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In the fawning, even drooling profile of Hillary Clinton
that just appeared in New York Magazine the presumptive presidential candidate
announces that she and husband Bill do a lot of hanging out together. They do
normal everyday things, just like any other couple.
Naturally, we all believe it.
All of us except Mickey Kaus.
Kaus quotes the description of what happened when Bill and
Hillary were both in Bogota:
Though
they spoke frequently by phone, Bill and Hillary were rarely in the same
country. By chance, their paths crossed in Bogotá, where they had dinner
together—then, owing to their massive entourages, returned to their respective hotels
.
“Love conquers all except logistics,” says an aide.
.
“Love conquers all except logistics,” says an aide.
Kaus comments:
I buy that explanation, don’t you? Logistics over love! Good to see New York’s journalists strip away the veneer of BS and get to the truth of the matter. …
You do need to ask yourself why the Clintons continue to
pretend to be just another normal married couple. Are they so cynical that they take the American people to be perfect dupes?
If so, they may be right.
At the least, we now know how they have managed to stay
married through all of the turmoil.
The secret to the Clinton’s marriage is: separate hotels.
5 comments:
What are you being so sarcastic about? According to your own logic, the Clintons have a great, if not a perfect marriage.
After all, according to you, marriage is not really about love, or affection, or even sleeping together (except for reproducing, of course).
According to you, marriage is a mere social arrangement uniting families and securing a social position for offspring.
By that definition and Chelsea's admirable success in life, the Clintons and their empires have done quite well in their "social contract" marriage. It's a virtual advertisement for your own ideal.
Hillary may be a lesbian, Bill may have affairs, but so what? You have encouraged adultery on this site routinely as normal ("People routinely go OUTSIDE marriage for love and sex" is a big argument of yours against gay marriage). You continually heap scorn on "love" as the basis for marriage--er, um, until now, when you can use it to try and score points, showing you have no integrity whatsoever.
They've completed their primary function (according to you) and reproduced successfully, and built large, thriving, united families and socially powerful familiy trees, so what exactly is the problem with the Clinton marriage?
Nice family. Medici, or Borgia?
Well, with the media on their side, truth is concealed, deflected, camouflaged,...well, when it's not completely omitted.
Thanks, Anon for offering us all a good lesson in how not to think.
First, the post was about the way the Clintons were presenting their marriage to the public. They never admitted that it was something of a political arrangement, but have always presented it as a loving marriage. By all appearances that's dishonest.
Second, neither I nor anyone else cares what the Clintons do in their private life. When they present their marriage in a certain way in order to cover up certain unsavory behaviors and to advance their political careers, it's everyone's business.
Third, it should not be a radical position, but marriage has always been an alliance between families for the purpose of uniting communities and continuing their existence. The largest numbers of marriages in the course of history have been arranged. Under the circumstances, people have often sought love and romance outside of their marriages.
As it happened, Anglo-American cultures introduced the notion of love marriage somewhere around the seventeenth century. This changed the institution in one and only one sense: it allowed women a free choice of a husband. This meant that the young couple was going to be accorded the right to develop their relationship and take full personal responsibility for their decisions. This does not mean that marriage was no longer an alliance between families. It did not mean that family members had no say in the matter. It meant that young marrieds had more of a say and more freedom to choose. It did not mean that marriage was just another way of expressing love.
Hillary says they "do a lot of hanging out together. They do normal everyday things, just like any other couple."
When I hear this, I think they go to the store or watch TV or get ice cream together. When you hear this you interpret it immediately as sexual, and think it's some comment on their sex lives.
All Hillary says here is that she and Bill are normal and do normal things.
This is not dishonest.
According to you, it is the "norm" for couple to marry for social convenience, and to look for "love and affection" elsewhere. That is your definition of traditional, standard marriage that has been around forever.
In that sense, the Clintons ARE totally normal.
the Clintons exemplify your idea of a normal marriage, but it bothers you that they pretend to be in love and desire each other (as you read her comments).
Again, this is normal, since that is what all couples do. If marriage is merely a social convenience, everyone in the world, excapt people in India apparently, still claims it is based on love. NO ONE "admits" the political alliance. EVERYONE, like the Clintons, holds up a pretense of unique love and affection from spouse to spouse.
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