It's amazing to me the sheer ignorance of this article. Hillary Clinton blazed all kinds of trails for working women. She was the first First Lady with serious career accomplishments of her own and she took it on the chin for it so that women like Michelle Obama no longer have to. Hillary was from a time when she could not get into the same schools Michelle Obama could as an undergraduate because women were not admitted. She was the first female Senator from New York and elected twice and served on the Senate Arms sevice committee. She is the first woman to have run for the presidency with a serious chance at it. She tried to become a marine and was refused because of gender. This is a woman who has fought for womans right and has had a pioneering, historic life. To suggest that a woman of this courage and caliber and just shear determination got where she is today solely on being pecieved as a victim of her husbands dalliances is among the worst gender bigotry I have ever seen, and certainly the most ignorant. Hillary Clinton is one of the few woman I've ever looked at and said "wow, that took the kind of guts I probably don't have". It is a shame she gets absolutely no credit for it from two armchair jocky writers who have benefited no doubt mightily in their own lives from the pain of other womens trailblazing.

Thank you for saying this. Someone who writes an article like they have written truly needs to have selective memory, and for another purpose than to start a gender dialogue of any kind. I wish the writers would read through all these comments and reply to us, explaining why, like the Iraq war decision, they decided to put 'gut' over fact and rationality and attack someone.

No one can demean Hillary but more than she herself or her husband. She lost her own self respect when she stayed with him for over two decades knowing he was screwing every woman he could. She not only stood by him but demonized the women he was screwing. She stood by him when he lied to the whole nation, and then went on to perjure himself. Now she has the audacity to ask why Obama did not leave his church. Perhaps she could ask her supporters as to why they stayed with the Catholic Church after millions of dollars have been paid for Priest molesting children? As to her being a champion of women’s cause it is baloney. Remember how she demonized the women her husband had sexually abused and used. Remember Monica, her husband had used and then demonized, who was only few years older than her own daughter then. In this election she is tearing up the Democrats, playing race card, then gender card for herself, then fear card and now patriotism card, night is still young what more is to come yet.

Vice + Victim = Virtue

That seems to be the equation many people use to positively evaluate Senator Clinton's career--a calculus she has implicitly encouraged and an equation she has modified.

This woman was not a victim; she was born with significant privileges as a good, conservative, suburban, high-achieving, tennis-playing young lady. She was highly ambitious and made the pursuit of power her life's greatest aspiration, to the extent that a clear pattern has emerged of corruption, abrogation of principle, and caving to political expediency. The cultivation of the myth of victimhood enables her to engage in the sort of perverted misdirection of public perception, to which actual victims are especially susceptible: "I am a victim like you, therefore my vices are my virtues."

I totally agree.Sen.Clinton has been arole model to women not only in this country but women all around the world.Women I met in distant lands in my travels speak of her with admiration and affection.They looked forward to the day she'd lead this powerful nation for the greater good of the world.And to reduce that life into sterotype baloney of victimhood etc says more about the present day culture of demeaning women that the writers are part of.The empty rhetoric is soaring if spoken by an AfricanAmerican idol and I'll tell you if the same speech was given by a woman she would have been at best patronised and these same writers would have wondered if her husband helped her write the speech.Sen.Clinton cannot win in this climate but fight she must to advance the cause of women every where.I respect her deeply and wish her my best.

We all know Clinton has been a role model. That doesn't make her immune from valid criticism. The article gave some good reasons why she isn't the best role model she could be.

Clinton is an accomplished woman on her own right. Why do we stay in marriages?? We have our reasons...it's nobody's business. We're all flawed. It's a fact she's a woman and he's black--they are both good andidates. She has more experience and is the better candidate. But I do believe she is being discriminated for gender and age (America has no use for older women). Younger woman don't remember the days you couldn't get birth control without your husband's consent or you had 2 career choices teacher or nurse. She has helped the woman's cause more than hurt.