A lot of the Hillary-Clinton-is-going-to-be-a-grandmother coverage is amazingly stupid. Much of it is outright sexist. But it’s not like it can’t be discussed intelligently. And, no, it’s not some kind of double standard to discuss the impact on a future presidential run just because people don’t make the same arguments about Mitt Romney or Joe Biden. Those gentlemen have never been the First Lady and they never raised a daughter in the White House. The Clintons are what passes for royalty in this country, along with the Bushs. If you want to argue that Hillary won’t want to miss time with her infant granddaughter attending chicken dinners in Dubuque, that’s an idiotic double-standard. But if you want to discuss how being a grandmother will alter the public’s perception of her and how that might play out in presidential contest, that seems like fair game to me.
Remember our introduction to Hillary Clinton?
“You know, I’m not sitting here — some little woman standin’ by my man like Tammy Wynette.”
“I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life.”
That wasn’t how any First Lady before her had sounded. She was tough and combative. She was a professional, not content to be a homemaker. Some people loved her for it, and others hated her. But it was an image. It was our first image of her. And much like the first impression we had of her husband as a philandering hound dog, first impressions tend to last.
The Clintons becoming grandparents has the potential to replace those first impressions in ways that will be broadly appealing. What would be really sexist would be to await the dauphin.
