Hi guys, I'm new to this forum and I read Mr. Noah's article, but I'm of a different opinion. I'm of the opinion that Hillary and Bill were really partners during his Presidency and, I believe, that Hillary was the first and only first lady with an office in the West Wing. From that I infer that she was more than simply wife, but a partner and sounding board for the former President.

She's obviously highly intelligent and after viewing her website, I must admit that she presents her plan in a cogent and comprehensive manner.

I read a post suggesting that Barbara Bush should run for President just because she was married to the first G. Bush. This argument doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps Bush 41 did indeed consult his wife on the issues facing this great nation. It that is true, she did a huge disservice to this county.

I'm just interesting in reasons why people think that Hillary didn't put her imprimateur on alot of the Clinton policy during Bill's two terms as President of the United States.

If, as you suggest (and I agree), that Sen. Clinton was a co-president, doesn't this bother you? Where is the Constitution is the term "co-president"? And please, spare me the tired Nancy jokes. Just Say No to Drugs hardly = Health Care. Anybody care to answer this honestly?

Unless folks are using "co-president" to mean something like "entrusted with powers and responsibilities coextensive to the President," I don't think the absence of such an "Office" in the Constitution is particularly troubling. The Constitution makes no mention of a Secretary of State, or Defense, or a National Security Adviser, or Homeland Security Secretary. What the Constitution allows for is Presidential nomination and appointment, with the advice and consent of the Senate, of public Ministers and Consuls...and all other Officers of the United States. But the role of "co-president" that Sen. Clinton may have played, that First Lady Barbara Bush or Nancy Reagan or Eleanor Roosevelt may have played, isn't an Office of the United States with official powers or duties. No consent is required--and it would take a rather activist and anti-family Congress and Court to deny President and spouse the opportunity to consult each other and seek assistance and support with decisions and agendas. Why should we be troubled by having two intelligent and capable minds deliberating (so far as possible) over the issues in order to enable the President--who has a right and responsibility for the greatest possible care in consideration--to make the most confident and capable decision?

Wife & confidant aren't a problem. I think every president has gotten some advice from his spouse during pillow talk or over breakfast.

The problem people have with Hillary is that she seems like more of the "puppet master" type. She has the calculating vibe of someone who pushed her husband into the highest office and exerted unparalleled influence over his policies. It seems like she had planned to use the Bill Clinton presidency as a stepping stone to fulfill her own dreams of being the first woman president from before she even married Bill... that she put up with his infidelities and party guy image because he was a pawn in her strategy, and she was cold enough to not need a real lover.

I'm not saying any of this is true. It is probably much more complicated than all that. But that is how it looks to many people. Thus, in this context, "co-president" has a bad taste. Historically, this was fairly common with kings & queens. England & Holland are both ruled by Queens now because of the strength of those particular women and the flimsiness of the men around them. It reminds me of the Egyptian female pharaohs Hatshepsut and Cleopatra. Women like that tend to scare the shit out of men and other women alike...

Plus, the people voted for Bill not Hillary.

I agree with your assessment of why people are suspicious of Senator Clinton, but I would argue that maybe this has less to do with the Senator and more to do with popular attitudes toward ambitious, powerful women. President Clinton is an adult and a capable man in his own right. I do not believe that he ran for office as a result of some kind of nefarious manipulation of his wife. To see this from a different perspective, why couldn't it be equally likely that a man marries a smart, accomplished, savvy woman to whom he isn't attracted because he sees her as an asset in planning his political career. Because he isn't all that in love with her, he never takes the vows of fidelity seriously, but knows that because she has her own political ambitions she will be face a very difficult choice of being a woman who leaves her family and a woman who allows herself to be trounced on.

Now I don't honestly think that this is what Bill was thinking when he married Hillary. I wrote the above as a sort of devil's advocate/gedankenexperiment. I think theirs may be one of the more complicated marriages between public officials in American history (though I don't think the Regans, the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, and a few others are far behind). My point is that viewing the situation entirely as a result of Sen. Clinton's machinations reflects a deep level of sexism and misogyny in our culture.

What? Are you saying that Oprah isn't admirable? Angelina Jolie? These are ambitious women who use their power to help people. Obama could have gone to work in one of the country's biggest law firms after being editor-in-chief of the Harvard Law Review, but, instead, he organized the largest voter registration drive in Chicago. What did Clinton do after law school? She worked for a private law firm and was on the board of Wal-Mart. Why didn't she release her White House papers? Who keeps talking about her competition instead of herself? Am I suspicious of Clinton's motives? You bet.

You make a good point, but I'm certainly no constitutional lawyer. I'm honestly not sure what to make of the legal implications. On the one hand, we have the old adage, "two heads are better than one". Obviously this may not be necessarily true. For instance, I'm sure that Barbara Bush is intelligent, but I doubt that she could make coherent argument for or against any of GHW Bush's policies.

Perhaps we need to do a better job of vetting our candidate's spouses and gauge their influence before voting. Just from my memory of Bill Clinton's elections, I got the impression that Hillary would be a major influence on his administration. I do not get the same impression from any of the candidates today.

Well, I learned to trust my instincts and for the most part that philosophy has served me fairly well. Bottom line, you may be correct in your instincts about Hilary and should vote your convictions. I don't get that feeling from her, but I've not always been right.

I agree totally with your assessment.

I don't think it represents sexism at all. I think Bill is smarmy, and Hillary too.

Her assertion of "co-presidency", actually made or implied, does bring up leagal issues - if she was privy to all the information she purports, where is the security classification? She could go to jail for having the information without it, and her husband for sharing it with her. If she didn't see all the classified info, she was basically in the same boat as all of us who read the newspapers.

Experience?

I'm not clear whether your advocating for Obama or against Clinton. It's true she could have made different choices in her career. Making a decision about whether to vote for her by comparing her career to Obama's is valid. Not voting for her b/c she's a manipulative megalomaniac who somehow tricked Bill Clinton into running for the Presidency in order to set up her campaign is ludicrous. To be fair, I don't think that the previous poster who portrayed her as such meant it literally, but I do think that the point was that Sen. Clinton's ambitiousness makes her seem manipulative. My point is that it's no more manipulative than many men who are successful in politics. For what it's worth, I personally think that someone who decides to run for President after just two years in the Senate is not someone who's dedicated his entire career to helping people, but rather someone with very ambitious personal aspirations toward greatness and power. I also don't think that is a reason not to elect a person, I just think that it's inaccurate to portray Obama as a saint. It's also beside the point to the question of whether people's perception of Hillary Clinton is sexist or not.

The two women you describe as being admirable and ambitious are both in roles that are very much in tune with our cultural ideals of femininity. Of course no one has problems with them...they are not threatening to enter traditionally male-dominated fields. How many powerful female politicians in this country are equally uncontroversial? Not Nancy Pelosi for sure. If people have a problem with the Clintons as a pair, I can respect that. But there is nothing I've ever seen to suggest that anything Senator Clinton has done in her career is any less self-serving than what her husband did.

Also, and I'm trying to figure out where I initially read this (if anyone has a link that'd be great), while Sen. Clinton was on the Wal-Mart board she pushed to decrease the carbon footprint of the chain and Wal-Mart adopted policies that drastically (10% I think) reduced their energy consumption. Of course it's a complicated question to ask what one should make of her membership on the board of a chain that for many is synonymous with evil...but it might also indicate a very different pathway toward effecting change. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em and change them from within.

And just to be clear about where I'm coming from, I'm fairly undecided about this election because honestly I see major flaws with both Clinton and Obama (Edwards is a whole separate issue). But I do think that at the very least both candidates deserve to be examined on their merits. And if there are deep-seated prejudices that are coloring people's views, then those should be examined openly as well.

In case anyone is interested, I found the NYT article I was thinking of about Sen. Clinton's tenure on the Wal-Mart board. As always, things are more complicated than what can be conveyed in 2 second sound bite.

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This, more than anything else, made me take a second look at her. There is quite a bit to be said for someone who joins the board of the corporation that is maybe the most reviled by the left and is able to effect some change toward progressive issues. Throwing rocks from the outside has a very different impact from leaning against boulders on the inside, but I think both are important.

If you think you was a "co-president" you are simply wrong. Factually, provably incorrect.

It has come out that Hillary did not even have a security clearance.

She has the calculating vibe of someone who pushed her husband into the highest office and exerted unparalleled influence over his policies.

If you think that then you need to get your vibe receptors adjusted. It was Bill, not Hillary, who was the Rhodes scholar. When they got married it was Hillary who followed Bill to his home state, not the other way around.

She's smart and has always been a trusted advisor. That's about it.