Dear Editors of The New York Times,
I wonder what you could have meant by publishing today the truly curious story, "Clintons Balance Married and Public Lives," found on page 1, or on the front of the NYT's website. It's not that the Clintons are not important: they are, for many Americans, a beloved former First Family. Any thinking person understands that a major political figure's marriage is newsworthy: how that marriage endures the travails of office and home is important, particularly for a president. But what is curious is not that the Clintons' marital stability is newsworthy. What is curious is that this sort of thing is news today when it apparently wasn't in 1992.
Those of us with recollective faculties not dulled by grinding revisionism or sundry opiates recall that when Mr. Clinton campaigned for president in 1992, his sexual peccadilloes (alleged, of course) were dismissed as nobody's business but Mr. Clinton and his wife's. Shrewd defenders of then-candidate Clinton opined that what mattered was not his performance (or lack thereof) in the bedroom, but his abilities in the Oval Office (which he eventually used somewhat like a bedroom, or so it is rumored). Privacy trumped publicity in these matters: if the Clintons could live with his foibles, what business was it of ours to perseverate on his infidelity? Bill Clinton was running for the office of the nation's president, after all, not the office of National Husband. Leave his alleged womanizing to the Clintons' own care.
Of course, the nation largely did go silent about the Clintons, particularly after Mrs. Clinton's apparent "stand by your man" moment on CBS' 60 Minutes. As we all know, millions of people accepted the argument that a man was bigger than his marriage (and that, believe it or not, was why Mr. Clinton found room for that bigness outside of his wedding vows). But there were many questions ignored by the American electorate: Would you want in the Oval Office a President dealing with divorce litigation? Would you want jaunting here and there in Air Force One a President locked in a custody battle? Would you want in the White House a President standing at a state dinner as cuckold to his wife's illicit affair? Would you want a President parading mistresses through Camp David? If such questions were ever posed to the electorate in 1992, they were asked in a whisper.
But alas, a new question arises for the electorate, and The New York Times has asked it: How will Bill and Hillary's marriage affect Hillary's bid for the White House? There is something almost Solomonic about the question, for it carries with it a very interesting proposition, namely, that Hillary Clinton's candidacy for president (should she run) is sui generis, with a former two-term president at her side. But why should this unique inquiry into marriage matter now when it did not seem to matter 14 years ago? Is it merely because of the near-royal status applied to the Clintons? Or is it representative of a double standard, one that treats a man differently than a woman when it comes to running for high office? With Bill's former presidency, impeachment and peccadilloes stipulated as unique facts, why does it matter how Hillary handles their complex marriage if privacy always trumps publicity? Or is this a concession by The New York Times that privacy surely does matter in many public circumstances, with the presidency being the most important public circumstance?
My guess is that The New York Times has probably not thought all of this through. But I also suspect that there is a latent double standard here. I mean, we all know that married men fool around; we all know that many folks believe that men, especially powerful ones, SHOULD fool around. A great woman will always stand alongside her notoriously unfaithful husband if he is in all other aspects a notoriously great man. But women in power? Well, perhaps their marital lives should be more stable and palatably traditional. Maybe a powerful woman should distance herself from her husband's infidelity, unless, of course, that husband is running for president, and then she should work it out in private (by sticking with him through his thick and thin). And while the standard commentary since 1992 is that Bill Clinton benefited from his spouse's closeness during his candidacy and presidency, the NYT seems to be suggesting that Mr. Clinton as spouse can only help his wife by staying away. That paradox, I am afraid to say, looks a lot like a double standard indeed.
Sincerely,
©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
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