A Tale of Three Sisters
It was early in '98, on a job in Riyadh, and I would tune in to
BBC Radio’s World Service. One evening, I heard Alistair Cooke of Letter From America fame sarcastically compare US President Bill Clinton's State of the Nation Speech to the utterings of a Christian Knight, Sir Gawain or Sir Galahad, I forget which. Well
overnight, the guy’s cheeky denial of having intercourse with that woman (22 year old Monica Lewinsky) had become the biggest political scandal since Watergate. Remember that one? No? Well, anyway - eventually - President
Nixon was forced out of office, but somehow Clinton managed to wriggle on. How?
A case of cherchez-la-femme? Meanwhile the wife who
stood by him, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has ever since been tarred with complicity in that rotten saga of
equivocation and tittle-tattle. I think millions of American women – whether
feminist or not – could never forgive Hillary for letting the man get off with
a sanctimonious warning. Surely she should have divorced him and stood for
office as an independent woman? As it was, she did become a New York Senator
and Secretary of State, then won the Democratic nomination to stand against one Donald
Trump in 2016; and though Master Trump won the election via the Electoral College
system, she got 2 million votes more than him. So there! Take that, Populist! Shucks, if only she had dumped the old
Bill, she might even have beaten Barack Obama to the Whitehouse, putting
women’s rights before those of blacks. Instead, she stood behind that barefaced adulterer;
and they have remained together ever since, bucking just about every marital
trend in the manual of a Modern Marriage.
Michelle Obama – Robinson, to give her bachelor name – did not want her
hubby to become a politician. He was a part-time activist when she met him,
but her admiration for his ideals and commitment were part of the reasons - she
says – she fell in love. She disliked politics, and knew that with her Barack becoming first a Congressman, then President, she and their children would miss
out on his company. But she stuck by him, campaigned alongside him, and put up
with the vagaries of being a politician’s partner. As First Lady she, along
with Hillary, had enjoyed & endured high office of state without
personally being elected. In that sense you could argue both women had a kind of amateur status - until Hillary chose to go professional, as it were.
Michelle hasn’t gone back to work in the traditional sense. She is an activist
of sorts, lending her name to causes, supporting and advising the next
generation of women and black people in the on-going struggle for rights and
opportunities. Right on!
Both former First Ladies made the kind of sacrifices radical women were
supposed to deplore, and yet both have become feminist icons. When Barack Obama
was standing down, people pleaded with Michelle to run for office, as though
she were the only hope in town. She wasn’t, though she might have fared better
than Hillary… who, having become the hero who stood up to Trump, is now very
much the elder statesperson, and – one hopes, when the last of the
Ex-President’s stool pigeons are laid to rest and the man himself is brought to
justice – will get the last hurrah. It is their younger sister Kamala who is in
line to be the first woman president, the first woman of colour to be at the
helm.
Is it a curious thing that all three of these women are lawyers? Or that
along with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the Law has been their route into
politics? All five had promising, lucrative legal practices before devoting
their lives to full-time politics. Since the 80s, the only career politician in
the Democratic camp has been Joe Biden. On the Republican side, it’s mainly
been about those who were in business before. Reagan was an actor before
slipping into the role of California Governor; George Bush The Younger was a failed oilman,
while Donald Trump was a property speculator & television clown. With Blair
and now Starmer, there’s been a similar trend this side of the pond, too; the
right having been mainly in the hands of finance hounds (Major, Cameron &
Sunak) with the odd entertainer thrown in. With the possible exception of
Cherie Blair, none of the UK prime ministers have had a very prominent wife or
husband.
So far, Kamala Harris is a relatively unknown quantity. Although she has avoided biological motherhood - unlike her aforementioned sisters, becoming instead the step-mother of husband Doug Emhoff’s children from a previous marriage. But let us not go off down that beaten track. Meantime, she has served in the role Obama’s daughters had recommended for their Pa before running for president, i.e. she’s been Joe Biden’s deputy. Now her story will unfold. She was elected Attorney General for the state of California, and in that capacity went after crooked businesses, including educational scams – the like of which Master Trump has been involved in. Unlike Hillary and Michelle, who have natural gravitas in their voices, she’s a little shrill and perhaps short on substance. I mean, what does she stand for, besides adherence to The Law? Maybe that is enough for now, given all the bad guys and corporations that continue to plague US individuals and communities. Let’s just hope that along with the felons, she ain’t forced to prosecute any wars.
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