Hillary and Di
Hillary Rodham Clinton has
been devoted to Causes all her adult life. Apart from her family, improving the
world (by her lights) is what she is about. For Princess Diana, Causes were
more than a royal-lifestyle accessory but less than a lifelong passion. Each
woman married into a huge opportunity to advance her Causes. And yet Hillary,
the born Causenik, has been far less successful--both for her Causes and for
herself.
As the
official American representative at the princess's funeral, the first lady must
have wondered why a small fraction of the outpouring of affection for England's
most famous woman couldn't attach itself to this country's most famous woman.
Millions of dollars and pounds pour in daily for Diana's favorite charities.
Hillary, meanwhile, prepares to co-chair a new Conference on Child Care--a
prospect that must make her feel at least a small fraction as weary as everyone
else.
It is hard to remember while in the grip of posthumous
amnesia, but Diana's press was often as lousy as Hillary's. The media mocked
her outsized clothes budget, her downsized tank tops, her affairs, her various
dysfunctions, her penchant for New Age cures. The National Enquirer
pulled its "Di Was Sex Mad" cover off newsstands as soon as it could after the
fatal crash. Even the nontabloid London Sunday Times had the headline
"Diana on the Couch"--above a story questioning the princess's mental
stability--in the edition that hit British doorsteps (too late to stop) a few
hours after her death.
Both women
suffered the indignity of a press obsession with their thighs. Photos from the
Clintons' recent Martha's Vineyard vacation featured Hillary in a bathing suit
with close-ups of her legs. You would think that the thighs of a woman of
Diana's years would yield little in the way of news. But her gym sold photos of
her gams to Fleet Street. Her dimpled cellulite was blown up to ghastly
proportions and plastered on newsstands.
But Diana was wiser about how to transcend her
tormenters. First, she knew not to trouble her pretty little head about matters
of institutional power. It could only slow her down. When she successfully put
land mines on the world's agenda, she didn't do it by going to the United
Nations or 10 Downing St., but to the places where the mines had done their
ghastly damage. She posed for the photographers, uttered some clichés, and
shared her glamour. But it worked.
By
contrast, Mrs. Clinton believed that this feminine approach was old-fashioned,
and went after executive authority like the boys. She got bogged down in
leading a 500-member Health Care Task Force and fighting with subcommittee
chairmen on the Hill. And it's not a question of physical beauty: Eleanor
Roosevelt also took the Diana approach and got results. When she wanted
something to be done about conditions in the mines, she went to (and posed at)
the mines, not to the Bureau of Mines.
Diana's second lesson for Hillary is the one she delivered
to the royal family: Flex that upper lip. There was a great deal more sympathy
for Diana's frailties, once she admitted to them, than the press--bad judges of
how readers will process embarrassing revelations--predicted. At a particularly
low point after the Squidgy tapes, Diana went on the BBC for a two-hour
interview. Her private secretary was so appalled over it that he quit, and the
media's assessment was summed up in one paper's headline, "Has She Gone Mad?"
But politicians in trouble should pore over that tape for guidance in spin
control. With that unfiltered performance, her triumph over the House of
Windsor was ensured.
Hillary
once made a similar appearance, one that has become known as the "press
conference in pink." During the simultaneous controversies over the health care
task force, her killing in cattle futures, and her alleged meddling in the
White House travel office, she invited reporters into the East Room to hear her
explain herself. But by giving absolutely no ground, she gained no sympathy:
Everyone thought she was smart, but no one was reminded she was human. Bill
Clinton has admitted to causing "pain in my marriage," but his wife has never
given the slightest indication she feels any.
Of course, there's the fear that a woman--even
a woman whose public role derives entirely from her husband--won't be taken
seriously if her portfolio is more princess than prime minister. While Diana
was more fame than substance, she accomplished a lot with her 15 minutes once
she had it. Land mines made it onto the world's agenda because Diana put them
there, using only the cameras and good will at her disposal. Meanwhile, in
America, there are still 47 million people with no health insurance.
