Hillary the Heartbreaker

Hillary Clinton is killing me. Slowly. It's like someone's feeding me ground glass in small increments. By the time the election is actually on, I'm going to be too dead to vote.

Every officially released apology just digs the knife a little deeper. This recent fracas with Gen. Pace declaring homosexuality "immoral" might have taken the cake. She should have come out swinging. She should have called the kettle black and called intolerance and ignorance out, but she didn't. Instead, she offered that whether or not homosexuality is immoral is for "others to conclude." Not exactly the voice heralding a new era, is it?

I'm interested to know who these "others" might be. Are they the same Others who stole Walt? Would they tell me what the Monster is? In any case, it doesn't matter much that she eventually issued a statement saying "I should have echoed my colleague Senator John Warner's statement forcefully stating that homosexuality is not immoral because that is what I believe." She shouldn't be echoing any one; she should be carving out a new road for a campaign unlike any other. Perhaps no one's told her that when you have to issue a statement outlining your beliefs, they don't seem very genuine. Actually, they seem a little contrived. Shocking, I know. To a leery public, strategic apologies confirm their idea of Senator Clinton as too much of a politician and compound harmful stereotypes of a woman candidate. Whereas all politicians have to be careful to not come off as slimy, she has to combat perceptions of her as a latter-day Lady MacBeth. (Insert "Out damn spot!" joke here.)

Women in power have to be authoritative without being dominant, suave without being conniving, and still be caring ,which really means feminine, without being weak. With all these balancing acts, you'd think she'd just speak her mind so she'd have one less thing to deal with. There's also the fact that for every apology she offers, Democrats are reminded of the one apology she won't offer. Every time she obfuscates, it makes it harder for me to stick up for her.

And I want to stick up for her! Or, I did, before she dropped the cannon ball on her own foot. This was a fantastic moment to stand for something, to stand up for someone, and to show people that she's more than just a woman with plans - that she's a woman with ideals. So much for that. When someone calls homosexuality immoral, that's a no brainer. Would she sidestep the issue if the General had said that it's unclean for races to share drinking fountains? Would she defer if he said that it's unnatural for women to work? Until American politicians talk about homophobia as what it is, deeply ignorant and blatantly sanctimonious hatred, this will still be a country where our citizens will be the scourge of society because of who they love.

The kicker is I'm sure that she doesn't think that homosexuality is immoral, or wrong, or that it's a sin. But what's the use of any of those convictions if she doesn't' stand by them? If you don't stand up for anyone, how on earth can you stand for anything?