Politics is brutal and anyone entering this arena needs a
hard, tough shell to survive. I thought of this while watching
news footage of Hillary Clinton's recent visit to Israel. She is
being racked over the coals for not objecting to Suha Arafat's
scathing accusations against our ally Israel.
Frankly, I thought that this media bashing was unfair because
Hillary was listening to Suha's diatribe through earphones for
the translation. It's hard enough understanding translations
directly without the added handicap of headphones. Besides, who
knows what the translator was actually saying? How do we know he
wasn't just saying, `You look Marvelous.''
Perhaps Hillary could have shown more indignation but since she
was there in a diplomatic capacity, I think she tried to do the
best she could under the circumstances so I'm willing to give her
the benefit of the doubt-this time.
I feel some sympathy for anyone having to endure evisceration by
the press but my heart really goes out to her daughter, Chelsea.
There she was, standing with a frozen smile next to her mother
while the cameras clicked away at them. Clearly this is not how a
nineteen year old college student wants to spend her days but it
is what is expected of this particular first daughter.
When the Monica Lewinsky scandal exploded last year, much concern
was expressed about the effect of the sordid mess on innocent
Chelsea. But mother Hillary assured the American public that
Chelsea was up to the challenge. In fact, she and Bill had been
preparing her for the nasty drawbacks of a political life since
she was a little girl.
Maybe some people were comforted by this information but I was
horrified by the details of what I consider borderline child
abuse. According to Christopher P. Andersen, author of Bill and
Hillary: The Marriage, this indoctrination of Chelsea began when
she was just six years old.
The Clintons were preparing for a messy 1986 reelection campaign
and since Chelsea could now read, they feared that she would
become aware of accusations made by the enemies of Clinton.
Hillary decided to playact certain scenarios at dinnertime to
prepare Chelsea for the upcoming negative campaign. While Chelsea
played the role of candidate Bill Clinton, her father and mother
would play his enemies and point their fingers at her and say
that Clinton was a bad man and they would not vote for ``him.''
They drove her to tears but their little soldier soon learned to
adjust to their finger pointing and jeers over several weeks of
drilling.
Andersen writes:
``Like two lawyers playing devil's advocate to prepare their star
witness for cross-examination, Bill and Hillary peppered Chelsea
with questions and insults until she was numb. "Our
role-playing," Hillary would later explain, "helped
Chelsea to experience, in the privacy of our own home, the
feelings of any person who sees someone she loves being
personally attacked.''
During one television interview during the Monica mess, Hillary
seemed proud of this preparation and successful training of her
little daughter who had learned the mastery of her own emotions.
Was I the only one who found this chilling?
I have no doubt that Hillary and Bill love their daughter Chelsea
as much as they possible can but I wonder if their parental
judgment hasn't been skewered by their massive political
ambitions. Was it easier to indoctrinate and prepare Chelsea for
scandal than to change Clinton's potentially scandalizing
behavior? Apparently.
In essence what they were really teaching Chelsea was this:
``Honey, you're going to hear a lot of nasty things said about
your father. Unfortunately, most of this things are true but
since he's not going to change, you'll have to be the one to
toughen up.''
Has Chelsea lived up to this challenge? Perhaps, but at what
cost? She has allegedly been hospitalized three times since the
scandal for what the White House claimed was the flu but what
sources say are actually stress related anxiety attacks. When
People Magazine ran a puff piece on Chelsea in their Feb. 15,
1999 issue, the Clintons complained about this was an invasion of
Chelsea's private life. Yet they do not seem to object to hauling
her out of Stanford to act as a public relations buffer whenever
a crisis explodes.
Chelsea is the innocent Clinton with no heavy baggage to inflame
a media frenzy. That's why I felt so sad watching her on her
mother's Israel jaunt. Is this what she really wants to do?
Shouldn't she be back at Stanford with her friends, trying to
live a normal life?
Instead, she wears that frozen smile on her face that never quite
reaches her eyes. She waves to the crowds and does her duty while
her mother beams at her.
We can expect to see a lot of Chelsea here in New York while her
mother campaigns for a senatorial seat especially if the New York
press clamps down hard on her. Break out the secret weapon. Bring
on Chelsea.
Her mother, Hillary Rodham Clinton said on NBC's ``Today'' show.
``She has seen many examples of it{scandal} in her short life. So
it's not a pleasant experience, but it's given her the sort of
grounding to be able to see what this is and get through it.''
``She was born and bred in the heat of battle,'' Clinton ally
Jesse Jackson has said of Chelsea, ``That contributed mightily to
her maturity.''
Seems to me that she's more of a pawn for her parent's ambitions
than a beloved child but maybe I'm wrong.
Perhaps, Chelsea really loves the excitement and challenge of a
good political battle. Perhaps she enjoys traveling around the
world to exotic cities and luxuriating in all the perks that
political power brings. Maybe she is stronger than I give her
credit for. Maybe she likes rescuing her parents from the nasty
press. Maybe she has developed political ambitions like both her
parents. Maybe she's learned her lessons too well. Could she be
Hillary II?
If that's the case, she and the nation have my deepest sympathy.