A running theme in the Republican debates has been attacking former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s credentials. Clinton seems likely to earn the Democratic nomination in the primary, meaning that whoever ends up representing the Republicans may be running against her.
So far, the rhetoric against Clinton has pertained mostly to her private email scandal. However, in Thursday’s “undercard” Republican debate featuring the lowest polling candidates, Carly Fiorina mentioned another aspect of Clinton’s life — her marriage.
In 1998, Hillary Clinton served as first lady while her husband, Bill Clinton, served his term as president of the United States. It was the year during which the infamous Lewinsky scandal came to light, and it was revealed that Bill Clinton had had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and lied about it.
After Lewinsky, a number of other women came forward and accused Bill Clinton of participating in both consensual and non-consensual sexual encounters. His past seems to contradict Hillary Clinton’s image as the potential first female president devoted to women’s rights.
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, not exactly known as a feminist hero, pointed out this dichotomy in a tweet last December: “If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband, with his terrible record of women abuse, while playing the women’s card on me, she’s wrong!”
Fiorina similarly unleashed a diatribe against Clinton Thursday night.
“Hillary Clinton will do anything to gain and hang on to power. Anything,” Fiorina said. “Listen, if my husband did what Bill Clinton did, I would have left him long ago.”
Hillary Clinton’s proximity to the nomination has unfortunately reminded us all about the nasty consequences of being a female politician.
Fiorina’s comments draw up a classic double standard: Clinton must decide whether to be a “good wife” and prioritize her marriage over her husband’s questionable actions, or cast her relationship with her husband to the side. Either way, she loses.
If she acts as the loyal wife — which she has done thus far — she will be characterized as a hypocrite with a chauvinist husband. If she outwardly reprimands her husband, then she will be someone who cannot even keep her own family together, let alone a country.
On the other side of the aisle, we have Fiorina, who has gained momentum over the campaign season by touting herself as an “outsider,” not a politician, and who has also considered herself a champion of women’s rights with a conservative twist.
On the night of the debate where she blasted the Clinton marriage, she emphasized her own marriage’s functionality.
“Unlike the other woman candidate in this race,” Fiorina said, “I actually love spending time with my husband.”
I have my own feelings about Bill Clinton and the multiple accusations against him. I also have my own feelings about Hillary Clinton and her political platform. One candidate making comments about another candidate’s marriage, however, makes me lose more faith in the political system.
I’m not saying that Hillary Clinton and Fiorina should form some kind of sisterhood over the fact that they’re both women competing in a male-dominated field. Thoughts like that are unrealistic and ignorant, seeing as Fiorina and Clinton have some fundamentally different views.
But I can almost guarantee that if a male candidate were in Hillary Clinton’s position, he would not be exposed to the same kind of vitriol from his fellow male candidates.
We only need to look back in history — ahem, Newt Gingrich — to some of our candidates who have had multiple marriages and marital problems but have still held great respect from their fellow politicians.
If Fiorina considers herself a champion of women’s rights, she should rise above the need to speak about her opponent’s personal life. These comments only make Fiorina’s campaign weaker. Besides, this dialogue isn’t only harmful to Clinton, but also to other female politicians and young women looking to enter into politics in the future.
As the election charges on, both female candidates will undoubtedly receive more unnecessary criticism from the media and from other candidates. Going forward, however, I can only hope that this criticism is not thrown between candidates.
At the end of the day, these women’s political parties are meaningless. But the respect that they show one another will speak volumes for women in politics today and for years to come.
The point is not Hillary’s marriage. The point is Hillary’s overt participation in the smearing of women who dared to complain that her husband and ride to power was sexually harassing them or raping them, or just pulling his pants down in front of when they did not want him to pull his pants down. Hillary crows she is a champion of women’s rights, yet it was she who coined the term “bimbo eruptions” and was the architect of the aggressive character assassination response to any woman who had a welcome or unwelcome encounter with her husband. And she is a liar. Are we really to believe that Hillary, aware of countless indiscretions, claims of even sexual assault, believed that Monica Lewinsky – somebody’s college aged daughter, was an evil liar? Its okay for a man to engage in oral sex with an intern in his office? That’s what the issue, not that Bill cheated, or Hillary cheated, or they don’t have a conventional marriage. Just like with impeachment – it was not about sex. The President of the United States committed perjury. He did not have to testify. It was a civil lawsuit. Even if the judge issued an order compelling him to testify, all he had to do was say, “I will not appear. I understand that as a consequence I will lose my ability to defend this case, but I have more important things to do than this distraction.” It would have been better to do too, since he ended up settling that lawsuit by paying about $750,000 and apologizing to his employee Paula Jones for inviting her to his room and exposing himself. You can be married to a pig and still claim to be for women’s rights, but you lose all credibility and make your actions relevant when you partner up with your pig to smear and vilify the women abused harassed and victimized by the pig, because Hillary became a willing victimizer too.
Love Hillary.