US Senator Hillary Clinton says her recent book was written in the service of history. The autobiography is more a staging post for her to run for the White House. The only snag is a lot of Americans are turned off by her. Americans love underdogs who struggle in life to rise above their circumstances. With the publication of Living History, Clinton is trying to win the hearts and minds of the American people. By re-inventing herself as a victim of infidelity, betrayal and a right wing campaign. It is difficult to dislike Hillary. An Ivy League graduate, a successful lawyer, mother, former first lady and senator. But most Americans will tell you that there is something about her they just don’t like. In the book and a spate of TV interviews, Clinton has been reliving the most painful moment of her life — finding out about her husband’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. “I wanted to wring Bill’s neck,” she writes. People cannot fathom how a woman as intelligent as her could have been duped into believing Bill Clinton. “I did what I could, I cross-examined my husband,” she tells the country. “How could you stay in that marriage?” the senator was asked in an interview. About thirteen million Americans watched to hear her response. She loved Bill and didn’t want to give up on him, she said. Few Americans are not won over by righteous wives. She would have earned more respect if she had left her husband. Instead, like a besotted girl, she talks about Bill Clinton’s long hands and tapered fingers. Her memoirs flip flop between Clinton the husband and Clinton the president. She writes “I believe what my husband did was morally wrong. I also knew his failing was not a betrayal of his country.” Except he lied to the American people under oath. The public is willing to accept Clinton’s choices. The problem is that those personal choices clash with her politics. It is this that ultimately undermines her credibility as a politician. In the book, Clinton looks back on her visit to India and explains why she chose to make women’s rights a subject of her speech in New Delhi. But as a wife who put up with adultery, she has no high moral ground to lecture women in the third world. On the issue of writing the book, Hillary is again preachy. She blames America’s “politics of personal destruction” where private moments are made public for partisan and political purposes. But it is difficult to see her as its victim. In fact, she is the emblem of the bizarre American cult of public figures cashing in on their lives. Still, that will not stop the former first lady from running for the White House, possibly in 2008. One thing she shares with her husband is the belief that character “is a journey, not a destination”. And who knows, if Bush is still around by then, Hillary’s character may become more appealing.
