Clinton Was Always a Bad Idea

OBAMA IS NOW extra inevitable, having snagged a majority of pledged delegates tonight. Of course, Hillary Clinton didn't mind sonning him in Kentucky for the hell of it, even if it meant palling around with some racists.

I'm not trying to get caught up in other people's narratives, all those feminist postmortems in the Sunday Times. Obama plays the charmed young prince stealing the job from a qualified older woman.

Maybe I have certain luxuries as a woman under thirty. I'm pretty confident that I'll see a woman become president. (I don't like "woman president." Sounds like some freakish hybrid--half woman! half president!--like the term itself is dubious about the concept.) I can understand that women of a certain age, like Nancy Franklin writing in the New Yorker, may fear they've missed their chance.

But ladies, think about it. This would have sucked. When I gather my granddaughter into my lap to reminisce on how a woman finally became president, do I really want to tell the sordid tale of Hillary Clinton? How'd she do it, Grandma? Well, munchkin, her husband got some brain from another lady and he gave her the presidency as make-up flowers!

NOT THAT I think Hillary Clinton is a terrible role model and should never be president because her husband is an asshole. There are plenty of better reasons why she's a terrible role model and should never be president.

Like: who is she? She's so reactive that it is impossible to locate her core. In college she was sixtiesed-out. In Arkansas and the White House she had shoulder pads with chips on them about having to play wifey. When the right wing was on her, she was a proud punching bag. When Bill cheated, she was the consummate victim. When she was contemplating a run for president, she turned hawkish for commander cred. This is not the leader women need.

Much of the talk emanating from heads these days is that she hit her stride late in the campaign when she went all woman-of-the-people. But this was just her finally figuring out what to react to, who to be in contrast with Obama.

Campaigning in Kentucky Monday, she said, "It's not, for me, the bright lights and the cameras." She does this for you, the little people!

He supposedly feeds off crowds and attention, so she's humble; he is beloved by latte liberals, so she stands with the common man; he's smooth and handsome, so she's dumpy and put-upon.

The only thing she knew how to be was a reaction. To a man. That's the least feminist thing ever.

BOOMER FEMINISTS are often skeptical of us younger women. They see traitorousness in our support for Obama and accuse us of being naively post-feminist, which they have decided means that we think sexism is over. (Never mind that they have staked out and defined feminism for forty years and we might want our own turf.) Boomers have a congenital need to sigh over the failures of the younger generation to be like they were.

No question that sexism is alive and well in America, as Hillary Clinton a little too gleefully declared in response to the "Iron my shirt" hecklers. (Are we totally sure they weren't a campaign plant?) I've gotten uncomfortable sometimes, watching the cable boys' clubs dissect her. I'd rather Chris-n-Keith avoid excessive use of sports metaphors.

But real talk: Obama won because he is the better candidate. It's not even debatable.

And I don't think we younger women are less feminist. We just have our own brand, in which you can shave your legs and eschew pantsuits. Not in which you support any candidate for woman-president. The right woman will come along.

Unrelatedly, I'm rooting for Kathleen Sebelius in the veepstakes.

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