|
The Harvard Salient |
October 21, 1996 |
ast week, when
Hillary Clinton stopped in at the Institute of Politics, she took her
audience on a brief, but amusing trip down memory lane, remarking, "I
spent a lot of time on the Harvard campus when I was a Wellesley
student." She apparently started hunting early, and while her heart
may have been captured by a humble boy from Hope, I for one suspect
that her college days are not long forgotten.
The earliest notable incarnation of Mrs. Clinton's thought can be found in her commencement speech as president of the Wellesley College Government Association on May 31, 1969. Miss Rodham claimed that "the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible." This seems to be a particularly clear and concise goal of big government as well as an argument for its further aggrandizement. After all, the realm of the "impossible" is certainly unlimited.
She and her classmates arrived at Wellesley, she explained, "not
yet knowing what was possible. Consequently we expected a lot ... so
we ... found, all of us have found, that there was a gap between
expectation and realities. But it wasn't a discouraging gap, and it
didn't turn us into cynical, bitter old women at the age of 18. It
just inspired us to do something about that gap." Lucky for all of
us. Back then Miss Rodham had a slightly different conception of the
impossible: protesting "rigid academic distribution requirements" and
working to make sure that Wellesley students could cross-register at
MIT. It is interesting to note that not even Miss Rodham's reign as
student government president involved the comprehensive domestic and
foreign policy issues that our own UC chooses to tackle. 
Mrs. Clinton did ask, "What does it mean to hear that 13.3% of the people in this country are below the poverty line?" She spared us her specific solutions in this speech, but her college education did not go to waste. She can turn out a meaningless sociological statement as fast as any Harvard student: "We're not interested in social reconstruction; it's human reconstruction. How can we talk about percentages and trends? The complexities are not lost in our analyses, but perhaps they're just put into what we consider a more human and eventually more progressive perspective."
Mrs. Clinton realized, upon getting to the Oval Office, that the American people can certainly be bamboozled &emdash; but they need a catchier phrase. What was once the participation of a community in "human reconstruction" has now become "It takes a village to raise a child." Mrs. Clinton may need to expand her repertoire a bit, though. She used this new, exciting cliché at least one time too many in her speech at the IOP. However, listening to the questions from the audience was even more painful. Woman after woman got up and described her particular "village" to the audience. In response, Mrs. Clinton made sure to point out that when she said "village" she didn't mean it only in the "geographical sense," in case her listeners hadn't understood the metaphor the first time.
Mrs. Clinton is very proud of her new role as the promoter of the village and the nation's foremost crusader for the cause of children. (As part of that crusade, she and her colleagues at the Children's Defense Fund have managed to make the abstraction of "children" a useful excuse for the existence of the nanny state.) Mother Teresa certainly does have a lot to learn from this selfless woman. Over the years, she recalled, many people had asked her why she had stayed in politics when it is so difficult and frustrating. Similarly, she told her classmates at Wellesley, "What we did [staging protests] is often difficult for some people to understand. They ask us quite often 'Why, if you're dissatisfied, do you stay in a place?'" She explained to her IOP audience that anyone who has ever been part of a group that is working for change, such as a church group or a marriage, understands that it can be difficult, but you have to "hold on" and keep at it. Like a worn-out Wilson Phillips record, Mrs. Clinton is an inspiration to us all.
As the years went by, it is clear that Mrs. Clinton's understanding of the "impossible" expanded in more ways than one. She not only sees all sorts of new opportunities for the government to work "side by side with the people," but she now has the added task of controlling that irksome spouse of hers who keeps thinking he was the one elected president. To the extent that one can ascertain this formidable woman's goals, they sounded somewhat more interesting in 1969. They perhaps had a certain nobility to them that her statements now, in the shadow of the various White House scandals, cannot. Twenty-seven years ago, she was "searching for more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating modes of living." Perhaps she had it right back then, and perhaps this is a more appropriate role for the First Lady than saving the world &emdash; or worse, the American health care system. If Mrs. Clinton feels the need to start a "national conversation," far be it from me to object, but if she wants to make sure that "everyone is responsible" for ensuring that we live "in an America that lives up to its reputation in the world," she may wish to have a little talk with herself first.
he words
"integrity, trust and respect" appear together frequently in her
commencement speech. In her quest to achieve the "impossible" Mrs.
Clinton may need to read it over one more time for good measure.
"There's that mutuality of respect between people where you don't see
people as percentage points. Where you don't manipulate people. Where
you're not interested in social engineering for people. The struggle
for an integrated life existing in an atmosphere of communal trust
and respect is one with desperately important policital and social
consequences."