Here’s how President Bill & Hillary Clinton’s speaking tour will go down: Democrats with money and power will purchase lots of tickets then give them to various employees and others who will then pass the tickets off to family and anybody before stashing them in coat pockets and desk drawers to be forgotten. But the Clintons will get paid regardless.
If they were divorced, the Clintons’ speaking tour would be much more interesting. Instead, it’ll be the same ol’ stories by the same ol’ couple that America has gotten to know all too well. What could this former ‘power couple’ possibly share with the American people that might uplift our spirits, especially the Democrats let down by Hillary’s inability to win the presidency when her contender was Donald Trump? Remember how everyone in the world was surprised she did not win and he became President of the United States?
After losing the election, Hillary remained reclusive to pout and sulk. But during that time, America changed. For one, there’s the Me Too movement. Many still think President Clinton is or was a rapist, not just a playboy and skirt-chasing cad. All agree, including ol’ Bill himself, that he’s been a sex addict, a perpetual womanizer, a dirty dog. A lot of women never forgave Hillary for not divorcing her husband when the Monica Lewinsky affair went public, which would lead to President Clinton’s impeachment. During the most public crisis of their marriage, Hillary stood by her man—and as she’s tried to explain to us, too, stood by her president. She’s one helluva woman … or wants us to believe that about her.
Haven’t the Clintons lived in separate houses in different towns and different states? Maybe that’s the secret to their long enduring marriage! But make no mistake, what they want to tell us will be totally scripted and nothing candid so that we and history might get a little insight into the way they really are as husband and wife. That’s what we care about more than their politics. And the Clintons can talk politics till the cows come home.
Yesterday …
Before Hillary ran for president in 2008 and again in 2016, she was voted one of the Most Admired Women in the World every year, always landing in the top spots right up there with Beyonce. That’s saying a lot especially with the young women of the world who voted in that poll. Hillary was respected more internationally than nationally.
Maybe the Clintons, the most recognized elders of the Baby Boomers, think they can reignite the idealism that marked their generation. Then again, a lot of Democrats voted for Trump, thinking “Anyone but Hillary.” And a lot of Republicans voted for Hillary, thinking “Anyone but Trump.” To many Americans, the 2016 election indeed was a choice between the lesser of two evils.
All this talk about Hillary as evil doesn’t make sense. She didn’t divorce her husband even for blatant infidelity, which should have scored her major points among the religious. But her decision to remain married, to Bill, backfired. Maybe conservatives suspected another motive for Hillary sticking with Bill, perhaps thinking she was simply power hungry.
What’s so funny, and I mean strange, about the Clintons is how they were friends with the Trumps. There is a famous photo of the two couples: the Clintons standing beside Trump and his new wife Melania at their star-studded wedding. The four of them appear the best of friends, people who understand each other, travel in the same social circles and at the time the same political sphere. During the impeachment, Trump was quick to take up for Clinton, maintaining the president was getting a raw deal—all that right-wing political furor, public time and tax money over an affair. Trump had been a lifelong Democrat until he eyed the presidency, first running as an Independent then winning as a Republican and now chastising Democrats for all the evil in the world.
Strange bedfellows
The funny strange thing about the Clintons is how similar they are to Trump: sharing the same narcissism, relishing in the spotlight, insisting on national attention. Their crowds for sure will not be as loud and riotous as Trump rallies. Theirs is a softer touch. When speaking publicly, Hillary appeals more to the intellect than the emotions, often appearing stoic and guarded with little sense of humor no matter how much she broadly smiles and laughs out loud. She doesn’t appear naturally carefree—not like she was in her pre-Bill days when Hillary Rodham sans makeup and coiffed hair was a standout career woman, an intense person of quiet character and meaningful purpose in work that would benefit the disenfranchised.
But when Bill Clinton speaks, people listen. We used to. He had warmth, charisma, a way with words and phrases, an ability to speak more from the heart than the head yet managed to marry both qualities that make us human. Northerners called it Southern charm. Southerners just liked him from the start because he was genuinely one of us, even from a small town in Arkansas.
Bill can laugh at himself and his many foibles. Hillary can laugh at herself, too, yet the general public still does not believe her self-deprecation as part of her natural personality. She comes across as insincere, again the power-hungry persona that many Americans swear they sense from her, not knowing her personally as most of us don’t.
By those who know him best, Bill has been called a genius. And you know what they say about geniuses: how they lack horse sense? Isn’t it funny how life bestows upon a very few high intelligence that seems wasted in the very ways that matter to regular folks, people whose priorities are: God first then marriage, children, family, work and community. The strange coupling of the Clintons is how their personal values did not center on home and hearth or fidelity or for that matter the humble American character that makes us serve humanity first and place ourselves last.