ANYONE WHO ISN’T HILLARY! In Presidential Politics, Demography Should Not Be Destiny
Hillary Clinton crows from a podium, “Wouldn’t you like to see a woman president?”
Frankly, no.
I’d like to see a good president. A trustworthy president. A president who reads and loves the Constitution. A president whose background is not littered with corruption, deception, malfeasance, and failure in office.
I would like to see a president who could make cogent arguments about real issues. A president who wouldn’t have to spend half the campaign explaining (or ignoring) the deaths of four Americans that happened on her watch, about which she lied in the immediate aftermath, for weeks afterward, and which she has never adequately explained—all the while ridiculing and laughing at people who would dare to ask her to do so.
I don’t care if my president is a woman or a man. White or black (or half of each) or Hispanic or Asian or whatever ethnicity I missed in that list. The only passion I insist my president have is for the Declaration, the Constitution, and the United States of America—because everything else important flows from those things. And it goes without saying that will be a person of faith—because no one loves the country like the people who understand who the “Creator” mentioned in the Declaration is, or why those truths are “self-evident,” or why we have a First Amendment that fiercely protects religious liberty.
What I don’t want is a president who needs a focus group, a dozen advisors, and a series of studies to determine what her opinions, feelings, or positions are. I don’t need a president who’s been plotting to get the office since the year 2000, pretended for eight years that nothing could be further from her mind, spent a sonorous term (and a bit) in the Senate doing virtually nothing, and couldn’t beat a guy with no discernible qualifications that had only been known by anyone outside Illinois for four years by the time he trounced her.
The country doesn’t need a president who drags behind her a “first man” who can’t be trusted alone in the White House with any woman—single or married—and who may at any minute erupt in embarrassing scandal that will introduce fascinating new forms of sexual perversion to our children via the news (if past is prologue). There are so many, many reasons why we do not need a Hillary Clinton they will not allot me sufficient words to cover them all in this space.
I have seen addle-brained young people, raised on the educational guidelines of Bill Ayers, and nurtured by Obama-loving teachers for the past eight years, interviewed on Youtube saying vacuous things like “Having a woman president would be a great thing for the United States and would show other countries how we can lead the way in diversity.”
Poppycock.
Having a woman leader is not a sign of modernity. Not having a woman leader is not a sign of anything, either. Many nations have already beaten us to the punch, so it would only be “groundbreaking” for our own country, and to treat it as such would be pathetic. It would be like the newly-opened paradise of Cuba bragging to the US that AMC Pacers are now available and that Cuba is proud to lead the way in offering modern cars to its people.
I know it’s not fashionable to teach children anything anymore, but I would encourage young people contemplating voting for Hillary simply to make the history of a woman leader to look up—excuse me, “Google”–the following: Sirivamo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, Isabel Peron of Argentina, Lady Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom, Indira Gandhi of India, Queen Nefertiti of Egypt, Golda Meier of Israel, Angela Merkel of Germany, Cleopatra of Egypt, Corazon Aquino of the Philippines, Mary Robinson of Ireland, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil.
To name just a few.
Some were great. Others were awful. About the only thing they have in common is that they are all women.
All of this does not mean that the United States needs to “get with the program” and hire a woman, already. It means that, globally, the issue of having a woman leader is fairly settled in the civilized world, and there’s really not going to be anything remarkable about it whenever it happens in the United States. Electing a woman leader would be stunning in a nation that didn’t consider women equal—like Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or any place run by ISIS. That would be worth notice. But making a big deal of a country like the United States electing a woman would be simply silly.
Am I against having a woman president? Of course not. I would not hesitate to vote for Sarah Palin or Condoleeza Rice. Carly Fiorina will probably be in the Presidential race by the end of next month, and if she were to emerge as the Republican nominee, I would vote for her. Phyllis Schlafly would have been a dynamite president, but I think she may be a bit old for it now. But these people would be great because they are great people–not because they have no Y chromosome.
There is nothing virtuous about voting for a demographic variable to be the president.
Besides, we’ve already had a woman president. Ask Edith Wilson—or Valerie Jarrett.
