Unlikely Words

The progressive case for John Edwards:

The world is gaping with awe – and disbelief – at the prospect of a black or female President of the United States. If George Bush symbolises everything we hate about the United States, Barack Obama seems to symbolise everything we love about the country: its warm openness to immigrants, its shimmering civil rights movements, its idealism. So it feels strange to say it, but reader, it’s time to look away from the woman and the black guy towards the white man from the Deep South – because he is more left-wing, and more electable, than either of them.

You might remember John Edwards as the plastic vice-presidential candidate standing at John Kerry’s wooden side in 2004. Back then, he offered anodyne Clintonian soundbites and centrist platitudes – but losing to Bush yet again did something strange to him. It turned him into an angry whistle-blower, exposing the corruption consuming both of Washington’s parties.

He explained: “I have seen the seamy underbelly of what happens in Washington every day. If you’re Exxon Mobil and you want to influence what’s happening with the government, you go and hire one of these big lobbying firms. This is what you find. About half the lobbyists are Republicans, and about half the lobbyists are Democrats. If the Republicans are in power, the Republican lobbyists take the lead, passing the money around. If the Democrats are in power, the Democratic lobbyists take the lead. They’re pushing the same agenda for the same companies. There’s no difference.”

The feminist case against Hillary Clinton:

When John Edwards stepped up to the podium to concede victory to Barack Obama, he said, “The one thing that is clear here in Iowa is that the status quo lost and change won.” I do not want a feminism that is part of the status quo, and so I do not want the first woman president to be a Clintonian. Every time Hillary Clinton puts on the mantle of the Bill Clinton presidency and reminds us of how important it is to be practical and work with the other side to get things done, I think of every cowardly practical choice that Bill Clinton (or should I say the Clintons together) made. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” sellout of gays in the military; the abandonment of Lani Guinier; a failed healthcare reform package that would have sacrificed women’s reproductive health to the Catholic Church’s demands as moral arbiter; a welfare reform bill that actually hurt poor women and their families; and presidential approval of a permanent ban on Medicaid funds for poor women seeking abortions.

The women’s movement, along with other progressive movements, did little to challenge the Clinton administration to live up to its campaign promises. And now it seems that the longtime women’s movement is falling into the same trap over Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Just read the feckless and stale defense of Clinton’s record on the war posted on the National Organization for Women’s Web site to get a sense of how willing some in the feminist establishment are to defend any woman, regardless of her track record.

But some women aren’t buying it. We’d like to see a woman president, but more than anything we want to be able to say at the end of the first woman’s tenure in the highest political office that it really mattered. That the first woman president did things no man would have done, that feminist values were at the core of her decisions — and that the country was on the road to further transformation.