ggw wrote:
hutch wrote:
First Lady is not a qualification? It doesn't give you experience knowing what goes on in the White House where -you know -the President works?
Apparently, there was a quite a bit going on in the White House she wasn't aware of.
ah the sexist jokes.. .bring it on.. ignore her year's as First Lady if you wish.. she was involved in policy at different points you know..
First Lady of the United States
When Bill Clinton took office as President in January 1993, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the First Lady, and her press secretary reiterated that she would be using that form of her name.[c] She was the first inaugural First Lady to have earned a postgraduate degree and to have her own professional career up to the time of entering the White House.[142] She was also the first to have an office in the West Wing of the White House in addition to the usual first lady offices in the East Wing.[59][143] She was part of the innermost circle vetting appointments to the new administration and her choices filled at least eleven top-level positions and dozens more lower-level ones.[144] After Eleanor Roosevelt, Clinton was regarded as the most openly empowered presidential wife in American history.[145][146]
Some critics called it inappropriate for the first lady to play a central role in matters of public policy. Supporters pointed out that Clinton's role in policy was no different from that of other White House advisors and that voters had been well aware that she would play an active role in her husband's presidency.[147] Bill Clinton's campaign promise of "two for the price of one" led opponents to refer derisively to the Clintons as "co-presidents" or sometimes use the Arkansas label "Billary".[99][148][149] The pressures of conflicting ideas about the role of a first lady were enough to send Hillary Clinton into "imaginary discussions"[clarification needed] with the also-politically-active Eleanor Roosevelt.[f] From the time she came to Washington, Hillary also found refuge in a prayer group of the Fellowship that featured many wives of conservative Washington figures.[153][154] Triggered in part by the death of her father in April 1993, she publicly sought to find a synthesis of Methodist teachings, liberal religious political philosophy, and Tikkun editor Michael Lerner's "politics of meaning" to overcome what she saw as America's "sleeping sickness of the soul"; that would lead to a willingness "to remold society by redefining what it means to be a human being in the twentieth century, moving into a new millennium."[155][156]
Health care and other policy initiatives
See also: Clinton health care plan of 1993
Clinton at a presentation on her health care plan in September 1993
In January 1993, President Clinton named Hillary to chair a Task Force on National Health Care Reform, hoping to replicate the success she had in leading the effort for Arkansas education reform.[157] Unconvinced regarding the merits of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), she privately urged that passage of health care reform be given higher priority.[158][159] The recommendation of the task force became known as the Clinton health care plan, a comprehensive proposal that would require employers to provide health coverage to their employees through individual health maintenance organizations. Its opponents quickly derided the plan as "Hillarycare", and it faced opposition from even some Democrats in Congress.[160] Some protesters against the proposed plan became vitriolic, and during a July 1994 bus tour to rally support for the plan, Clinton wore a bulletproof vest at times.[160]
Failing to gather enough support for a floor vote in either the House or the Senate (although Democrats controlled both chambers), the proposal was abandoned in September 1994.[161] Clinton later acknowledged in her memoir that her political inexperience partly contributed to the defeat, but cited many other factors. The First Lady's approval ratings, which had generally been in the high-50s percent range during her first year, fell to 44 percent in April 1994 and 35 percent by September 1994.[162]
Republicans made the Clinton health care plan a major campaign issue of the 1994 midterm elections.[163] Republicans saw a net gain of fifty-three seats in the House election and seven in the Senate election, winning control of both; many analysts and pollsters found the plan to be a major factor in the Democrats' defeat, especially among independent voters.[164] The White House subsequently sought to downplay Clinton's role in shaping policy.[165] Opponents of universal health care would continue to use "Hillarycare" as a pejorative label for similar plans by others.[166]
Clinton reads a book to an African-American grade-schooler in Maryland during Read Across America Day in 1998
Clinton reads to a Maryland child during Read Across America Day, 1998
Along with Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, Clinton was a force behind the passage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997, a federal bill that gave state support to children whose parents could not provide them health coverage, and conducted outreach efforts on behalf of enrolling children in the program once it became law.[167] She promoted nationwide immunization against childhood diseases and encouraged older women to get a mammogram for breast cancer screening, with coverage provided by Medicare.[168] She successfully sought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health.[59] The First Lady worked to investigate reports of an illness that affected veterans of the Gulf War, which became known as the Gulf War syndrome.[59]
Enactment of welfare reform was a major goal of Bill Clinton's presidency, but when the first two bills on the issue came from a Republican-controlled Congress that lacked protections for people coming off welfare, Hillary urged him to veto the bills, which he did.[169][170] A third version came up during his 1996 general election campaign that restored some of the protections but cut the scope of benefits in other areas; critics, including her past mentor Edelman, urged her to get the president to veto it again.[169] But she decided to support the bill, which became the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, as the best political compromise available.[169][170] This caused a rift with Edelman that Hillary later called "sad and painful".[170]
Together with Attorney General Janet Reno, Clinton helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice.[59] In 1997, she initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which she regarded as her greatest accomplishment as first lady.[59][171] In 1999, she was instrumental in the passage of the Foster Care Independence Act, which doubled federal monies for teenagers aging out of foster care.[171] As first lady, Clinton was the host for various White House conferences, including ones on Child Care (1997),[172] on Early Childhood Development and Learning (1997),[173] and on Children and Adolescents (2000).[174] She also hosted the first-ever White House Conference on Teenagers (2000)[175] and the first-ever White House Conference on Philanthropy (1999).[176]
Clinton traveled to 79 countries during this time,[177] breaking the mark for most-traveled first lady held by Pat Nixon.[178] She did not hold a security clearance or attend National Security Council meetings, but played a role in U.S. diplomacy attaining its objectives.[179] A March 1995 five-nation trip to South Asia, on behest of the U.S. State Department and without her husband, sought to improve relations with India and Pakistan.[180] Clinton was troubled by the plight of women she encountered, but found a warm response from the people of the countries she visited and gained a better relationship with the American press corps.[181] The trip was a transformative experience for her and presaged her eventual career in diplomacy.[182]
Clinton speaking at a podium with several onlookers. She is delivering her "human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights" speech in Beijing during September 1995.
Clinton delivering her "human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights" speech in Beijing in September 1995
In a September 1995 speech before the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Clinton argued very forcefully against practices that abused women around the world and in the People's Republic of China itself,[183] declaring that "it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights".[183] Delegates from over 180 countries heard her say: "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights, once and for all."[184] In doing so, she resisted both internal administration and Chinese pressure to soften her remarks.[177][184] The speech became a key moment in the empowerment of women and years later women around the world would recite Clinton's key phrases.[185] She was one of the most prominent international figures during the late 1990s to speak out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Taliban.[186][187] She helped create Vital Voices, an international initiative sponsored by the U.S. to encourage the participation of women in the political processes of their countries.[188] It and Clinton's own visits encouraged women to make themselves heard in the Northern Ireland peace process.[189]