The XX Factor: What women really think.

The Mellowing of William Jefferson Clinton, America's Court Jester

Critics of Sotomayor Aren't Guilty of Racism or Sexism. They're Guilty of Ageism!

Hillary on Drugs

Clinton/Lewinsky Scandal To Become HBO Movie

Just when you thought it was safe to channel surf, it turns out HBO is making a movie out of the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal of yesteryear. The title? The Special Relationship. Special, indeed. The casting is just plain odd. Dennis Quaid is Wild Bill. Hillary Clinton? Julianne Moore. Apparently, the film focuses less on Slick Willy's hijinks and more on the president's relationship with Tony Blair (played by Michael Sheen), which devolved purportedly due to the sex scandal. Peter Morgan, who scored with Frost/Nixon, wrote the screenplay and is set to direct. Supposedly, Quaid beat out some actual A-listers for the role—Russell Crowe, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins. I wonder if he truly eclipsed them or if the actors were steered away from taking the part of a man tasked with running the country who couldn't keep his hands off the help. Who'll play Lewinsky? Mia Kirshner? Megan Fox? Jessica Simpson? Nope. "Morgan has decided to use only archive footage of her culled from TV news bulletins and video of her closed-door testimony to Congress." Well, maybe the real Lewinsky will sell a few handbags out of it.

Hillary's Gestural M.O.

Hanna, what did you make of Anne Applebaum's take on Hillary's so-practical-it's-just-short-of-cynical diplomatic style in today's Washington Post? It was kind of a grudging shout-out, too, although I thought Applebaum didn't give Hillary quite enough credit. Amnesty International, I understand, was "disappointed" that Clinton failed to adequately whine about human rights abuses to the Chinese government, but I really liked that she replaced the ritualized righteous complaints with simple frank talk. Applebaum did praise Hillary, though, for comprehending the power of gesture over words:. "In China, a country where religious believers are harassed, all prominent visiting Americans should make a point of going to church—as Clinton did," she wrote, suggesting another potentially galvanizing gesture Hillary could make: "In Russia, a country that is ambivalent about its repressive past, all prominent visiting Americans should make a point of visiting a memorial to the victims of Stalin." 

Hillary's church visit apparently hit a real nerve in China. I like this fledgling model for a secretary-of-state-ship, one that emphasizes gestural actions over endless diplomatic gabfests. And I like it all the more for the way it gently flips the gender stereotype that all women like to do is talk.

Hillary Kissinger

A little shout-out for our new secretary of state, who, this past week, has been carving out her own brand of so-practical-it's-just-short-of-cynical diplomacy in China and elsewhere. Clinton was criticized for not publicly sticking it to Chinese leaders, like her husband did when he declared they were on the "wrong side of history." But what she's doing is much more interesting, and potentially effective. Clinton is giving up on the grandstanding because she knows it doesn't work. She didn't lecture Chinese leaders about human rights because "we pretty much know what they're going to say," Clinton said (candidly), causing all manner of diplomat to spill his scotch and soda in alarm. Chinese leaders have never responded to public scolding, so it's no use trying again. What she did instead is meet with a group of women involved in grass-roots and mildly subversive activism. This is strategic scolding of the kind Chinese leaders are sure to notice. And it gives a boost to the people who can actually make something happen in China. Clinton also spoke freely about Burma and North Korea in a way American diplomats never do. This is exactly why Obama chose her. She is the muscle behind his "negotiate with anyone" strategy. Sure, we'll negotiate, but only if it will work.

Maternity, Solidarity, Hillary and Chelsea

We welcome this guest post from Yasmine Ergas, who teaches international law at the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University and is the associate director of the Center for the Study of Human Rights.

Earlier this year, French minister of justice, Rachida Dati, created shock waves, not so much by giving birth out of wedlock and refusing to divulge the name of the father, but by going back to work after only five short days. Last spring, the Spanish minister of defense, Carme Chacon, proudly reviewed the troops, pregnant belly first. And on Jan. 13, Hillary Clinton appeared at her confirmation hearing with Chelsea at her side. Are these women, Hillary in particular, heralding a new way of politics by bringing female solidarity, maternity, and womanly ways of being into the traditionally male—and adamantly masculine—enclosures of government? 

Sometime in the middle of her campaign, after Bill had made one too many offensive remarks, Hillary changed strategy: Bill was relegated to the background. The iconic Clinton family had never done much for her candidacy anyway. Those pictures a' trois on the campaign trail served as a perpetual reminder of unsavory domestic relations rather than as a net positive. It was smart of Hillary to let Bill go silently into his foundation's night. 

In place of the threesome came Hillary and Chelsea. A grown woman with her grown daughter. Sure, it was a unit made of shared ambitions and intense grooming. But it was also a unit made of similarity and difference, of experience and apprenticeship, of a solidarity that runs both ways. Standing next to each other on a podium, working the crowds together, they seemed to acknowledge that there was a reason why it was just the two of them up there, and that reason might not have been of their own making. Surely, neither Hillary nor Chelsea had invited Gennifer Flowers, or Monica Lewinsky, or any of their ilk, into their household. Of course, mobilizing Chelsea wasn't just circumstantial, it was also clever politics. It brought some youth appeal (not much, to be honest) to counter Obama's messianic status among the young. It dispelled the idea that Bill would be the real president. Even more, having her child around feminized Hilary. It promised to transform the incipient dragon lady—the "monster" that Samantha Power had invoked—into a mother figure.

And that transformation emphasized the idea that the relationship between mother and child can stand on its own terms, that what can be passed from mother to daughter includes knowledge about how to be out there in the world, that a woman with children is not a woman alone. So it is actually Hillary and Chelsea who are iconic. They represent all those women who, in fact or in fantasy, have brought up their daughters to be participants in the world.

Merit Badges

Clinton's Senate Replacement: Boobs Like Hillary, Views Like John Breaux

OK, so, at first blush, Kirsten Gillibrand—the replacement for Hillary in the Senate, announced today—looks like the ideal solution to all of New York Gov. David Paterson's problems. Like Caroline Kennedy, she's a woman. Like the big names in the replacement race, she's a talented buck-raker (as of this summer, she was crowned the "top fundraiser" among the 42 Democrats in the House class of '06). But unlike Kennedy or Cuomo, she isn't saddled with all that dynastic baggage. Perfect!

But she's also got politics. (Amid all the oohing and aahing over a lady politician's ascent, we sometimes forget that these political girl wonders have views along with their unusual anatomy.) And her politics are quite different from those of the other contenders. She's definitely the most conservative pick out of the possible replacements the Albany Times-Union handicapped. How conservative? Well, this fall she called her voting record "one of the most conservative in the state," and while I was skeptical when I first read that—including Republicans?—it's not too much of an exaggeration, especially now that the antediluvian Vito Fossella has been booted from office. 

Among the mavericky votes Gillibrand has racked up: a vote in favor of giving immunity to the telecom companies that helped Bush spy on U.S. citizens; votes against both Pelosi-supported TARP bailout bills; a vote for the May 2007 war funding bill, which lacked a troop-withdrawal deadline, the liberal mania of the moment (no other New York Democrat voted in favor); and a vote for this fall's proposal to roll back the District of Columbia's prohibition on semiautomatic guns. (In general, the National Rifle Association is a huge Gillibrand fan, making the extremely rare move of endorsing her over her Republican opponent this year.)

I have no way of knowing whether Gillibrand is conservative at heart or whether she's simply fastidiously cautious about reflecting her district, which—until November—was the most Republican slice of New York represented by a Democrat. But her elevation represents another triumph for the Blue Dog-style, Rahm Emanuel-style philosophy of expanding Democratic power: make economic crusaders (TARP vote: check) with strong veins of conservatism running through their politics (gun love: check) the new faces of the Democratic Party. (The photo at the top shows Gillibrand next to Pennsylvania's Chris Carney, a top poster boy for the fashionable red-tinged brand of Democrat.)

Well. We'll see what Gillibrand sounds like when Chuck Schumer is done with her.

Caroline Kennedy Drops Out of the Race

Noreen is having technical difficulties, so I'm posting her thoughts on Caroline Kennedy dropping out of contention for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat:

So Caroline Kennedy is withdrawing her name from consideration for the Senate, reportedly to spend more time with her ailing Uncle Teddy. Whether that’s the full story or a rather a graceful cover-up for what would have been an embarrassing PR fiasco if she hadn’t been picked, I think this could be an opportunity for her in the long run. I was among those who felt Kennedy was getting an easy, entitled pass without showing how much she wanted the seat or why. But if she picks herself up and runs for the open seat in 2010 (with real voters and everything!), she’ll get a chance to prove me wrong and maybe even grab my vote.

Collegiality: Senate Style

Hillary and Bill

If This Is Dynasty, I'm Joan Collins

Poor Caroline Kennedy: After eight years that made Bush I look way less embarrassing than he used to, we've had enough of political dynasties, thanks. It's unfair, though, to blame her for representing the old way and old guard when the true knock against her is that she hasn't been old school enough, and failed to fork over the kind of campaign cash to state and local Democrats that anyone plotting a political future knows is part of the cost of doing business.

In the end, New York Gov. David Paterson will fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat with just one consideration in mind: He'll choose the person who he thinks will best secure his own political future. But if that's not Caroline Kennedy, then all the hand-wringing about her unfair familial advantage will have been wildly off-the-mark. The open criticism of her by any number of New York Democrats has already made clear that party people aren't exactly quaking in fear of offending her family; the oligarchy ain't what it used to be. And that this is the reaction at a time when Ted Kennedy is fighting brain cancer makes me think that maybe the "dynasty" has died out already, without an heir.

Get Rid of the "First Lady"

Over on the Post's op-ed page today, Lauren Stiller Rikleen laments our confused conceptions of the first lady—"the lack of clear definition of their role has resulted in first ladies facing a web of conflicting expectations," she writes—and then goes on to suggest that, to improve the situation, we saddle first ladyhood with ... a concrete job description.

Huh? This seems totally backward to me. Wouldn't it be nicer to limit the first lady's "expectations," so each occupant could make of it what she (or, someday, he) wishes? Wouldn't a rigid job description either to strain a low-key presidential partner like Laura Bush, who doesn't want to get involved in policy, or provide ammo for the critics of more wonkish partners like Hillary Clinton ("so sorry, my dear, but managing health care reform isn't in the job description")? And isn't it likely that the only duties a job-description-drafting panel could agree to enshrine in the first place are the noncontroversial (and therefore old-fashioned) ones, like picking out Christmas ornaments for the White House tree?

And why do we so often imagine that the complications that emerge when we update female roles (like motherhood) can be solved by shoehorning these roles into the contours of a traditional "job"?

If I were queen for a day, I'd go the other direction: Instead of adding a job description to the first lady's burdens, I'd take away the title all together. The word lady in pop culture suggests all kinds of negative things: the fettered, prim reserve of a woman who isn't too forward in her ambitions ("A lady doesn't wander all over the room ..."), snobbish arrogance (Lady Catherine de Bourgh), even pure evil in feminine form (Lady Macbeth). We hardly use titles in modern life anymore, anyway. How about just "Mrs. Obama" for now?

Sexism and ... Genderism?

Emily, totally fair point about the Iseman and Hunter stories—they were examples of other kinds of basic journalistic malfeasance. And Politico didn't point out that a number of its top press screw-ups were sexism. But neither did it really "mount a broader critique" of the media's coverage of, in particular, Hillary. All the blunders Politico named that related to Hillary (there were three) had to do with Team Hillary or the candidate's supporters crying foul on sexism in the press.

Which is a little funny, because I always thought the media's coverage of Sarah Palin was more sex-based than its coverage of Hillary. (I don't mean "sexist," exactly, but perpetually tinged—positively or negatively—by its consciousness of her sex. What's the word for this? It's like the difference between racism and racialism, but is there a word?) The condescending pats on the head from conservatives when the li'l gal did good, the sniggers at her Miss South Carolina-esque ditziness when she did bad, the titanic obsession with her wardrobe (Sen. Norm Coleman didn't get so much heat when somebody bought him fancy suits from the same Minneapolis Neiman Marcus) ... Of course, the McCain campaign invited all this by cynically selecting Palin over other reformers for her anatomical features in the first place.

Political Nepotism

Emily Y., Emily B., and Melinda, you all make very important and good points about Caroline Kennedy's possible anointment/appointment to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. The level of nepotism in Congress is unseemly and does send a negative message to those young people—heck, to adults, too—who are not from rich or famous families and are not politically connected, that they should not even consider going into politics because they have little chance of breaching that increasingly elite wall that separates members of Congress from Average Joe peasants. But I beg to differ a bit with Emily B, who liked the idea of a woman taking over Clinton's seat but wondered if it was right to "overlook Kennedy's lack of most of the usual qualifications, like holding public office?"

Kennedy would not be the first member of Congress to lack that particular qualification. Hillary Clinton had not held public office before becoming a senator either. Even though during the presidential primaries she counted her time as first lady of Arkansas and of the United States as political experience, no one actually elected her to those positions. Using Clinton's logic, if her stints as first lady are to be considered as political experience, then why shouldn't Caroline's membership in a political dynasty be counted, too? After all, she did live for a time in the White House, albeit as a little girl. Other political wives have been similarly appointed to Congress (to fill the seats of their dead spouses) and then went on to win, or lose, re-election. (U.S. Rep. Mary Bono, widow of Sony Bono, and former Sen. Jean Carnahan, wife of the late Sen. Mel Carnahan, come to mind.) Wouldn't it be nice, though, if more members of Congress were like U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy and got there by dint of their own hard work?

How Blago Is Hurting Caroline

All the talk about Blago's fundraising in Illinois makes it harder to hear the talk about Caroline Kennedy's potential fundraising in New York, don't you think?

I mean, rationally, one has nothing to do with the other. On the contrary, the country's most entrepreneurial governor (we hope)—and Kennedy are from such different parts of the jungle that Blagojevich's apparent thuggishness is something of an argument for her candidacy: Her granddaddy was a bootlegger, so his descendants didn't have to be, and she isn't likely to be tempted by the kind of pay-to-play schemes that seem to have so consumed Blago's brain that I'll be amazed if he doesn't wind up pleading insanity.

Still, you hear that story about how Jesse Jackson Jr.'s wife may have been passed over for a big state job because she wouldn't be held up for $25,000 by her extortionist of a governor, and that can't help but effect how you hear Harry Reid's comment about all the lovely pots of money that Caroline K. could raise for herself and other Democrats: Ugh, right? As Emily B. points out, that should not be the yardstick we use to take the measure of a candidate.

Whether we talk about it or not, though, the ability to raise pots of cash is, in fact, a huge part of the job. So much so that my distinct impression back when I used to cover the New York congressional delegation was that they had very little time to learn about public policy—through no fault of their own—because they had to spend so much time dialing for dollars and attending fundraisers. As a result, I don't assume that her potential competitors who've been serving in the House are necessarily so much more steeped in policy than she is. And while I agree with Emily Y. that nepotism is demoralizing for those of us who are have-nots when it comes to family or other connections, our current system virtually guarantees political dynasties and other celebrity candidates, like Reagan and Arnold and Al Franken, maybe even as a protection against Blago-style graft. As long as name ID equals campaign cash and the candidate who raises the most so often wins, how could it be otherwise?

I also take issue with Emily B's feeling that New York Democrats don't have to worry too much about campaign cash anyway, because they'll surely hold on to Hillary's Senate seat in 2012. The likely Republican candidate, Peter King, is so reasonable, likeable, and well-funded that I'm not at all certain of that; he's no Rick Lazio and should not be underestimated.

Mostly, though, I like Caroline for the job for reasons that have nothing to do with money: Because her Uncle Teddy has done such an admirable job on so many issues that are high on my own list—health care, anti-poverty programs, pushing for worker protections—I can't help hoping that his favorite niece has learned from him and could take up where he leaves off. She's a plain old-fashioned great story. And for perhaps silly, sentimental, even tribal reasons, I'd like to see her happy.

Yes, Caroline

Have to say, Emily, that your case against Caroline Kennedy for Hillary's Senate seat is a lot more convincing than Richard Bradley's argument that she'd been too tough on him but might not be tough enough to campaign or legislate. (Huh?) And when she heard that Gary Ackerman had compared her to J.Lo., I hope she laughed her tushy off. (Cee K from the Block for Senate? Isn't that a lot like John McCain comparing Obama to Paris Hilton?) Still, I find the whole idea of her second act in Obama's Democratic Party completely irresistible.

She's already come a long way since she stood by her Uncle Teddy at American University last year and endorsed Obama; in retrospect, that seems to have been a turning point both in the campaign and in her life, just a beat ahead of her uncle's cancer diagnosis and her discovery that she not only wanted to pass the baton, but run with it. I find it moving that it took Obama to call her to public service, and think it would be awfully compelling to watch her function as both keeper of the flame and confidante of the change-agent-in-chief. As someone who never wanted to get in the game before, she could be a bridge between the old guard and the new politics.

It is true that suffering and experience are not the same thing—though they were confused often enough during all those arguments about why Hillary ought to get this or that job simply by virtue of all she'd been through. But for me, the question isn't so much whether Kennedy "deserves" the seat. (If politics were about deserves, Nita Lowey would be in her second term as New York's junior senator, and we wouldn't even be having this conversation.) The more important question is whether she'd be any good at it, and I'd have to vote yes on that—then watch with intense interest to see if she proved me right.

Not Caroline

So, Caroline Kennedy has apparently decided she would like her Uncle Robert's Senate seat  (about to evacuated by Hillary Clinton). One of the refreshing things about Caroline supporting the presidential race of Barack Obama over Clinton was that it signaled a rejection of dynastic politics. Yes, that was ironic coming from the Kennedys, but, fool that I am, I thought it meant that they, somehow, were recognizing the end of their own dynastic ambitions. Shortly afterward Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer, and I read that said upon his death, he wanted his wife, Victoria, to get his seat. And now Caroline Kennedy, who has famously led a very private life, has deigned to allow that she will accept an appointment to the Senate. This depresses me. One wonderful thing about Obama's election is that is says in America if you have the drive, the smarts, the will you can come from nowhere and get to the top. The appointment of Caroline Kennedy just says what we all know—if you want to get to the top, the trip is a lot easier and shorter if you're born there.

Goodbye, Bill, and Hello, Sailor