OPINION:
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
NEW YORK — Hillary wore white.
Stepping into the klieg lights, she was — finally! — the blushing bride of the Democratic Party. Smiling, waving, tilting her head, clutching her fist to her chest as she surveyed her adorable fans. She stepped to the lectern and gazed lovingly into the teleprompter.
And immediately the sound system malfunctioned. No one could hear her. Shouting and screams, but she was oblivious, talking through a giant smile.
Crackle! Muffle! Fumble! Crackle! Garble! ” taken with me, and I am so grateful to you,” Hillary Clinton could finally be heard saying.
And, three, two, one — there it was. The very next sentence: “We are all standing under a glass ceiling right now!” she shouted.
In one reference right out of the gate, Hillary Clinton both grasped for history and played the woman scorned card.
Remember last time, eight years ago, when she was forced to concede the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama and she spoke bitterly of the 18 million cracks in the “glass ceiling” — one for every vote she got? Yet, still wasn’t enough?
Message: I am the first woman nominee of a major party, and you’d better get out there and hustle to make me the first woman president or we will all continue to suffer under this glass ceiling!
You owe me! I waited my turn long enough! Now get to work!
So there she was, wearing creamy white — the color of a wedding gown. Finally America’s bride, after 25 years of dating, countless breakups and a thousand accusations of infidelity, Hillary Clinton is finally about to be made an honest woman.
Or, actually, she has finally gotten the chance to compete one on one against a rollicking, orange-haired New York showman so that she might become an honest woman. She is like one of the bachelorette contestants on those dating competition shows, only she is already wearing wedding white.
Virgin purity.
But here is what is funny about Hillary Clinton so unabashedly claiming the woman card in running for the presidency.
She is terrible at politics (2008 Democratic nomination, 2016 Democratic nomination). She is also terrible at policy (Russia, Benghazi). And she is terrible at good governance (bathroom server). And not a particularly upstanding person (lies all the time).
So how did someone who is so utterly unqualified reach the highest echelons of American politics? She married well. Hillary Clinton rode her husband’s coattails to the top of a business that he was brilliant at and she would have never gotten her tiny toe into except she married the right person.
All across America, there are millions and millions of strong and successful women in every occupation imaginable. Many have overcome insurmountable odds to become the best at what they do.
And not one of these strong, successful women got to where she is by riding her husband’s coattails.
There is nothing feminist whatsoever about Hillary Clinton’s ascent in politics.
Rather, Hillary Clinton is the most anti-feminist candidate in decades. Which is fine, really, if that’s what you want to run on.
But just don’t claim to be carrying the torch for successful women when you cannot hold a candle to the millions and millions of strong and successful women in this country who made it the hard way: by earning it.
• Charles Hurt can be reached at charleshurt@live.com; follow him on Twitter via @charleshurt.
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