I am no great fan of the Clintons, but the scrutiny given their marriage has always baffled me, given that Republicans seem to think that for OTHER PEOPLE to stay together is of paramount importance. I suppose we can say that the 2008 campaign has now officially begun, with the obligatory sinister New York Times hatchet piece on the Clinton marriage:
When the subject of Bill and Hillary Clinton comes up for many prominent Democrats these days, Topic A is the state of their marriage — and how the most dissected relationship in American life might affect Mrs. Clinton's possible bid for the presidency in 2008.
Democrats say it is inevitable that in a campaign that could return the former president to the White House, some voters would be concerned or distracted by Mr. Clinton's political role and the episode that led the House to vote for his impeachment in 1998.
"There's no question that it's a complicated candidacy for a lot of voters because of the history of that relationship and what they've been through," said Leon E. Panetta, Mr. Clinton's chief of staff from 1994 to 1997. "They've been through a lot of challenges as a couple, though in the end if you're with them together, you know there's something there that basically bonds them."
The dynamics of a couple's marriage are hard to gauge from the outside, even for a couple as well known as the Clintons. But interviews with some 50 people and a review of their respective activities show that since leaving the White House, Bill and Hillary Clinton have built largely separate lives — partly because of the demands of their distinct career paths and partly as a result of political calculations.
The effect has been to raise Senator Clinton's profile on the public radar while somewhat toning down Mr. Clinton's; he has told friends that his No. 1 priority is not to cause her any trouble. They appear in the public spotlight methodically and carefully: The goal is to position Mrs. Clinton to run for president not as a partner or a proxy, but as her own person.
Many of those interviewed were granted anonymity to discuss a relationship for which the Clintons have long sought a zone of privacy. The Clintons and, for the most part, their aides declined to cooperate for this article and urged others not to cooperate as well. Their spokesmen, Jay Carson (his) and Philippe Reines (hers), provided a statement about the relationship:
"She is an active senator who, like most members of Congress, has to be in Washington for part of most weeks. He is a former president running a multimillion-dollar global foundation. But their home is in New York, and they do everything they can to be together there or at their house in D.C. as often as possible — often going to great lengths to do so. When their work schedules require that they be apart they talk all the time."
Since the start of 2005, the Clintons have been together about 14 days a month on average, according to aides who reviewed the couple's schedules. Sometimes it is a full day of relaxing at home in Chappaqua; sometimes it is meeting up late at night. At their busiest, they saw each other on a single day, Valentine's Day, in February 2005 — a month when each was traveling a great deal. Last August, they saw each other at some point on 24 out of 31 days. Out of the last 73 weekends, they spent 51 together. The aides declined to provide the Clintons' private schedule.
I will never defend how Bill Clinton blew his opportunity to build a resurgent Democratic Party, nor will ever defend Hillary Clinton's vote for the Iraq war. But their marriage is their own damn business, not mine.
I'm all for couples making their own rules and creating a model of marriage that works best for both of them. I've seen many couples trying to duplicate their parents' marriage in a world very different from the one in which their parents built their families. I've seen women who refuse to date perfectly acceptable men because said men earn less than they do. I've seen couples have children because their parents expected them to, not because they wanted children all that badly.
For most of the time Mr. Brilliant and I have been together, I've been the higher earner, and neither of us have had a problem with that. We never had children, and don't miss it. I still do most of the house stuff, largely because it rarely occurs to Mr. B. to do it. What I don't do, doesn't get done. We don't live in a showplace, but so what? Our life, our rules. We've been together for 23 years, we still enjoy each other's company, and we aren't sitting on two decades of resentment. It's not the way someone else might live, but it works for us.
And so it is with the Clintons. That they have not been the traditional political couple; the alpha-male man with the meek, submissive wife looking adoringly at him, has galled conservatives since Bill Clinton first set foot on the public stage. Here is a ridiculously charismatic man, who attracts women like bees to honey, and he didn't marry the pretty cheerleader with the big boobs, he married the owlish, bookish, smart girl. The reaction of Republicans to Bill Clinton has always reminded me of that of the fat, pimply kid in high school who resents that the captain of the football team got all the girls -- and is still angry 30 years later.
Those who choose to fit themselves into the conventional marital box don't much like it when other couples try to make their own path, perhaps because it reminds them that they, too, could have built a life their own way.
The obsession with the Clinton marriage has nothing to do with curiosity about a high-profile couple. After all, where are the speculative articles about the Bush marriage? Where are the questions about why Laura Bush looks like she's on thorazine all the time? Where is the speculation about why Laura Bush seems to be more liberal than her husband? After all, Hillary was perceived as being more liberal than hers. Where is the speculation about the fact that Laura Bush killed her boyfriend in an automobile accident and how it relates to her husband's history of substance abuse? And why doesn't the press wonder why a president like George W. Bush, who seems to want everyone else to procreate as much as possible, has knocked up his wife only once?
The reason is that Laura Bush is a traditional political wife, and is therefore not a threat to the established order.
But whatever one may say about the unorthodox Clinton marriage (and like most marriages, none of us knows what the dynamic is, despite all the speculation), they have managed to stay married and have at the very least an intellectual bond, something that serves a couple well when the looks start to go. They have reared a child who is now poised and successful young lady who has emerged unscathed from eight years of her adolescence in which she was the butt of cruel remarks by the likes of Rush Limbaugh.
While Patrick Healy breathlessly speculates about the Clintons in an above-the-fold story that would be more at home in the pages of Us Magazine, the Republican field is permitted by the press to hide its own multiple divorces and sexual peccadillos while they beat the marriage drum for everyone else.
As Atrios notes, here is a story you DIDN'T see in the Times today:
Washington, DC, May 23 - Republicans say it is inevitable that some voters would be concerned and even distracted by the numerous personal indiscretions of the various candidates likely to seek the office of president, and express concern about whether they would be likely to repeat such behavior while in the White House.
While former New York mayor Rudi Giuliani's popularity increased after the events of September 11, pushing his personal issues into the background, Republicans worry he would bring to the White House the kind of activities which marred his tenure at Gracie Mansion.
Giuiliani's behavior led to a judge barring the presence of Judith Nathan, with whom he began having an affair during his last term as mayor, from the mayoral home. The judge's order also criticized Giuliani for the emotional harm he inflicted on his children.
Twice-married Virginia Senator George Allen faces questions over claimed sadistic treatment of his siblings and his fondness for confederate memorabilia despite his having grown up in California. While divorce alone may not disqualify him from the ballot in Republican voters' eyes - they overlooked it in 1980 when Ronald Reagan became the first, and only, divorced man to be elected president - it is still expected to impact his standing with conservative religious voters. Senator McCain of Arizona is in a similar position.
Thrice-married former Speaker of the House New Gingrich also concerns Republicans as he gears up for a potential presidential run. Gingrich, currently 62, began dating his geometry teacher, and future wife, while he was still in high school. He later served her divorce papers at her hospital bed where she was receiving treatment for cancer. He divorced his second wife after it was revealed that he had been having a long-running affair with a staffer 23 years younger than him during the Clinton impeachment saga.
In the topsy-turvy world of sucking up to Christian Conservatives, working to sustain a long-term marriage by making your own rules is bad; extramarital affairs are perfectly OK among Republicans -- as long as you leave your wife and marry your mistress. Then at least you're married....and marriage is inviolate.....isn't it?
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