Complex Numbers

Well, THAT was fun.

Looks like a lot of people have strong feelings about Hillary Clinton. Okay, I can understand that, I suppose. Of all the folks who would be King, she's probably best known. Of course, yesterday's blog was really meant to be more about "the media" than about Clinton.

I can't help but wonder if she would be so popular with "the media" if she were a man. Her husband's admitted infidelity was not, as some would have it, a reason to label him a bad President. There were plenty of other reasons for that label, but they don't matter now. She's not her husband. But let's consider for a minute a role reversal. Let's pretend it was Hillary, and not Bill, who was president eight years ago. Better yet, let's not put familiar names to it: say it was Joan Brown who was President, and her well-spoken, also politically powerful husband, Jim Brown, was First Gentleman. There's a scandal, and it turns out that Joan Brown had a brief affair with an aide. Now, I know some people would have trouble accepting Jim Brown as a viable candidate, ten years later. After all, he couldn't even inspire loyalty in his wife!

Is there a double standard? Would there be a double standard, more appropriately, if there were more women in powerful positions? Are we still so culturally ignorant that we can accept infidelity from men more than we can from women - or are there some of you out there who think it's perfectly understandable in women, but not in men?

Or is the whole cheating thing becoming an outmoded concept? I know when Bill Clinton was caught with his cigar out, my first thought was, "Naughty boy was cheating on his wife." Same as it would be if any other guy had done it, basically. Yes, there's some moralistic overtones there; I was raised to believe that's wrong - not for any mystical reason, but because it's not fair to the spouse. My second thought was, "This is between him and his wife," because, really, it's not our business. (Lying under oath WAS our business, but even there, everybody lies about sex; it's axiomatic.)

Would my reaction - would your reaction, whatever it was - have been the same if the sexual dynamics were reversed?

And what bearing does all this have on the 2008 primaries and elections? Pretty much nothing. Just some thoughts I had on gender dynamics and double standards. I'm far more concerned, as I said, with what any of the candidates might do for (or to) our country.

Anyway, no, I don't have strong feelings about it. Not yet. My wife asked me last night why I'm so "threatened" by her candidacy. I don't have an answer for that - it's like asking me when I quit beating my kids. I did have strong feelings about, and felt threatened by, the candidacy of W, both times. I didn't want him to win. I very, very badly didn't want him to win, under any circumstances, even if it meant possibly electing lame-ass Democrats. Of course, he did, and life went on - after a fashion, and without a Constitution. So I guess my answer would be: I'm concerned (gods know why; I have no stake in it) about the future of this country, and the rights of its citizens, and whether there will be an environment for your children to inherit.

I think the core issue for me isn't the plumbing of the candidates, but how the process is treated, and received by the people. The 2000 elections proved to me that few people in this country have a good idea of how a presidential election is supposed to work. The Supreme Court, for example, is not supposed to be allowed to decide on any aspect of an election. The 2004 elections emphasized that ignorance once again to me, what with all the folks who were actually surprised that a majority of votes doesn't automatically translate into an electoral college victory. And I'm not even going to touch the hot potato of election fraud.

It's turned into a goddamn sporting event, is the problem. Go Red Team! Go Blue Team! Hey, look, the coaches are shouting obscenities at each other! "We just couldn't get control of the ball. Next time, we'll focus on controlling the ball." People are Democrats or Republicans for the same reason they're Steelers fans or Baptists: Because Daddy or Mommy was.

I shouldn't be surprised, and really, I'm not. Disappointed would be a better word. Democracy is predicated on the assumption that a well-informed, educated populace knows what's good for it. But a misinformed, ill-educated populace also knows what's good for it: bread and circuses.

We're not lacking for bread, and the whole bloody thing is a circus. What sucks is that we are the clowns.