Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary is not legitimate. She is a hawk. Supporter, as a senator, of all of Bush’s wars. And promoter, as secretary of state, of the new wars that Obama sparked.

Perhaps it would be premature to opine the possibilities of Hillary Clinton as president of the United States, since perhaps she won’t go there. And above all, it may be completely useless, because no one’s opinion influences those things, not even that of the voters. Only chance and money count. Without having started yet, the Clinton campaign has already spent more than $100 million, and they lack, it is estimated, some 1 billion more. To their still unnamed rivals, as much per head. Every four years the cost of the North American presidential elections increases tenfold, and the Supreme Court has just overthrown all the barriers with the argument that money is a form of free expression. As it is, no doubt.

I just called her “Clinton.” It is not a simple detail without importance. It is that Hillary, who always wanted to conserve her maiden name “Rodham” in order to, as she said, continue being the same woman, the two times in which she has thrown her name at the presidential candidacy (now and seven years ago, against Barack Obama) she has preferred to put out the surname “Clinton” of her husband, the ex-president Bill. Opportunist.

It is not that she herself is new. The general public already knew her from the eight-year mandate of her husband, in which she moved a lot: They had elected “two for the price of one,” said Bill then. And long before, from when he was governor of Arkansas, his Republican enemies considered her, her grey eminence and called her “Lady Macbeth,” like the Shakespearean heroine who incited her husband to crime. As the first lady of the Union, she was noted, both in public – the failed health reform initiative was hers – as in private – the support for Bill during the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. And then she was a New York senator for eight more years, and, after losing her presidential candidacy for the Democratic Party against the overwhelming Obama, she was secretary of state for her rival during his first term. Opportunist.

What will happen if she wins the presidency? Whatever their past or present condition, liberals or conservatives, a woman like Clinton or an African-American like Obama is more or less the same. A president of the United States is above all this: president of that giant Leviathan that is the United States. The weight of the position drags them down. Domestically, their position gives them some influence, although quite softened by the counterweights of Congress, the judicial power, and local powers of the states: and there would be reflected without a doubt the liberal social tendencies of Hillary. But on the outside, which is where the North American presidents weigh more, Hillary is not legitimate. She is a hawk. Supporter, as a senator, of all the wars of Bush. And driving, as secretary of state, the new wars that Obama sparked. Just remember, on television, that chilling shriek of joy that she let go when they told her by telephone that Muammar Gaddhafi, an ally just months before, had been lynched by his people, tired of the bombers ordered by her.

However, from the side of deluded hope, we speak well of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Because she’s a woman. As if women in power, by widows or orphans or on their own merit, would have been better than men in some point in history or in some geographical site. And no shortage of examples, from the Hatshepsut Pharaoh in ancient Egypt to the Argentinean president Cristina Kirchner. Queens, prime ministers, presidents’ wives, anything that has been: Mesalina in Rome, Catherine in Russia, Indira in India, Imelda in the Philippines, Thatcher in England, all as corrupt and harmful as if they were men.

No, I don’t like Hillary Rodham Clinton, not for the Clinton, nor for the Rodham, nor for the Hillary. Although I have to admit that maybe experience blinds me: The thing is, I don’t like the presidents of the United States. And, in truth, whatever they say, I believe that deep down, no one likes them.