Is Hillary Power Hungry? Is that Bad?

Women who run for President shouldn’t be power hungry. And they should never forgive their husband if he has an extramarital affair, particularly if they want to run for President. Right wing talk radio? Michael Savage? Rush Limbaugh? No, a post by a “progressive” blogger.

“I can’t vote for someone who I perceive as so cravenly hungry for power that she’ll do absolutely anything to obtain it.” so says Carla over at Preemptive Karma.

While Carla says ” I can’t pretend to understand the goings on in people’s marriages” she savagely trashes Hillary for sticking with Bill anyway after the Monica Lewinsky affair. Carla ” can fathom no reason for staying in such a dysfunctional situation except to stay next to power.”

The vast right wing conspiracy loves you Carla. The right wing long ago launched a “Stop Hillary Movement” See efforts like Stop Hillary clothes at Cafe Press, Stop Hillary PAC, the Hillary Project -educate yourself on the most corrupt politician in recent history, Blogs Against Hillary, and on and on. The right wing is afraid of Hillary. Such right wing noise and fear mongering makes me suspicious of any anti -Clinton spin and so here’s my response to Carla which I posted on her site:

I truly don’t see that your argument makes sense. Maybe a different perspective is that Hillary leaving Bill would have added fuel and support to the mean spirited partisan right wing Republican power play to impeach Bill Clinton and push him out of office. Maybe it was more an act of courage to stay and deny the right wing satisfaction in their meddling in a family personal matter and trying to use it for their right wing political ends. In fact your link to wikipedia speaks to this – the vast right wing conspiracy.

As some who took after Clinton found out, they had things to hide also. Hillary Clinton was hardly the first person to be married to a straying husband who had sex with someone else.

If you ask me, your comments fall into the Republican game plan to have us buy into this idea that there is something wrong with Hillary both because she stayed with her husband and because now she wants to be President. Why is she being singled out as someone wanting power that we should judge as bad? Could it be that this is parroting back one of the Republican talking points to stop Hillary? Tell me the name of one candidate for President that doesn’t want power?

You have to want power to be able to reach your goals and implement your visions. Remember the event that did in Ted Kennedy’s 1980 attempt at running for President – the CBS Roger Mudd interview where he couldn’t explain why he wanted to be President?

If a candidate doesn’t have the drive and ambition to be President, do you think they’re going to run a strong campaign or be a strong President? Would you vote for a Democrat that didn’t have the passion to want to be President and that couldn’t persevere through adversity – including an extra marital affair of a spouse?

How about judging Hillary and the other candidates on what they say they want to do as President and whether they have what it takes to get elected and take this nation forward after the dismal Bush years? Let’s not buy into Republican spin mongering. That’s what this Hillary “power” trip thing is. It’s also a sexism thing because it supports the image that women wanting power are not O.K while men wanting power are OK.

Let’s not buy into Republican spin mongering. That’s what this Hillary “power” trip thing is. It’s also a sexism thing because it supports the image that women wanting power are not O.K while men wanting power are OK. Why is this discussion only about Hillary wanting power? Seems to me that this is what the Republican spin machine wants us to talk about. Its part of their stop Hillary campaign.

I looked up John McCain on nndb.com. It said “McCain had an extramarital affair with Cindy Lou Hensley, whose father owned Hensley & Co., a Phoenix-based liquor company that is the nation’s second largest Anheuser-Busch distributor. McCain and Shepp were divorced in 1980, and he married his millionaire mistress the following month” So is John McCain a better candidate for President?

Remember the Kerry criticism by the right wing of marrying into the Heinz family money. It’s all a matter of where you’re coming from politically as to whether it matters or not about the details of ones personal marital life it seems.

Or lets look at Gingrich who pushed for Clinton’s impeachment. “Gingrich has been married three times. In 1962, Gingrich married his first wife, Jackie Battley, resulting in the birth of two daughters. He began to discuss divorce with Jackie in 1981, while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. Gingrich married his second wife, Marianne Ginther, in the fall of 1981. [4] They divorced in 1999 because of her dislike for Washington D.C. and other difficulties. A year later, he married a House aide, Callista Bisek [5] amid rumors the two had an affair during his previous marriage, even while presiding over Clinton’s impeachment”