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[edit] First Lady of the United States

[edit] An uncharacteristic First Lady

After her husband became a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination of 1992, Hillary Clinton received popular national attention for the first time. Before the New Hampshire primary, tabloid publications printed claims that Bill Clinton had had an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers, an Arkansas lounge singer.[1] In response, the Clintons appeared together on 60 Minutes, during which Bill Clinton denied the affair but acknowledged he had caused "pain" in their marriage.[2] (Years later, he would admit that the Flowers affair had happened, but to lesser extent than she claimed.)[3] Hillary Clinton made culturally dismissive remarks about Tammy Wynette[4] and baking cookies and having teas[5] during the campaign that were ill-considered by her own admission. Bill Clinton said that electing him would get "two for the price of one", referring to the prominent role his wife would assume.[6]

The Clinton family arrives at the White House courtesy of Marine One, 1993
The Clinton family arrives at the White House courtesy of Marine One, 1993

When Bill Clinton took office as president in January 1993, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the First Lady of the United States, and announced that she would be using that form of her name.[7] She was the initial first lady to hold a post-graduate degree[8] and to have her own professional career up to the time of entering the White House.[9] She was also the initial first lady to take up an office in the West Wing of the White House,[10] first ladies usually staying in the East Wing. She is regarded as the most openly empowered presidential wife in American history, save for Eleanor Roosevelt.[11]

Some critics called it inappropriate for the First Lady to play a central role in matters of public policy. Supporters pointed out that Clinton's role in policy was no different from that of other White House advisors and that voters were well aware that she would play an active role in her husband's Presidency.[12] Bill Clinton's campaign promise of "two for the price of one" led opponents to refer derisively to the Clintons as "co-presidents",[13] or sometimes "Billary".[14] The pressures of conflicting ideas about the role of a First Lady were enough to send Clinton into "imaginary discussions" with the also-politically-active Eleanor Roosevelt;[15] from the time she came to Washington, she also found refuge in a prayer group of The Fellowship that featured many wives of conservative Washington figures.[16][17] Triggered in part by the death of her father in April 1993, she publicly sought to find a synthesis of Methodist teachings, liberal religious political philosophy, and Tikkun editor Michael Lerner's "politics of meaning" to overcome what she saw as America's "sleeping sickness of the soul" and that would lead to a willingness "to remold society by redefining what it means to be a human being in the twentieth century, moving into a new millennium."[18][19] Other segments of the public focused on her appearance, which had evolved over time from inattention to fashion during her days in Arkansas,[20] to a popular site in the early days of the World Wide Web devoted to showing her many different, and much analyzed, hairstyles as First Lady,[21][22] to an appearance on the cover of Vogue magazine in 1998.[23]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Clintons to Rebut Rumors on "60 Minutes". The New York Times (1992-01-25). Retrieved on 2007-03-25.
  2. ^ In 1992, Clinton Conceded Marital 'Wrongdoing'. The Washington Post (1992-01-26). Retrieved on 2007-03-25.
  3. ^ "Paula Jones challenges Clinton to debate", CNN, 2004-06-30. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. 
  4. ^ During the political damage control over the Gennifer Flowers episode during the 1992 campaign, Hillary Clinton said in a joint 60 Minutes interview, "I'm not sitting here as some little woman 'standing by my man' like Tammy Wynette. I'm sitting here because I love him and I respect him, and I honor what he's been through and what we've been through together." The seemingly sneering reference to country music provoked immediate criticism that Clinton was culturally tone-deaf, and Tammy Wynette herself did not like the remark because her classic song "Stand by Your Man" is not written in the first person. See "2000: Hillary Clinton is first First Lady in Senate", BBC, 2000-11-07. Retrieved on 2007-10-01.  Wynette further said that Clinton had "offended every true country music fan and every person who has 'made it on their own' with no one to take them to a White House." See "Tammy Wynette, country music's first lady, dies at 55", CNN.com, 1998-04-07. Retrieved on 2007-10-01.  A few days later, on Prime Time Live, Clinton apologized to Wynette. Clinton would later write that she had not been careful in her choice of words and that "the fallout from my reference to Tammy Wynette was instant — as it deserved to be — and brutal." See Living History, p. 108. The two women patched things up, with Wynette appearing later at a Clinton fund raiser.
  5. ^ Less than two months after the Tammy Wynette remarks, Hillary Clinton was facing questions about whether she could have avoided possible conflicts of interest between her Governor husband and work given to the Rose Law Firm, when she remarked, "I've done the best I can to lead my life ... You know, I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life." See Living History, p. 109. The "cookies and teas" part of this prompted even more culture-based criticism, objecting to Clinton's apparent distaste for women who had chosen a homemaker role in life. See Hillary Clinton. Miller Center of Public Affairs. University of Virginia. Retrieved on 2007-10-01. Clinton subsequently offered up some cookie recipes as a way of making amends, and would later write of her chagrin: "Besides, I've done quite a lot of cookie baking in my life, and tea-pouring too!" Living History, p. 109.
  6. ^ First Lady: Biography. AmericanPresident.org. Retrieved on 2006-08-22.
  7. ^ Anthony York. "On her own", Salon magazine, 1999-07-08. Retrieved on 2007-07-14.  Her announcement was parodied by the May 1993 film spoof Hot Shots! Part Deux, in which all the female characters were given the middle name "Rodham"; see IMDB entry.
  8. ^ First post-graduate degree through regular study and scholarly work. Eleanor Roosevelt had been previously awarded a post-graduate honorary degree. Clinton's successor Laura Bush became the second first lady with a post-graduate degree.
  9. ^ "Hillary Rodham Clinton", Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2006. Retrieved on August 22, 2006.
  10. ^ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named nfll
  11. ^ Rajghatta, Chidanand (1st quarter 2004). "First Lady President?". Verve magazine 12 (1). 
  12. ^ Peart, Karen N.. "The First Lady: Homemaker or Policy-Maker?", Scholastic Press. Retrieved on 2006-08-22. 
  13. ^ Greenberg, Paul. "Israel's new friend: Hillary, born-again Zionist", Jewish World Review, 1999-07-15. Retrieved on 2006-08-22. 
  14. ^ A perilous portmanteau?. Language Log (2005-11-01). Retrieved on 2006-08-22.
  15. ^ The Eleanor Roosevelt "discussions" were first reported in 1996 by Washington Post writer Bob Woodward; they had begun from the start of Hillary Clinton's time as First Lady. See "Adviser downplays Hillary Clinton's conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt", CNN.com, 1996-06-24. Retrieved on 2007-10-02.  Following the Democrats' loss of congressional control in the 1994 elections, Clinton had engaged the services of self help expert Jean Houston, who allegedly sometimes dabbled in psychic experiences, spirits, trances, and hypnosis. Houston encouraged Clinton to pursue the Roosevelt connection, and while none of these psychic techniques were used with Clinton, critics and comics immediately suggested that Clinton was holding séances with Eleanor Roosevelt. The White House stated that this was merely a brainstorming exercise, and a private poll later indicated that most of the public believed these were indeed just imaginary conversations, with the remainder believing that communication with the dead was actually possible. See Francis Wheen. "Never mind the pollsters", The Guardian, 2000-07-26. Retrieved on 2007-10-02.  In her 2003 autobiography, Clinton titled an entire chapter "Conversations with Eleanor", and stated that holding "imaginary conversations [is] actually a useful mental exercise to help analyze problems, provided you choose the right person to visualize. Eleanor Roosevelt was ideal [as a trail-blazer and controversial First Lady]." See Living History, pp. 258–259.
  16. ^ Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet. "Hillary's Prayer: Hillary Clinton's Religion and Politics", Mother Jones, September/October 2007. Retrieved on 2007-10-10. 
  17. ^ Bernstein, A Woman in Charge, pp. 313–314.
  18. ^ Michael Kelly. "St. Hillary", The New York Times Magazine, 1993-05-23. 
  19. ^ Priscilla Painton. "The Politics of What?", Time, 1993-05-31. Retrieved on 2007-10-20. 
  20. ^ Living History, pp. 110–111.
  21. ^ Postrel, Virginia (2004). The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness. HarperCollins. ISBN 0060933852.  pp. 72–73.
  22. ^ "Forget the Primaries: Vote for Hillary's Hair", Associated Press, 1996-03-02. Retrieved on 2007-09-25. 
  23. ^ "Fashionable first lady — Hillary strikes a pose for Vogue", CNN, 1998-11-24. Retrieved on 2007-09-25.