GOT GRIT?

Hillary Clinton is to be heartily congratulated on her New Hampshire win with hugs, blown kisses and high fives from here to Quebec. YGG- You Go Girl. May the Force Be With You. No Woman in the history of the country, including Elizabeth Dole has ever achieved this magnitude of success in the apex of political life with this degree of promise and hope. She has energized women, girls, old dames, diner waitresses, hospital ER nurses, lady lawyers, and moms cradling infants with the intensity of fourth of july fireworks at the hope of her possibility. We stand in awe. This time, the woman married into it- next time it may be a woman standing on her own without the benefit of the trailblazing of a Presidential helpmate before her.

Her detractors are a puny condemnation nation of those who never walked a day in her shoes: they can't figure out if they hate her because she did stand by her man after all with a love that knew unbounded forgiveness for the sins she couldn't understand that cut her to the bone, or they hate her because she broke from the traditional muffin-baking sock- darning vacuum- the- living -room- in- your- nightie role and the don't overshadow your husband even when more talented rule at the same time. No, she didn't let the sluts get her down. Madam Senator can make her own Rules. The self loathing of her insecure female detractors shows like Madonna's neglige under a black boustier. Only the smallest of bitter minds would consider Hillary anything less than the Great American that she is. This woman is a tour de force. She is a Great American.

The things women over 40 remember too well are the things driving the hallelujiah chorus on her candidacy: we remember discrimination because it affected whether we could afford yogurt, coffee or a newspaper or both for breakfast for our first job when no one supported us but us. We remember when your job depended on how well you could artfully avoid the glare and touch and dance the light fantastic around that creep at work who hit on you every time he passed with a lewd or unwelcome remark before the amendments to Title VII making workplace harassment actually illegal and actionable (something my godchildren and niece can thankfully take for granted after two decades of litigation driven corporate gender equality training). We remember when our job security depended on whether we let the partner pimp us to the client to play doubles with him in his weekly tennis match in short tennis skirt. We remember when the Union League in Philadelphia was a boys only joint and it didn't matter if you were a poetess laureat, you still were not welcome to join. We remember when the half wit golf guy with a degree from a school three degrees lower than our alma mater got the promotion over us because he had a wife and baby to feed and we were just "aggressive" females. We remembered that time when men who were deemed "aggressive" were heros, and when women were "aggressive" they must be lesbians. We remember when any woman who could drive a point home with firm insistent conviction was either "angry" or "aggressive"- and must be a lesbian. We remember when any female strongly indignant at rampant injustice was just a little too "angry." We remember when insisting on equal pay, equal opportunity, and equal access all meant you must hate men. Why else wouldn't you just want to marry well and call it a day? We remember when it was more laudable to be blonde than brainy. She's both- so you can call this the "Bite Me" campaign.

Hillary is a believer in the American dream. She came from modest but not embarassing beginnings, rose through nonsense, scandal and demonic assault to the heights of American blessing -She didn't lose sight of her dream to make America a place that people like her could be her. She is a believer in Americans. She did not let her personal agony defeat her vision.

Hillary was publically humiliated deeply before the entire country -no-the entire world- as she suffered watching the betrayal of her husband in something as intimate as her marriage be told on international television, tabloid and cracked conservative radio before the eyes of the world who felt pity, disgust and outrage. Some of us know exactly what that feels like too. She took it with dignity and sometimes humor. She didn't exact revenge. She rose in phoenix-from-the- ashes form from the dust of humiliation that has buried many a fine woman. None of it could stop her vision for the country and her love of it's people. There is one word for that: Christ-like.

Marital infidelity is murder. It destroys a trust if not the bond. It cuts deep. If she can restore that relationship, after sleeping with the enemy, and love the man in spite of himself, I trust her to turn the hearts and minds of a hostile skeptical world back to the friendship of America.



The irony of the army of single women anti-abortion advocates yelling at a real Mother about whether she intends to try to take care of children and protect pregnancy is as stunning as it is sad. Hillary is virtue walking not just talking. There's one word for that: Chelsea.

As they say with respect to History, this is a Moment. This is Herstory in the making. No matter how it comes out in the wash, and no matter who does the proverbial wash, you are going to say, I wish I was there to see that.

Here is to believing in your dreams. Here's to Hillary's dreams. May they bless us all. God Bless You Hillary, and God Bless these United States.


(paid for by no one; it all comes from the heart)