Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Frank Bruni, "The Clintons’ Secret Language": Electioneering for Hillary From The Times



I am looking at the home page of The New York Times, and under "The Opinion Pages" on the upper right hand of the screen, I read: "Frank Bruni, The Clintons’ Secret Language, Bill and Hillary have a marriage like any other — it’s unknowable from the outside."

Whoa! Bruni actually said that the Clintons "have a marriage like any other"? I don't think so. Go to his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Clintons’ Secret Language," where Bruni declares:

"We know nothing of other people’s marriages. Nothing at all."

Hey, if we don't know anything about other people's marriages, how can anyone say that the Clintons' have a marriage like any other? In fact, Bruni does not say this. Instead, Bruni concludes:

"We’re certain that social climbing or religious devotion is a couple’s glue, when what matters more is the secret language of goofy endearments that they speak. Or the unremarkable daily rituals that they’ve grown to relish. Or the tempo of his speech. Or the timbre of her laugh.

And when we come to our sweeping conclusions, we’re not perceiving but projecting, and we’re using couples to cling to our idealism or validate our cynicism. It’s a foolish game under any circumstances. It’s a dangerous one en route to the election of a president."

The Clintons' "unremarkable daily rituals"? Go ahead, Frank, tell me a few of them? Make my day!

More to the point, unlike other couples, the Clintons need to put an end to the speculation concerning the nature of their relationship. If Hillary is elected in November 2016, will Bill accompany her to the White House, even if the couple is no longer intimate? And if Bill is or has recently been involved with other women, does this not possess the potential for future security problems involving, for example, blackmail? Could it not otherwise detrimentally affect Hillary's future ability to function as president?

Similarly, if Hillary is having, or has had in recent years, an intimate relationship with someone other than Bill, and this is not revealed prior to the election, could this also pose future security problems for the United States? Shouldn't the public know whether or not she is having or has had any such relationship?

No one is forcing Hillary to run for the highest office in the land, but if she wants the job, she had best be ready to accept a higher level of scrutiny of her personal life, notwithstanding efforts by America's media to avoid asking about her marriage.

1 comment:

  1. Harry Stein "How the Clintons Changed America: Sex, culture, and the presidency"

    January 4, 2016

    http://www.city-journal.org/2016/eon0104hs.html

    ReplyDelete