I say, "good for her!"....

[bliss_eternal]

From NBC's Lauren Appelbaum

Campaigning in Indianapolis for her mother, Chelsea Clinton had a quick retort when asked a question she had never had before. When a male student asked her if her mother's credibility had been hurt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton quickly responded.

"Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question, in the, maybe 70 college campuses that I've been to," Clinton bitterly said at Butler University. "And I don't think that's any of your business."

-------------------------------snip----------------------------------
excerpt from:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/25/807581.aspx?GT1=43001

Apparently, some are surprised that Chelsea Clinton was short with someone when asked about the Lewinsky scandal. :eyes:

This is one of the issues I will continue to mourn about this culture. The fact that people believe that nothing is off limits. There was a time that some issues and topics were considered in poor taste to ask people. In these days of celebrity stalking, reality tv, blogging and myspace too many have forgotten, (or maybe they just never knew) that not every person on the planet wants to share their personal life with the masses. Every person that is part of the "public domain" isn't obliged or interested in having intimate details of their life discussed and analyzed by strangers.

Sorry, but I don't go in for the belief that "public people" are obliged to kiss that aspect of their lives good-bye.

Chelsea Clinton had no choice in her parent's life decisions, and the fact they became "politicians." Just because people lack the ability to discern that it's tacky to ask her questions about what had to be an incredibly difficult time in her life, doesn't mean she should be seen as the bad person here. Shame on the idiot that went there and asked her such a brain-dead question.

Ok--I'm done. lol.

:rant:

(edited to add excerpt from story, in case the link is changed/deleted, etc.)

[Ellen Forradalom]

1. It's an inane question on the face of it

How the hell does it hurt Hillary's credibility?

That's besides the fact that it's insanely personal. Jeez.

[bliss_eternal]

2. I'm guessing here...

...but I get the sense that many of today's college students don't understand that(about it being a very personal question). They may not understand boundaries or that some things are personal, private and not open for discussion. Given that the media frequently will ask incredibly personal questions of people in the public eye, I don't think they understand how inappropriate it is.

We may live in a media saturated society that asks, but that doesn't mean they are entitled to a response. Just because we live in a world that spreads Britney Spears personal life across the front page, doesn't mean it's "news" or the world's business to know.

Also, given that this generation frequently shares it's most personal moments with the world through blogs, I don't get the sense that they have any respect for "privacy."

[Deep13]

11. Some people seem to think she had a duty to divorce Bill...

...as if his little flings were any threat to their marriage.

[iverglas]

13. and some people *actually* think she had a duty

to object to the abuse of power by a man to exploit women under his authority. And some people really don't give a crap about the Clintons' marriage.

But straw folk are so much easier to dispatch.

[Deep13]

14. I'm not going to rehash those events, especially since none of us are witnesses..

But I agree that straw targets are the easiest.

[spooky3]

18. I'd say that was the duty of the men in power near him, if anyone had it.

But we rarely hold employed men in power accountable for failing to object, even though they often have far more power than women do. In this case, I think it is asking for far too much to ask a wife to play what would be an extraordinarily painful role.

[iverglas]

21. hmm

If there were only men in power near him, then fine. I think there were some women, too.

I absolutely agree that much can be laid at the doorstep of people who surround powerful people and do nothing to stop their destructive and self-destructive behaviours. Particularly when it is the public who is the ultimate victim, as it is when someone like Bill Clinton behaves in these ways.

How could anyone have been in the inner circle of an Elliot Spitzer and done nothing to stop him from doing what he was doing? How could anyone in that position not have felt a duty to the public to keep a Spitzer from self-destructing? Do such people surround themselves only with sycophants?

That seems to be a benefit of the parliamentary / party discipline system such as we have up here in Canada. No individual holds such centralized power as some do in the US, and the party itself exercises a whole lot more control over any elected individual's behaviour than ever happens in the US.

As far as asking a wife to play a painful role ... I'm sorry, but Hilary Clinton is/was not "a wife", she was -- in any event, she chooses to portray herself as -- a mover and shaker in the halls of power of her husband's administration. And I don't actually care how painful it might have been to reject his behaviour. She had made the choice to be associated with him, and reaped the quite huge benefits of association with him, and in my books she didn't then just get to avoid any negatives arising out of that association. Standing up for a principle might have cost her something, but then standing up for principles often costs people who do it something. Whether they do it anyway can give us an idea of how important the principle is to them. And yes, obviously, we also have to consider how high the cost would be and whether it is fair for us to expect someone to bear it.

I'm certainly willing to entertain the idea that the cost in this case would not have been just to Hilary Clinton; just as Spitzer's fall cost the public, so could the exclusion of one or both of the Clintons from the public arena in future have cost the public. And so the cost to be considered isn't just the pain to HC as wife. But I'm just not really willing to entertain the idea that she did not have a duty, as a supposed feminist and all that jazz, to acknowledge the obvious wrongdoing by BC, even if there may be arguments that the cost of acting on that duty, to someone other than herself, would have outweighed the benefits of doing so.

Obviously that's a hard argument to make in public -- that she didn't lose credibility over the whole thing by not taking a principled stand, because it was more important to the public that she and her husband not be excluded from the public arena. It may be a very good argument, and I suspect we all think it has at least some merit; it's just pretty difficult to make it sound like it's not self-promoting. So yeah, the question itself looks like a bit of a dirty trick. Except when we remember that Bill Clinton and no one else was the author of his own behaviour, and Hilary Clinton was the maker of her own decisions, and they both ought to have been prepared to deal with it. If there was nothing wrong with what he did and how she reacted, dandy; let them say so. If there was, let them deal with the consequences.

Whether "we" do or do not hold men in power accountable for anything just doesn't seem to be an issue to me in this instance. Find me one who needs to be held accountable, and I'll gladly hold him accountable.

[iverglas]

3. huh

When a male student asked her if her mother's credibility had been hurt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton quickly responded.

"Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question, in the, maybe 70 college campuses that I've been to," Clinton bitterly said at Butler University. "And I don't think that's any of your business."

Chelsea Clinton's opinion about whether Hillary Clinton's credibility was damaged by something is "none of (his) business"?

That doesn't even make sense.

CC's feelings about the event, or CC's knowledge of HC's feelings about the event, might be none of his business.

But CC's opinion about the effects on HC's credibility? Maybe not a particularly useful or interesting thing to know -- who cares about CC's opinion about her mother's credibility? -- but hard to see how it's none of anyone's business.

In my eyes, the whole thing certainly did damage her credibility. It made her look like someone who would say and do pretty much anything to stay at the pinnacle of, and on the path to, power. And I don't especially like people like that, or find them credible when they claim to be acting in my interests ...

And I think that the credibility of someone claiming to be acting people's interests is kind of the business of the people s/he whose interests s/he is claiming to act in, and whom s/he is asking to vote for him/her.

Somebody probably needs to sit Chelsea Clinton down and explain to her how to understand what is being said to her and respond to it without sounding like a spoiled child.

[ThomCat]

4. That guy got off lightly.

What a totally ridiculous and rude question.

How in the world do Bill Clinton's actions have anything to do with Hillary Clinton's credibility? She's not responsible for his actions.

I think he was announcing a hell of a lot about how he thinks, and probably doesn't realize it.

[iverglas]

5. I'm not getting it

How in the world do Bill Clinton's actions have anything to do with Hillary Clinton's credibility? She's not responsible for his actions.

I didn't think the question had anything to do with his actions.

The question was whether Chelsea Clinton thought that her mother's credibility had been hurt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

I assumed the subject matter was Hillary Clinton's actions, not her husband's: the way in which she dealt with the events. She denied the relationship that was later established, she stood by her man in circumstances in which any self-respecting woman would have thrown him out and got exclusive possession of the matrimonial home.

It's a hugely complex issue. If the only way a woman can get to the top is on a man's coattails, should she not make the attempt because it involves subordinating one's own interests and aspirations to his? because it involves demeaning one's self when the man pulls the coattails out from under one by doing things like Bill Clinton did? At what point does one just get off the coattails and abandon the attempt to reach the pinnacle? What if one really has an important contribution to make to the world and the only way the world will get it is if one plays the game the only way one is allowed to play it -- by riding the coattails? Is that really the only way to play it? Is there some identifiable point at which what is being given up obviates what can be gained? If a woman makes it to the top by riding on the coattails of a man who treats women like shit and is complicit in what he does, has anything been gained anyway?

I'm hardly the first to ask the questions. What I don't see is why nobody should ask them.

[Ellen Forradalom]

7. I dispute your assertion

"..any self-respecting woman would have thrown him out and got exclusive possession of the matrimonial home."

Really? You're assuming a lot here. Hers was no ordinary marriage. The "matrimonial home" was the White House. And sometimes people stay married because, oh, they like their spouse? For example, my parents were intellectual partners and the best of friends, but awkwardly matched physically. They had their struggles, including affairs, but worked out their salvation with diligence. Should the Clintons be denied their own life-long process?

I think you demean both women and men when you assume that a 'self-respecting' woman should throw a hissy fit and set her husband's things at the curb if he fucks someone else--or vice versa. Some people are just not that brittle.

[bliss_eternal]

8. I agree

with your comments about women. Given that I only see IGNORED, I'm not entirely sure what you're responding to. ;) But based on what you've shared, I wanted to say I support and back your stance, 100%. Well said, btw.

I get frustrated by some of the posts around here, that seem yet another form of condemning women. As if there is "one way" to be a woman. It seems limiting and judgemental.

[iverglas]

10. ah, that's just so cute!

Given that I only see IGNORED, I'm not entirely sure what you're responding to.

Me, I kinda think that if people are going to flounce off in huffs, they should stay flounced. If they want to comment on something said on the board, they should make sure thay can see it before relying on someone else's mischaracterization of it and making silly noises.

:) ;) ;) ;)


I get frustrated by some of the posts around here, that seem yet another form of condemning women. As if there is "one way" to be a woman. It seems limiting and judgemental.

My my my my my.

And here it was looking kind of that way to me! Only "one way" to be a whatever, and I just ain't it.

"Limiting and judgmental". Pot, kettle, etc.

[iverglas]

9. yeah, well, that was a little joke

Really? You're assuming a lot here. Hers was no ordinary marriage. The "matrimonial home" was the White House.

Haha. Oh well.


I think you demean both women and men when you assume that a 'self-respecting' woman should throw a hissy fit and set her husband's things at the curb if he fucks someone else--or vice versa. Some people are just not that brittle.

Yeah, well, I think you demean me when you distort my words that way in an attempt to trivialize what I said. Oh well.

Of course, most importantly, you trivialize what Mr. Clinton did, which amounted to an on-going, life-long abuse of power and exploitation of women. We all know perfectly well what our reaction to a Republican corporate CEO who behaved the way he did would be.

Nothing at all, really, to do with "fucking someone else". But I guess some might need to characterize it as such for purposes of their own.

A woman who wants to be thought of as a feminist and remains married to a man who engages in a decades-long pattern of sexual harassment and exploitation just might have some credibility problems in some people's eyes. She does in mine. And if I were a voter in the US, and maybe a Democrat in particular, I wouldn't be too impressed by Chelsea Clinton telling me that Hillary Clinton's decisions in this regard were none of my business.

[BlueIris]

6. Holy shit.

And I will join you in posting, "Good for her."

What an asshole.

[ismnotwasm]

12. Good answer

Or she could have said "No. Next?" (Of course then the press would have ripped her apart for being rude, avoident, defensive blah blah blah)

Watching the video, I see that she did an excellent job of putting a stopper on a question--although the video didn't show the question part, I would have liked to see it-- that was at it's best, we'll say unthought out, and it's worst from a vicous little shit with an fucked up agenda.

I see the debate in this thread on whether it was a legitimate question, the "credibility" part. Seeing the video, I completely understand why Ms. Clinton answered the way she did. She doesn't have to answer a question that is probably intensely personal, most likely painful. No matter what she answered, it would have been fodder for those who dislike he mother.

[bliss_eternal]

15. Exactly....

Quote:
No matter what she answered, it would have been fodder for those who dislike he mother.

No win situation for the woman, or the daughter.

[spooky3]

17. agree

[spooky3]

16. Totally agree. What I don't get is

why this seems to be such a COMPLICATED issue to some progressive (mostly male) pundits and others. Here's my simple-minded take on it:

1) No one is demanding that people self-censor rude and irrelevant questions, even though in a polite society, they WOULD. But the flip side of this is that the candidate's surrogates have no responsibility to answer such questions or to make people feel good when they decline to answer.
2) Chelsea is doing exactly what an etiquette columnist would recommend, other than maybe Miss Manners, who might suggest that she give a cold stare and ask, "why in the world would you ask such a question of me?" My problem with Miss Manners is that she sometimes seems not to understand that people so clueless or boorish to behave like this really don't get it when you are shutting down a line of inquiry in that way and would simply respond with a list of reasons why they are asking or worse, attack Chelsea. (But I could be wrong about this!)
3) These questions are often asked of women and of Democrats, but not so much with male Republicans. For example, how many times have Bush's representatives been asked about Laura Bush's drinking and driving? Guess we expect women to be people pleasers.
4) If Bill Clinton had taken the same approach years ago when asked about personal issues, he might not have had to deal with all the perjury allegations etc. Sometimes it is better to let people think you are mean and not as open as they want you to be than to say more than you must and give them too much rope.

[bliss_eternal]

19. A former mentor's response....

...to personal questions (i.e. age, weight, relationships, etc.) was,"...Is it your manners, or your business?" When she got the inevitable blank stare, she'd follow up with,"...is it your bad manners that makes you ask me such an inappropriate question? Or is my personal life somehow your business?"

I'm not ashamed to say that I've adopted this response a few times. Feels good to say, actually.

So many women get labeled a bitch, uncooperative, rude, difficult, etc. just because they dare to call people on their gender bias---by NOT playing the game. Women also seem to get such labels because they seem unapologetically ambitious and/or passionate about their work.

For example, Bjork (musician) was labeled difficult and uncooperative with the press because she won't answer questions about her personal relationship and children. I believe she has responded, "...would you ask a man that?"

Of course they wouldn't, but it pissed off the press, who are frequently inclined to ask women about their personal lives, and men about their work. :eyes:

[bliss_eternal]

20. I wonder...

if a time will come, when the people that feel so strongly about "total disclosure" will rethink that stance? I wonder what the repurcussions will be when the Myspace generation comes of age?

Will they learn that total disclosure is not equivalent to intimacy?

Will there be some awful backlash based on regret of all they've exposed of themselves to the world, via the on-line world?