The plan which I conceived, of reading the books ascribed to the major remaining presidential candidates (John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Rodham Clinton), may easily be considered foolish. It is not at all clear that anyone with any intellectual self-respect should read books like this. They seem to sell well enough (Clinton and Obama each received seven-figure sums for their books), but I have always had the impression that the readers’ profile for these press releases is among the mentally servile, bovine worshippers of those who fill the primate positions of leadership in our society. The readers would be the same as the ones who obsess over royal families; but lacking royal families, we have political parties and party leaders.
There is nothing in Living History, the Hillary Rodham Clinton memoir, to disabuse an intelligent reader of this estimate. There probably was very little intellectual effort put into its production; and the insights which can be drawn from reading it are about the same as the insights that can be drawn from observing other pop-culture phenomena. Reading it is not the communion of minds that we seek in literature. But it is an artifact of our culture, and though not a terribly attractive one, one can learn something about American politics, and about Hillary Clinton; if not the person, then at least the politician and projected public persona.
Of course, ascribing the book to Clinton is probably like taking at face value the literary claims of several of the White House pets. In the acknowledgements she acknowledges that Lissa Muscatine was “responsible for many of the words in my speeches as First Lady and in this book,” and there are so many other people given credit for work on the book that it has to be considered a committee production. Nor does it have the feel of a written book: it does not have the reflectiveness and precision of writing. Much of it is probably transcribed interview. And almost all of it stinks of Orwellian twentieth-century politics. There is a great deal of preaching and a lot of hot air.
That said, Hillary Clinton is considered intelligent by most estimates, and both the backdrop of her life and the characters on its stage are interesting. Within the confines of the book, she travels around most of the world and meets such people as Nelson Mandela, Tony Blair, George H.W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, and Benazir Bhutto, among many many others. The book does not have to be very well put-together to be at least somewhat interesting.
But one of the first things that is striking about the book is its utter lack of sophistication. People and places are described with the depth and insight of a tourist brochure. This is most striking when she describe people. They may as well be described as “walk-ons,” cameos to her life. Her is her account of Elie Wiesel, a person of some depth and with much potential for development:
intervene in Bosnia] was Elie Wiesel, who delivered an impassioned
speech about Bosnia at the museum dedication. Wiesel, a Nazi death
camp survivor and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, turned to Bill
and said: “Mr. President… I have been in the former Yugoslavia…. I
cannot sleep since what I have seen. As a Jew I am saying that. We
must do something to stop the bloodshed in that country.” I had read
Night, Wiesel’s chilling account of his experiences in Auschwitz and
Buchenwald, the death camps in Poland and Germany. I admired his
writing and dedication to human rights, and since that day, he and his
wife, Marion, have been friends. (169)
Aurogra ordering This is the template for the way Clinton treats famous people. She always mentions their most famous achievement, with which she is always familiar (she had read Night, though not any of his other books). Whenever there is a proper emotion, she adds an adjective to convey that she has the proper emotional response (“chilling”). She expresses her admiration for multiple qualities (writing, human rights), and in the end, they become her friends. The superficiality of the discourse is occasionally painful:
http://antihousewife.com/2010/12/what-is-kaizen?share=email I was looking forward to visiting Japan again. I had been there during
Bill’s governorship, and I remember standing outside the gates and
gazing at the beautiful Imperial Palace grounds. This time we would
attend a formal dinner on the inside, hosted by the Emperor and
Empress. Gentle, artistic, and intelligent, this engaging couple embody
the grace of their nation’s art as well as the serenity of the peaceful
gardens I finally visited while at the Palace. (175)
Hosni and Suzanne Mubarak are an impressive couple. (252)
That night we attended a performance at the famous Market Theatre,
where for years Athol Fugard and other playwrights had defied
government censors and depicted the agony of apartheid. (234)
I despise terrorism and the nihilism it represents. (522)
On the one hand, an apologist can claim that Clinton has to say such things. Is she going to call Mubarak a “bloodthirsty tyrant, addicted to power” and cause an international ruckus with an American ally? Of course not. So instead she uses the language of diplomacy – damning with faint praise. But there is more here than that, I think. Being the First Lady of the American nation is so multifaceted that she has to have interactions over a vast expanse of human experience – the vestiges of Japanese imperialism, an Egyptian strongman and his wife, South African apartheid, and global terrorism are but the slightest of beginnings. For an individual to cover such an expanse of territory requires either astonishing brilliance or a superhuman tolerance for superficial engagement. Clinton does not show the former.
I will inject one further reflection. There have been many examples of astonishing brilliance in human history, and in most instances, the brilliance has (ironically) been the result of a deep steeping in fundamentals: so a traveller like Charles Doughty, who spent two years Herodotus-like travelling through the deserts of Arabia, produced insight after insight into the Arab life because of his knowledge of basic things: geology and botany to understand the harsh human economy of Arabia; medicine to understand the effect of desert life on the men of Arabia; ancient and medieval history to understand the social structures of Arabia; and the Quran to understand the aspirations of poetry of the Arabs. This was the old British Imperial education, and we need look no further to see what made them great imperialists. But the number who receive such an education today is not great, and specialization has produced the superficiality we are accustomed to: economy without ecology, history without ancient history, sociology without religion. What is more, those old educated people, who might do excellently in positions of public symbolism such as First Lady, do not typically do well in electoral politics. This is perhaps the main thrust of the crisis of leadership to be found in all the great-power democracies.
There is an interesting moment in the book which particularly seemed to embody this problem. Clinton was hosting Chinese President Jiang Zemin when she decided to engage in the following conversation:
I had met with the Dalai Lama to discuss the Tibetans’ plight, and so
I asked President Jiang to explain China’s repression of the Tibetans and
their religion.
“What do you mean?” he said. “Tibet has historically been a part of
China. The Chinese are the liberators of the Tibetan people. I have read
the histories in our libraries, and I know the Tibetans are better off now
than they were before.”
“But what about their traditions and the right to practice their religion
as they choose?”
He became passionate, even banging the table once. “They were
victims of religion. They are now freed from feudalism.”
Despite a developing global culture, the same facts can be and often
are viewed through starkly different historical and cultural prisms and
the word “freedom” is defined to fit one’s political perspective. Still,
I didn’t think Jiang, who is quite sophisticated and had succeeded in
opening up and modernizing the Chinese economy, was being quite
straight with me on Tibet. The Chinese, for historical and psychological
reasons, were obsessed with avoiding internal disintegration. In the
case of Tibet, that led to overreaction and oppression, as obsessions
often do. (458)
I was struck by this passage because recent reading of my own in the topic of botany has exposed me to travel narratives of European plant collectors in the Himalayas, who are united in their pity for the people of Tibet and their horror at the savagery, ruthlessness, and barbarism of the rule of the Lamas. It was a different side of the story than the one you get from Richard Gere, but it was not a perspective produced for distribution by the Chinese government. It was ancillary to the books I was reading, but it was there. These “histories” which Jiang was reading probably reflect the same reality, and I have no doubt that Clinton had not read them. And this may be part of the reason why Clinton comes off as the weaker party here: less well-informed, less voluble, less passionate; to call her psychologizing of Jiang (and the entire Chinese nation!) smug is a vast understatement.
That smugness continues into the next paragraph, where almost instinctually Clinton launches into a defense of such encounters:
During our visit to China, Bill and I again raised our concerns about
Tibet and the general state of human rights in China. Predictably,
the Chinese leaders were adamant and dismissive. When I’m asked
why a U.S. President should visit any country with whom we have
such serious differences, my answer is always the same: America,
the most diverse nation in human history, now wields unparalleled
power. But we can be quite insular and uninformed about other
countries and their perspectives. Our leaders and our people benefit
from learning more about the world in which we live, compete, and
try to cooperate. (458)
But to me, she seemed to be an example of that insularity and uninformedness. What did she learn? She says that the Chinese acted “predictably” and she accuses Jiang of dishonesty. She does not seem to have in herself the capacity to understand others which she claims is the goal of such encounters. The Chinese were proud of “modernizing” Tibet and “liberating” it from a theocracy. Does this not align itself with the American agenda in the Middle East? Make no mistake – I am not a fan of Chinese imperialism. But it seems to me that there is material for philosophical reflection here. But this reflection simply is not found in Clinton.
Sophistication seems particularly lacking when it comes to political opponents. One can look in vain for a sympathetic portrait of a Republican. There is almost no intellectual confrontation – giving one’s opponents a voice, understanding their concerns, and then countering their ideas. Clinton admits that she had no respect for the Office of Independent Counsel whose investigations became the Impeachment Trial.
Although I worked on my testimony, which was simple and straight-
forward, I was more focused on how to control my anger at the whole
process. The grand jurors were performing their duties as citizens. They
deserved my respect, even if the lawyers working for Starr did not. (335)
They did not even deserve her respect? That is quite a statement. Of course she did not like what they were doing – but are they beneath respect? Or is this merely Clinton being “insular and uninformed” about other people’s “perspectives”? Indeed, on this point (the Starr investigations which led to President Clinton’s impeachment) Clinton shows an impressively partisan perspective: her side represents America, her opponents only something evil.
All but two of the twenty-three grand jurors were in attendance – ten
were women, and most were African American. They seemed entirely
representative of the district where they served. Each of Ken Starr’s
eight male deputies looked just like him. (335)
Perhaps they were, however, representative of another part of America, which also exists. Is there really a problem with either an entirely black set of lawyers or an entirely white set of lawyers? Are not both acceptable in this country?
When we learned that Bill had won the election by a solid eight
percentage points, I felt it was more than a victory for the President:
it was a vindication of the American people. (379)
Forty-four percent of the voters who voted for Clinton represent the American people; but what about the majority who wanted someone else, either Bob Dole or Ross Perot?
Not only does she deny her political opponents any voice or any dignity, but she often puts the conflict in exaggerated terms, often involving violence:
As I prepared to enter the grand jury room, I waved at my hard-working
lawyers and said, “Cheerio! Off to the firing squad!” (335)
It was a challenge to forgive Bill; the prospects of forgiving the hired
guns of the right wing seemed beyond me. If Mandela could forgive,
I would try. (480)
Mandela was imprisoned for twenty-seven years. His people had no political rights, and his political organization was violently suppressed. He forgives his captors – and Hillary Clinton is unable to forgive the Republicans for exploiting her husband’s personal weaknesses (and illegal lying to cover them up) to score political points against him? Perhaps this would be intelligible if Clinton herself was a person incapable of doing such a thing, and she is astonished by such perfidy in others. But there is no evidence of that: her discussion of Newt Gingrich in this account seems small-minded at least and unprincipled at best:
After a long discussion at our dinner table about NATO expansion,
Bosnia, and Iraq, Gingrich leaned in my direction. “These accusations
against your husband are ludicrous,” he said. “And I think it’s terribly
unfair the way some people are trying to make something out of it.
Even if it were true, it’s meaningless. It’s not going anywhere.” That
was what I had hoped to hear, but I was surprised. I later reported to Bill
and David Kendall that Gingrich seemed to believe that the allegations
against Bill were not serious. He completely changed his tune when he
led the Republican charge for Bill’s impeachment. For the moment,
though, I took this conversation as evidence that Gingrich was more
complicated and unpredictable than I had thought. (Months later, when
his own marital infidelities were exposed, I better understood why
Gingrich may have wanted to dismiss the issue.) (450)
Later she thanks a friend by name for her help, noting that she too “had had her own experience with the agony of infidelity.” Was that necessary?
I have a few other observations on the political style that Clinton uses. It should be very familiar to us by now, but I have not often heard it analyzed. The logic of many of the book’s sentences is pure politico-speak, a kind of illogical empathetic zeugma of platitudes: “Because one in eight women in our country is expected to develop breast cancer, early detection is essential” (292). We are all used to such sentences on the campaign trail. But on a page, you can see how the two clauses have no logical relationship with each other. The prevalence of a medical condition has no effect on the need for early detection: “Since one in eight women will develop dandruff, early detection is essential.” But in the end, you learn to read past the analytical reflex or simply stop reading.
There is also a strong pattern of prolepsis – adding words which prejudice or preclude the argument before it is even started. Describing her husband’s infidelities, she writes, “I believed he ought to be held accountable for his behavior – by me and by Chelsea – not by a misuse of the impeachment process” (474). “Not by the impeachment process” would have done just fine. To be held accountable by a misuse of anything would be – well, a misuse. The added words are there only to increase the moral temperature.
Another aspect of the political speak is the insertion of random bits of folksy wisdom, harvested from who knows where. I respect this when it is very apt and shrewd, and when you feel that the speaker is handing them down from his predecessors in an organic tradition. But Clinton’s use of such folk wisdom is utterly contrived:
It reminded me of an old saying from Sunday school: Faith is like stepping
off a cliff and expecting one of two outcomes – you will either land on
solid ground or you will be taught to fly. (494)
Is faith really like that? Is this a meaningful dichotomy? Does this saying really mean something to her? No, no, and probably no.
Probably the most lovingly described parts of the book, interestingly, are the trips abroad. Here Clinton appears to be actually excited; and the way we can tell this is that she actually notices details.
Word of my visit had spread through the villages of Gujarat, and
nearly one thousand women flocked to the meeting, some of them walking
nine or ten hours along hot, dusty paths through the countryside. Tears
filled my eyes when I saw them waiting for me under a large tent.
Fanning themselves in their sapphire-, emerald-, and ruby-colored saris,
they looked like an undulating human rainbow. They were Muslim and
Hindu, including untouchables, the lowest Hindu caste. There were kite
makers, scrap pickers and vegetable vendors, and Chelsea sat down
among them. (280)
She also records that women in this area were having some success overcoming the domineering influence of their mothers-in-law, which I found interesting. (The almost Biblical language with Chelsea is probably just inadvertent, the kind of thing that happens when a set of interviews is written up by a bunch of hacks.)
You may say what you wish about the fact that this is the kind of setting where Hillary seemed most comfortable: as an American First Lady travelling through the Third World, she was royalty and was treated that way. She seems to have enjoyed this role. But on the other hand, she seems to find their Third World problems more immediate and more morally clear than those she encountered in America – as, no doubt, they are – and she seems to take genuine intellectual and emotional interest in them. One of the themes of these travels is that women should have their own voice and not be silent in their societies:
I wasn’t the only one moved by the village women. One of the American
journalists who stood near me, listening to our discussion, leaned in and
whispered, “Silence is not spoken here.” (286)
There are also some personal qualities that come through in the book. I was very struck by her relationship with Chelsea, which to me seemed bizarrely clutchy and almost oppressive.
By mid-September, the occasion I had dreaded for years finally arrived:
Chelsea was moving to California to start her freshman year at Stanford. (419)
I will close with one final tidbit that struck me. During the Lewinsky scandal, she notes, “my own approval rating was nearing an all-time high and would eventually peak somewhere around 70 percent, proving that the American people are fundamentally fair and sympathetic.” I’m not certain it proves that, but it does prove that Mrs. Clinton kept track of such statistics and that this one made it into her psyche somehow. It serves as an emblem of the superficiality of the politics and “living history” Clinton represents – the digital superficiality of the approve/disapprove dichotomy, and the curious fact that there could be a person who would not only track these things, but somehow take a perverse joy in them, and set them down in her memoir as a kind of personal vindication. When our era becomes merely history and no longer alive, I have no doubt that historians will talk about overcoming this kind of politics and this kind of person as one of the great challenges of our era – and to the results of this confrontation they will trace either our subsequent success or eventual failure.
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