

“Of course. Anyone would be stupid not to do that. Who knows more about Israel and Palestine than Bill Clinton? Of course she’ll get his suggestions. But if you are worried about a team of Clinton rivals trying to take over (and here I mean a Bill and Hillary team) you don’t understand the meaning of her life.”

“It’s true, Mom, I’m not really following your thinking.”

“Let’s go back to their days in Arkansas.”

“Mom, I have an appointment and don’t have time right now to talk about all of that.”

“It will only take a minute so hold your horses.” I sat down. “When she was first lady there, that’s what she was—first lady. She was the governor’s wife; and even the big job she had in that law firm, what was it called?”

“Rose,” I interjected.”

“Yes, thank you, Rose. My memory is beginning to fail. Don’t you think it helped for her to be married to the governor of the state? You don’t have to answer. I’m being rhetorical. Let’s put it this way--it didn’t hurt. And then of course she was first lady again when he became president, and everything she was able to do during those eight years was because she was his wife. And when they left Washington she got elected senator from New York. Do you think that as a carpetbagger she could have gotten elected if she wasn’t Mrs. Clinton? I’m not saying she wasn’t a strong candidate on her own, but money couldn’t buy the name recognition she had when she moved to New York.”

I couldn’t disagree with much of that. “And if she hadn’t become senator and been famous from all those years of being a Clinton—you do remember how at one point she went back to her maiden name, Rodham, but quickly gave that up because she didn’t want to lose the power of having Clinton as her last name. You do remember that? If she hadn’t been Senator Clinton, if she had, for instance, been Senator Dodd, do you think she would have almost won the nomination? It certainly helped her to raise money. She did of course turn out to be a very effective campaigner and almost won, but again it didn’t hurt to be associated with Bill.

“But now, now, for really the first time she is accomplishing something fully on her own. Obama is choosing her not because of her husband—in fact being married to him may have been the biggest impediment to her being selected—but because he feels she is the best person for the job.

“Don’t believe what you’ve been seeing in the papers about how she was reluctant to give up her senate seat. I can tell you, among other things as a woman coming from the kind of marriage she has had, as soon as she heard Obama was interested in her her heart started to beat fast because she wanted that job.

“And I predict she will be great at it. And will be loyal to the president. That’s the only way she can succeed; and more than anything else, she wants to accomplish something very big, very significant. Let’s remember, up until now she hasn’t really accomplished very much.”

That too I understood and agreed with.

“So this time there will be no two-for-one. Obama’s getting just Hillary.”

She paused for a moment to allow me to absorb all of this. “And one more thing,” she added, “if you want to be Machiavellian—and I’m capable of that—what better way for Obama to muzzle Bill Clinton than to have Hillary in his cabinet? With Hillary there if Bill decides to snipe at Obama from the sidelines, who better than Hillary, and don’t forget Chelsea, to get him to shut up?”

About that I also couldn’t disagree.

“Minimally,” I said, “it will be interesting.”

“That’s important to,” my mother said as she rang off to get back to CNN.