Hillary Clinton

Years ago, Gloria Steinem said that a black man would be president before a woman. At the time, most gave it the usual sickly smirk, because taking women seriously is a problem.

It is a problem to men who don't want to deal with the equal who just might have a little extra, a problem to women, who see every other woman as a threat. Hilary Clinton is one of those women whom either you cast as a role model, or avoid.

She is married to a man who can't keep his pants on. Unlike John Kennedy, he didn't attract Hollywood Royalty, he attracted the pump attendant. Where it took many years after his death for John Kennedy's adultery to become front page, Bill Clinton's affair was played out on the world stage.

Where Jacqueline Kennedy was largely spared the embarrassment, Hilary had to grin and bear it. Because Hilary was not just the wife of..but a political person, she stuck with Bill. If she had no political dreams, she, as the majority of women, would have left him. But she stayed.

When the campaign began, she and her handlers, might have thought Bill a great asset, he wasn't. The world was pretty much disgusted with his sexual behaviour, and though, as a President, many considered him fairly good, seeing the back of him, hopefully for a Gore was the desire from Timbuktu to Tikrit. Seeing Hilary with that forced smile and her pretend marriage was quite unpleasant. One could virtually see the tension, the discomfiture, as if trying to give a speech when the smell of raw sewage permeates.

As many women whose marriage has collapsed, she threw herself into work, because if she didn't have the campaign, what would she do with all those hours between sleeps? A divorce would have been wiser. Had she done so a few years ago, she would have lost the "odor of raw sewage" and created a life.

A person with "a life", i.e. John Edwards, could see the inevitable, and drop out. Hilary could not. She had sacrificed her soul to stay with Bill, believing she needed him for her campaign. Her delay in concession, her ungracious behaviour is the psychological result of this. The idea of her as Vice President to Obama, is no longer palatable.

She does not present herself as a "team" player, or as one who could work with or beneath Obama, but as someone who believes in an entitlement to power. She has sacrificed everything to run for President and can not believe it was all for nothing.