You’ve Come A Long Way From Serving Cookies, Hillary!

Like Her Or Not, Trust Her Or Not – Hillary Clinton Struck A High Note For Women This Last Week Of July

A Brief Commentary by Doug Draper

Posted July 29^th, 2016 on Niagara At Large

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton often said half kiddingly – but maybe not kiddingly at all – that his wife and long-time political partner Hillary is the smarter of the two.

And who would doubt him now.

This past Tuesday, July 26^th, 2016, during a week of Democratic Party convention pageantry in the City of Philadelphia where America’s ‘founding fathers’ (with not a single ‘founding mother’ in the bunch) gathered together 240 years ago to cut the cord between their United States and mother England, Hillary Clinton received the blessing of more than 2,000 delegates to be the first woman ever chosen by a major party to run for the U.S. presidency.

Hillary Clinton, bowing to calls from opponents that as First Lady in 1993, she should be baking cookies, not working with her president/husband on health care policies.

Hillary Clinton’s nomination is, without any doubt, a milestone achievement in the ongoing struggle for gender equality and comes close to 100 years after women were finally granted the right nationally to vote in the United States. And it comes 23 years after Hillary, a former Senator and Secretary of State who was First Lady during her husband Bill’s presidency at the time, felt compelled to serve plates of chocolate chip cookies to members of the White House press corp. a few days before Christmas, 1993.

Hillary, who was a practicing lawyer of some note before moving into the White House wither her hubby, put herself through this humiliation after political enemies of the Clintons – accusing her of overstepping the traditional bounds of a First Lady by helping her husband draft what would unfortunately turn out to be an ill-fated plan for providing affordable health care coverage to millions of Americans who did not have it -said she should stick to doing things like baking cookies instead.

So there we were with photos in major newspapers of Hillary, looking humiliated indeed, serving platters of cookies to the White House news hounds with Bill sitting there, chomping away on one in the background. She might just as well have been doing it while wearing a neck collar and leash.

Yet it seems all too typical of the greasy pole, hard to get a grip on kind of conduct both Clinton have demonstrated time and time again when faced with a choice between pandering or backing away versus standing their ground on truth and principle.

‘Did you ever smoke marijuana,’ Bill was asked during his 1992 run for the presidency. ‘I once put a joint in my mouth but I didn’t inhale,” he responded in a statement that defied almost all credulity. When pressed during his presidency to pass legislation making it legal for openly gay men and women to serve in the armed forces, his gutless response was to introduce a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.

Hillary has employed the same sort of calculated strategies focused more on shoring up her own fortunes rather than pursuing principled positions on behalf of everyday people.

It’s the reason why it makes sense for Bernie Sanders and his millions of supporters to keep pressure on her to steer a progressive course, even while voting for her in this fall’s presidential election to keep that dangerous screwball Trump from getting anywhere near the Oval Office.

Having said all that, let’s give Hillary her historic moment and appreciate what a milestone it is in a world where when she was still a child back in the 1950s, the idea of a girl growing up to be an engineer or doctor, let alone the leader of a nation, seemed incomprehensible.

Hillary’s nomination by a major party this last week of July to run for the U.S. presidency was followed by a moving moment when she appeared on a large screen at the convention to express her appreciation.

“What an incredible honor you have given me and I can’t believe we’ve just put the biggest crack in that glass ceiling yet,” she said. “And if there are any little girls out there who stayed up late to watch, let me just say, I may become the first woman president, but one of you is next”

Here is the video of that moment

Now here is hoping that political revolution continues and all of the Bernie Sanders supporters out there will keep Hillary’s feet to the fire!

Never ever stop Feeling the Bern!

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“A politician thinks of the next election. A leader thinks of the next generation.” – Bernie Sanders