Hillary was convinced there would be grace in her life, and meanwhile, she would just carry on."
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From a Washington Post article, Portrait of the Candidate as a Young Climber:
Portrait of the Candidate as a Young Climber [/] By Carl Bernstein [/] Sunday, June 3, 2007; B03
The most important man in Hillary Rodham Clinton's life during her years at Wellesley College was Don Jones, a Methodist youth minister whom she had known since 10th grade, when he rolled into her hometown of Park Ridge, Ill., driving a red Chevy Impala convertible and advocating justice and social reform.
By mail, he became her counselor, confessor, partner in Socratic debate and spiritual adviser. When depression struck in college, she turned to him, as she would for the next three decades, including the year of her husband's impeachment. He focused her on theologian Paul Tillich's sermon "You Are Accepted," in which he says that sin and grace coexist. "Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness," Tillich said. "It happens; or it does not happen." Hillary was convinced there would be grace in her life, and meanwhile, she would just carry on.
Since then, spiritual and quasi-spiritual axioms (some imbued with New Age jargon, others profound) have served as soothing balms in painful times; they would provide answers to questions that seemed otherwise confounding. These comforting postulations would also be used by Hillary to justify, often publicly, her or her husband's less palatable actions or aspects of character.
Peter Edelman, who knew Hillary before she met his wife-to-be, Marian Wright Edelman, thought Hillary's politics while in college "reflected what you would expect in a certain kind of young person at the time . . . sort of on the liberal side. She was opposed to the war in Vietnam, and she had a very instinctive interest in children's issues that had already manifested itself" before she graduated from Wellesley in 1969.
[...] One of Jones's letters to Hillary at Wellesley alluded to Edmund Burke's emphasis on personal responsibility and raised the question of "whether someone can be a Burkean realist about history and human nature and at the same time have liberal sentiments and visions." In her response, Hillary mused, "It is an interesting question you posed -- can one be a mind conservative and a heart liberal?" [/] No description of the adult Hillary Clinton -- a mind conservative and a heart liberal -- has so succinctly defined her as this premonitory observation at age 18. She believed it was possible, though difficult, to be both.
N.B.: One who is not a socialist before age 40 has no heart. One who is still a socialist after age 40 has no brain. - Prominent nineteenth century French statesman, I believe, modified to avoid sexism
Hillary's ambition was always to do good on a huge scale, and her nascent instinct, so visible at Wellesley, to mediate principle with pragmatism -- without abandoning basic beliefs -- seemed a powerful and plausible way to achieve it. Bill Clinton, too, wanted to do good, and on a grand scale, but his gaze had always been fixed at the ground level of practical politics. Hillary's looked heavenward, toward theologian John Wesley's message of service. Part of what Hillary brought to her union with Bill was an almost messianic sense of purpose, a high-mindedness and purity of vision that hovered above the conventionally political. Bill's political beliefs were strongly held, but "with Bill, you felt he just wanted to be president, whereas Hillary had this religious zeal," said a friend from their Yale Law School days. Hillary had seemed to believe since her adolescence that her life was an unending search to determine what was right and how to make it happen.
[...] But Hillary's is not the caricatured, b%tchy, b%ll-breaking toughness that their enemies like to attribute to her. She has almost always been much more thoughtful than they granted. It is more like a kind of military rigor: reading the landscape, seeing the obstacles, recognizing which ones are malevolent or malign, and taking expedient action accordingly.
[...] In Arkansas, she would not be a woman in charge--something she knew was not necessarily antithetical to being married but was antithetical to being married to Bill, on his turf. She would, by choice, inhabit the more traditional universe in which she would invest her talent, dedication and energy to brighten her man's star--as her mother's generation had done. She would be the partner, the manager, the adviser. She would follow her heart.
Carl Bernstein shared, with Bob Woodward, a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of Watergate for The Washington Post. This article is adapted from his forthcoming book, "A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton." [/] Post a Comment [/] View all comments that have been posted about this article. [My ellipses and emphasis]
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Poll Question: Has Hillary Found Grace? | Poll choices:
1. Yes. Magnificent moral role model for us all! / 2. Yes. Faith, Hope, and Love abound! / 3. Yes. Justice, Courage, Prudence and Moderation abound! / 4. Yes. Like the Magdalene, "She hath done what she could." / 5. Yes. All of the above! / 6. Yes. Much more evident in her than in most. / 7. Yes. More evident in her than most. / 8. Yes. / 9. Possibly. / 10. Possibly. Suffering in adversity is impressive. / 11. Possibly. Adherence to political creed is impressive. / 12. Possibly. She is impressive. / 13. No. / 14. No. Still waiting. / 15. No. Still looking. / 16. No. Still seeking. / 17. No. No clear testimony. / 18. No opinion. Important issues deserve much study. / 19. No comment. / 20. No opinion. / 21. This poll is worthless. / 22. This poll is of negative value. / 23. Other.
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