[News] Hillary's I Don't Give a Damn Campaign

[Anti-Imperialist News]

May 27, 2008
http://www.counterpunch.org/day05272008.html


Hillary's I Don't Give a Damn Campaign


Gone with the W

By SUSIE DAY

Hillary Rodham Clinton was not a liberal, but the 
news media seldom realized it when surrounded by 
campaign placards and press kits, as a throng of 
reporters in the Oval Office were on this bright, cold day in January 2009.

"Fiddle dee dee, I can't tell you people apart," 
chirped Hillary, her blue eyes fluttering 
prettily near the top of her magnolia-white head. 
"Now, what did you come to interview me about? Immigration? Health care –"

Hillary paused, a wee worry line cracking her 
otherwise unmarred, alabaster forehead: "Or maybe 
you want to ask me how I got to be President 
after losing the Democratic nomination?"

The reporters clamored in the affirmative.

"I'll just think about that tomorrow," Hillary 
announced. "Now, shoo. I’ve got some administratin' to do!"

As Secret Service agents dragged the reporters 
away, Hillary settled back in her executive 
swivel chair and smiled. "Administratin'" – She 
liked the way she had learned to drop her "g's" 
at the end of gerunds and participles. Somehow, 
it had helped her vote for a war in Iraq and 
funding for an endless occupation. It also 
inspired trust in hard-working Americans – 
hard-working white Americans. Not so much in those shiftless "other" people.

Hillary was glad she'd once told the press that 
campaign support from "working, hard-working 
Americans, white Americans" had dwindled for her 
nonwhite opponent. And that "whites who had not 
completed college" supported her. Hillary sighed 
contentedly: It sure was nice, being a feminist.

Fiddle dee dee on the Middle East, recession, 
global warming: Didn't everyone know that 
identity politics was what the Presidential 
campaign had been about? Whether women or African 
Americans faced more discrimination? Didn't 
Gloria Steinem write in the New York Times that 
"the sex barrier is not taken as seriously as the 
racial one"? Hadn't Geraldine Ferraro stated that 
Barak Obama got preferential treatment because he 
was a Black man? Why, even a Mary Kay Cosmetics 
sales director in Ohio, declaring that women 
wouldn't accept "back-of-the-bus" status, 
organized a group of Democrats ­ mostly women ­ to campaign against Obama!

These brave feminists weren't afraid to act on a 
truth that Reality forbade them to speak: that 
while "African Americans" may occur in different 
genders, "women" were always white. Yes, 
Sisterhood was powerful – at least for 
"hard-working" women. Hillary had had to use 
every ounce of her money and influence, but 
finally she proved she was more oppressed, by being elected President.

Well. Maybe "elected" wasn't the best word. There 
were those sexist accusations that she had hacked 
some voting machines; the perennial charge that 
votes of "hard-working" Americans counted more 
than those of "non-hard-working" Americans. 
Fiddle dee dee on that, too. Her philandering, 
gun-running skunk of a hubby had the matter under 
control. He owed her that much.

Ecstatically, Hillary hugged herself around her 
37-inch waist and let out a warm, executive 
cackle. "Home!" she cried exultantly. "George 
Bush is gone and I'm home, to Tara – I mean, the 
White House – where I belong. I'll never be power-hungry again!"

Suddenly, her handsome little head was abuzz with 
all there was to do: print up new currency, 
privatize more highways, punish some 
superdelegates, arrange that cookie-baking photo op with Tammy Wynette 


Hillary rang for the White House maid, Pammy. 
Like most "hard-working" Americans, it took Pammy 
a little longer to appear than Hillary would have 
liked. Finally, she shuffled in. "Yeah, Ms. 
Hillary?" sighed Pammy, patting her hairdo.

"Oh, Pammy, I want you to wash the windows behind 
my desk," spoke Hillary crisply. "Then, if you 
could rip down those curtains and make me a nice 
pantsuit out of them. Now, don't dawdle so – I 
can read you white, hard-working people like a book."

Suddenly, shouts and the sound of gunfire erupted 
from the White House lawn. A Secret Service 
agent, shot in the chest, stumbled in, clutching 
a bloodstained note. Groaning from the competing 
pains of his bullet-wound and of being used as 
such a transparent plot device, he managed to 
gasp, "Telegram for the President," before 
collapsing. Hillary's administrative lips trembled as she read aloud:

"ANGRY MOB OUTSIDE [STOP] AMERICANS SICK OF WAR 
AND HOUSING CRISIS [STOP] WHENEVER ANY FORM OF 
GOVERNMENT BECOMES DESTRUCTIVE IT IS RIGHT OF THE 
PEOPLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT AND INSITUTE NEW 
GOVERNMENT [STOP] THAT'S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE TOOTS [STOP] RESIGN NOW"

Terrified, Pammy began rending her dish towel, in 
the amusing frenzy reserved for working-class 
stereotypes. "I don't know nothin' about birthin' 
no governments, Ms. Hillary!" she shrieked. "All 
I know is, you put a knife in the President to cut your pain in two –"

Pammy froze. Hoping to hell she hadn't just 
inadvertently reminded her boss of Bobby 
Kennedy's assassination, she scurried out.

But Hillary Rodham Clinton only smiled. It was 
3:00 p.m. in the White House and she was alone – 
alone with her feminism. Of course, she suspected 
terrorists. She remembered her old campaign 
promise about obliterating Iran. Shouldn't she 
have equal opportunity to use a military ploy any 
male President would use to distract Americans from social change?

Her lily, feminist hand reached for the red 
phone. For a second, she thought she heard the 
voices of 71 million Iranians, wordlessly begging 
for their lives. But what were they, compared to 
one hard-working woman's right to be President?

"Frankly, my dears," said Hillary under her breath, "I don't give a damn."

Susie Day can be reached at: <mailto:sday at skadden.com>sday at skadden.com

©  Susie Day, 2008




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