A Briton Looks At Queen Hillary
Geoffrey Wheatcroft, a British writer, looks at the sudden media coronation of Hillary Clinton and asks a simple question: why? His rather jaundiced view of America and American politics provides a glimpse into how Hillary is perceived by some Europeans. It isn't a flattering take.
What a contrast Hillary Clinton presents! Everyone recognizes the nepotism or favoritism she has enjoyed: New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has written that without her marriage, Clinton might be a candidate for president of Vassar, but not of the United States. And yet the truly astonishing nature of her career still doesn't seem to have impinged on Americans.
Seven years ago, she turned up in New York, a state with which she had a somewhat tenuous connection, expecting to be made senator by acclamation (particularly once Rudy Giuliani decided not to run against her). Until that point, she had never won or even sought any elective office, not in the House or in a state legislature. Nor had she held any executive-branch position. The only political task with which she had ever been entrusted was her husband's health-care reforms, and she made a complete hash of that.
No doubt she has been a diligent senator, even if the cutting words of the New Republic's Leon Wieseltier about "the most plodding and expedient politician in America" ring painfully true, and no doubt her main Democratic rivals have only quite modest experience themselves: Obama's stint in the Illinois state legislature before entering the U.S. Senate in 2005, John Edwards's one term in the Senate. But both men are unquestionably self-made, and no one can say that they are where they are because of any kin or spouse.
Predictably enough, Sen. Clinton's husband has tried to defend her with his quicksilver tongue, speaking recently on BBC Radio here, where he's plugging his new book, and on television back home. Dynasties mean the kings of France, Bill Clinton told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press," whereas Hillary has had "a totally different career path" from his, "from a different political base" to a different "set of expertise areas."
To people like Wheatcroft, looking in at America from a European perspective, this is an extraordinary turn of events. Most other democracies shun dynastic successors. Wheatcroft is not exactly unbiased, mind you. He's written quite a few articles that are less than glowing in their description of things American. (He was labeled an "annoying Tory prat" by William Sjostrom – heh. Read the comments, too. They paint an interesting picture of the writer.) But it does give a view most Americans seem to miss looking at the presidential horseraces this year. There's a value to that.
