You're No Eleanor Roosevelt
EMERY, NOEMIE
You’re No Eleanor Roosevelt by Noemie Emery HILLARY CLINTON HAS BEEN SIMULATING a chat with Eleanor Roosevelt, seeking advice in her trials. Would that she could. Her predecessor might have had...
...It is about Mrs...
...Any sign of such a usurpation would be enough to cause trouble, and thoroughly justified concern and resentment...
...In the White House (and the governor’s mansion in New York) Mrs...
...The Eleanor card has long been a staple in the Hillary corner, as her aides use the name of a woman known for compassion and probity to cover the deeds of a woman suspected of being deficient in both...
...Roosevelt’s efforts took three distinct forms: 1. Missions such as fact-finding trips, which she undertook for the president, under his direction, to bring him information on which he then acted...
...Roosevelt nonetheless was a shrewd politician who came to the White House from a ten-year career as an organizer in New York state politics...
...But not the one Mrs...
...2. Influence, which she exerted on the president and other members of the administration, by bringing people and ideas to their notice...
...Exploited in life by her flesh-and-blood children, she has no better luck with her current admirers: used by them all as political cover, for everything from shady land deals in the Ozarks to crusades for abortion and lesbian rights...
...Roosevelt speaking to Mrs...
...Roosevelt’s cattle deals, her work on behalf of Castle Grande, her close friends in prison, her evasive answers to committees and lawyers, her attempts to turn Hyde Park into the Hyde-Away Vacation Paradise (and make a quick bundle), the disappearing files during World War II...
...Clinton...
...Clinton’s need to believe in the myth of her own innocence, the lengths she will go to indulge this delusion, and the credibility she will give anyone—mystics among them—who feeds it...
...Which cuts to the core of the case...
...Clinton, while no doubt in fact a “killer lawyer,” has, according to Richard Reeves, “the political instincts of a stone...
...Clinton seems unable to admit, or even to see, her own failures...
...Poor Eleanor Roosevelt...
...She is used not as a guide but as political cover, part of a longstanding plot to morph the two women together, to declare Mrs...
...Like Mrs...
...Mrs...
...Roosevelt always knew that she had not been elected,” said a friend who knew her in the White House years...
...She did not conflate herself with the president, see herself as his partner, or seek to make use of his powers of office...
...Not surprisingly, what “Eleanor” tells her is what Hillary wants to hear: that she is maligned, and abused without mercy, for nothing besides her good heart...
...Clinton supposedly equate to the flak taken by Mrs...
...This is something the historical Eleanor might have been able to tell Mrs...
...Clinton, on the other hand, seems to see his office as their common property, which she is permitted to enter at will...
...If her shade is around and about, no doubt she is squirming...
...Clinton, she tried to extend a ceremonial role into policy matters, but she did it in a different way, with a much keener sense of the possibilities and limitations of an undefined, if national, office...
...It is these instincts, or the lack of them, that have caused the worst problems of this administration: the tortured hunt for an attorney general, the scandal-ridden “diversity” hires, the mess at the counsel’s office, the political errors in the framing and selling of the health-care plan...
...But this business is not really about Mrs...
...Clinton made up...
...Noemie Emery reviewed a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt in our May 13 issue...
...3. Influence exerted through books, columns, and speeches, where she took full advantage of the bully pulpit, but spoke only in her own voice...
...Months back, President Clinton defended his wife as having been vilified “like Eleanor Roosevelt,” for “the same reasons,” for the same evil ends...
...The strange thing is not her belief in spirits, but her own addled view of herself...
...But they do not...
...their causes are similar, and therefore so are the attacks...
...Their roles are similar, so goes the story...
...Roosevelt would actually say to all this can barely be imagined, but Mrs...
...Roosevelt might have told Mrs...
...Clinton innocent-by-association...
...Her predecessor might have had something to tell her about how to conduct herself in high office...
...Roosevelt is not the point...
...Clinton addressing herself...
...Her concern for the “vulnerable” carried over into her own private circles...
...The critiques of Mrs...
...Or would she say simply, Grow up...
...Clinton that if she truly wanted to help other people, she should have focused on her areas of proven competence and left the politics to others...
...Roosevelt, but what “Eleanor” gets to tell her...
...Clinton...
...Sometimes impractical on the policy level, Mrs...
...She did not terrorize staff, drop old friends (like Lani Guinier) when they became inconvenient, or force loyal aides to face huge legal bills and possibly perjury charges defending her interests...
...The great revelation of this sad little story is the depth of Mrs...
...What Mrs...
...Roosevelt’s sons...
...Clinton is now in trouble not because she has the social ethics of Eleanor Roosevelt, but because people suspect with some reason that she has the business ethics of Mrs...
...Sure...
...Clinton controls the whole story: not just what she gets to say to Mrs...
...It is this unique idea of the public rights of the consort that has caused the convulsions that roiled her tenure...
...For while the system can expand to absorb the sort of advice and influence offered by an Eleanor Roosevelt, there is no provision in it for a co-presidency, a dual presidency, or for an unelected, unappointed, unaccountable party to exercise the powers of the executive office while subject to none of the restraints...
...In this “dialogue,” Mrs...
...Mrs...
...Roosevelt was a stoic soul who bore her troubles in silence and did not seek public pity...
...Would Eleanor really buy into this drivel...
...But Mrs...
...Roosevelt in the 1930s and 40s for daring to associate with black people...
...We all remember Mrs...
Vol. 1 • July 1996 • No. 42
