Women, Politics and Posturing: It Can Kill Ya

Don’t think, for a skinny minute, this is an easy job. Writing politics is war. It’s dangerous out here, what with bullets flying, incoming mortar rounds and all. I lost my flak jacket and helmet the other day and had to low-crawl to my computer. With my youngest grandbaby on my hip. But I did it. I’m one tough woman, willing to go where few men are brave enough to…
Okay, okay. Maybe no one was shooting at me. I misspoke. Just Like Hillary.
She thrilled us all with her wild Bosnian tale, her near-miss as First Lady, landing at the airport in Tuzla, her plane having taken evasive maneuvers to avoid being shot down…then her mad dash across the tarmac, hunkered down and dodging bullets every step of the way. You don’t forget a near-death experience like that one This was a time, Hillary told us, that a trip was “too dangerous for the president”, so they sent her instead. This is one woman who’s ready to take command and, like John McCain, she’s taken hostile fire and lived to tell about it. Barack Obama? Shoot! (No pun intended.) All he’s got going for him is a fine mind, the capacity to engage ordinary people in the political process and some good ideas about civility in politics and humane governance. Nothing heroic about that. What we need is a macho/hero type, and Hillary Rodham Clinton qualifies.
If only it had been a true story. Turns out there was no danger involved. Hillary landed quite nicely in Tuzla with teen-aged daughter Chelsea in tow. They enjoyed a sweet little ceremony there after deplaning, Bosnian children on hand to welcome the First Lady and First Daughter with hugs and kisses.
Caught in telling a whopper, Ms Clinton took the typical politician’s way out. “I misspoke,” she said. “I was sleep-deprived…I’m human…”
Really? She did not “misspeak” about running the gunfire gauntlet in Tuzla. Saying “I misspoke” implies a little slip of the tongue. A tiny lapse, like “I’m sure bought milk on Monday—no, make that Tuesday.” She says she was sleep-deprived? I don’t care how much sleep you’ve lost, you don’t mistake hugging a Bosnian child on the tarmac with dodging bullets. She lied. She told a deliberate, fabricated story to get a leg-up in a faltering campaign for the Democratic nomination.
In doing so, she has betrayed every one of us who have argued for a woman in the White House. Worse, she’s made more than a few American mothers furious. A good mama—a smart mama—does not take her child along on a trip “too dangerous for [Daddy] to make.” If that’s not lousy judgment, I don’t know what is.
We women expect better than this from one of our own. We don’t want just any woman in the White House, we want one who represents the best of what a woman has to offer—and that’s plenty. We want feminist principles in a campaign and in the Oval Office. If we have to vote for a man to get them, we will.

By Linda Hansen