Which Greek Tragedy are Hillary and Bill Enacting?

Help me please: Which Greek tragedy would be the proper metaphor for the political narrative playing itself out before our eyes? If Hillary Clinton loses her presidential bid because Bill's help has become so destructive to her campaign that it is alienating the press and offending African Americans (yes, he who was formerly dubbed "the first Black president"), that would be a tragedy of epic proportions. This is especially poignant, considering how strongly people expected his presence to be positive for her, not to mention a redemption for him.

Perhaps the specter of losing the nomination after being dubbed the putative front runner, or of gaining the nomination in a bitterly divisive nomination contest then losing the presidency, might be likened to a Pyrrhic victory.

Or it might be like a poem I had to memorize for my expression class, back in the stone age when there was such a thing. It was about a king whose soothsayer told him he would end up destroying that which he prized the most. The king in angry disbelief threw his chalice out the window. The chalice struck and killed his only son who happened to be walking by under the window at that moment. (Perhaps someone can help me remember the name of this story, too.)

Hillary has worked so hard and given so much that it would be a similar kind of tragedy if her efforts were deep-sixed not by a charismatic newer-comer who has convinced John F. Kennedy's daughter to regard him as the rightful heir to the Kennedy legacy, but by her closest kin, Bill Clinton, a man whose own life's mythology holds that he was inspired to seek the presidency by his personal contact with JFK in his youth.

I haven't come up with a precisely comparable myth so far. But I'm sure the narrative of destroying that which one loves the most is one of humanity's most recurrent and heartbreaking tragedies, Greek or otherwise.

There's still a chance for Hillary to recoup if she can run this race as Hillary.

But Bill will have to realize he's had his day as president. It's time for him to recuse himself from the spotlight and button his lips. To practice a little impulse control and quit draining the energy away from her. So here's the message to him:

"Go home, Bill, and make fundraising calls. Go to Africa and fight AIDS. Resume going around the world as the beloved senior statesman. Go anywhere but onto the campaign trail for at least the rest of the primary season, except to stand behind Hillary smiling supportively on election nights.

The first woman president has to win or lose these contests on the strength of her own abilities. But you could lose it for her, and that would be a tragedy indeed."

Follow Gloria Feldt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Heartfeldt

Comments

[Chachi]

"The first woman president has to win or lose these contests on the strength of her own abilities. But you could lose it for her, and that would be a tragedy indeed."

Don't you know that it's already too late for that. Even if Bill goes away now, he has already helped Hillary more than he might have hurt her in the last few days, so it can now never be the case that Hillary won or lost the nomination on her own.

If Hillary wins it will have been partly because of Bill. She won New Hampshire and Nevada partly because they brought Bill out to be the attack dog and to say that Obama was getting a free pass and his opposition to the war was a fairy tale. So, if he goes away now it's too late. He already helped give New Hampshire to Hillary - without which she would have no shot at the nomination.

If Obama had won New Hampshire, he then would've won Nevada and he'd be headed into Super Tuesday on the heels of 4 straight wins. The Dem race would already be over, so if Hillary ends up with the nomination you can not ever pretend that she got their on her own.

[ebbtide]

I am not going to let Hillary off the hook here. She is not "poor Hillary" victim of her own husband.

Hillary allowed it and most likely thought it a good idea when it appeared that she had failed by a large margin in Iowa. She allowed her own destruction and now I see headlines saying she is going to change directions---for the third time? The connection has already been made. Bill stole from her, she handed it over, her independant run, much to the dismay of many women and women feminists. It no longer was Hillary, but became a run by both Bill and Hillary for president. I believe her run was always about getting Bill the third term, which he obviously wanted badly. Therefore the moniker -- Billary. That will stick, believe me.

Don't know of any Greek tragedies that would depict this, but I think they both will have a hard time looking relaxed and genuine now after all the dishonesty.

[happytrails]

Hillary Clinton "worked so hard and has given so much" and then she voted FOR the Bu$h agenda. SHE DID THIS IN SPITE OF KNOWING THAT MOST AMERICANS DO NOT SUPPORT THE LIAR IN CHIEF.

You should get out and talk to the people who are disappointed, no DISGUSTED, with her capitulations to Bu$h and have decided that she is NOT TRUSTWORTHY. These people would rather take their chances with someone new than support someone who has not voted in the best interests of the country.

As this endless and mindless campaign drags on and on, more people are learning about the negative repercussions of Bill's presidency and are horrified to find that his economic agenda was not too much different from that of the now-despised Neo-Cons.

Perhaps Bill is helping destroy Hillary, but her campaign should acknowledge that there are many women, her supposed solid base, who care more about the future of this country than they do about electing a woman who no longer speaks for them or for the country.

Off point, but Pelosi has also lost her credibility. Shame, shame shame.

[jrockbg]

I think it's naive to think that any of Pres. Clinton's sniping for Hillary is uncalculated. Hillary comes off shrill to many, thus she benefits from a person who can do some of her political dirty work.

And imagine the outrage if a conservative or Republican had made the statments Pres. Clinton did, equating Obama to Jesse Jackson. They would have been berated by many so-called black leaders and liberals. I was personally offended by Pres. Clinton's attempt to marginalize Obama's candidacy to being the "black" candidate.

[Zenpilot]

Maybe this will temper down Howard Wolfson's sorry efforts to frame Hillary's message, which seems to change on a weekly basis. "She's found her voice. Whoops, now it's shrill and harsh again!"

[alkamm]

Assuming that Hillary is not behind Bill's attacks is analogous to Rove not being behind Republican attacks. We give these people so much credit for their political acumen, and then we want to compartmentalize their mistakes.
The only way they could have hoped to win this primary was to appeal to rationalists in the Democratic Party who do not have the emotional intelligence to fear the character problems the Clintons have evidenced so clearly and persuasively between the lines of their political careers. Even rationalists have to realize that Hillary's negatives are not fabrications of the vast right wing conspiracy but the considered opinions of intelligent, politically saavy observors of both her friends and those who are not her friends which, like Bush, she considers her enemies.
For a more extensive confirmation of these legitimate views, see the New Yorker article:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/01/28/080128fa_fact_packer?currentPage=5

Those who are unsure they want the circus back in town are legion, and those who know they do not want the circus back in town make Hillary unelectable. If the Democratic party doesn't vote with these intelligent moral witnesses, they doom their party and their country at this crucial moment.

[suntzu]

Gloria, you got the wrong author. If there is a tragedy here, it is more like Shakespearan: I am referring to Macbeth, you know the play about the ruthless nobleman and his super ambitious wife.

[Macready]

"There's still a chance for Hillary to recoup if she can run this race as Hillary."

doubt it . . . this has always been about billary . . . hillary's voting record speaks volumes about her poor judgement . . . she still insists that she was mislead by the chimp on Iraq and when the chimp said that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was a terrorist organisation . . .hillary was right there screaming even louder than the chimp . . . the truth is hillary is a follower . . . she is not a leader and without bill she doesn't have a chance to be prez . . . personally I am very happy that the clintons are slitting their DLC throats . . .

[JoeSun]

Keep talking, Bill. Keep talking. Deep six your wife's prospects. Excellent. Just keep talking.

Barack Obama. President. 2008.