'Wow, This Is Amazing'

'Wow, This Is Amazing'
Reflections on my new senator.
BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Wednesday, November 8, 2000 7:21 a.m. EST

NEW YORK--Clad in a festive turquoise pantsuit, speaking in strong tones and riding high on her triumph in the New York Senate race, Hillary Clinton opened her victory speech last night with the comment: "Wow, this is amazing."

It is, but not quite the way Hillary meant.

What wows me is that the people of New York have fallen for one of the phoniest acts to hit politics anywhere since Imelda Marcos of the Philippines proclaimed herself champion of the poor.

No doubt Mrs. Clinton believes there is great worth to her promise that "I will work my heart out" for New York, much as Mrs. Marcos felt she labored day and night to help her own chosen benighted. If the comparison sounds like a stretch, well, sure, there are some differences. I guess Hillary is smarter than Imelda was, though probably Imelda had the better voice for serenading the people. Hillary has a load of pantsuits and has ditched good old Arkansas for bigger plans of engineering the economy of New York; Imelda had an even bigger collection of shoes and forsook the provinces to try her hand at things like Manila real estate.

But in both cases, look for the crucial factor in career path, and what you find is a huge appetite for power, dolled up as concern for the common folk--and coupled with a large political machine, made available thanks to the job of a powerful and unscrupulous husband.

Now Hillary has won an official job of her very own, and the message seems to be: Never mind Bill's peccadilloes as president. This is the all-new, empowered Hillary, standing athwart some fresh dawn of revamped trust-me-now Clintonism.

Sorry. With Hillary about to busy herself in the Senate, it will be more important than ever to look past the trappings and keep an eye on the kind of person proposing to help shape the nation. Though that's not always easy. Mrs. Clinton has by now had years of practice veiling herself in full Washington regalia, traveling and ultimately campaigning amid a hubbub of presidential security details and police-mandated traffic jams and general celebrity furor that generates its own haze of public tolerance--for the simple reason that such attention and care is meant for the president and extended as a public courtesy to his family.

But that's not how Mrs. Clinton read the rule book. Hillary's 55% to 43% sweep over Rep. Rick Lazio is by some accounts supposed to be not the result of ruthless politics but the sum of many good and gentle things. Listen to Hillary herself, or talk with her main supporters, and you will hear that this is a milestone for women, a boon to New York, an affirmation of the Clinton presidency and a hope that more of such stuff--whatever it's all been about--lies ahead.

Certainly the folks on hand to celebrate with the Clintons last night felt that something wonderful had been achieved. That's what I ran into when--after watching Mrs. Clinton's victory speech on television--I hopped a ride to the midtown Manhattan hotel where the Clintons and hundreds of their supporters and campaign workers had gathered to receive the election news.

There, in a swirl of red, white and blue balloons, I found such enthusiasts as 34-year-old Berrin Koksal, a financial analyst and campaign volunteer who told me that Hillary "wants to build a better life for all New Yorkers" and that she will do this by doing "whatever she says she's going to do."

Also chiming in was 36-year-old highway-worker Greg Packer, another campaign volunteer, who said that what Hillary would do for New York was "plenty" and added, in exuberant tone: "And she is going to be our next president."

I don't doubt the good intentions of these campaign workers. And there's plenty to suggest Mr. Packer is right about Mrs. Clinton's larger ambitions. But what kind of person are they really talking about, and what is it exactly that they expect her to do?

However commanding her tone, and whatever color clothing Mrs. Clinton may don--pink for discussing her commodities trades, turquoise for her Senate seat--this is still the woman who has never satisfactorily explained her bizarre $100,000 profit on a $1,000 investment in futures contracts, back in the days when Bill was advancing from Arkansas attorney general to governor.

This is still the woman who gave "factually inaccurate" testimony about her part in the firing of the White House travel office staff; who as the Whitewater investigation moved forward apparently had a Houdini in charge of some of her law firm's more questionable billing records; who as Bill's main partner did not see fit to stop the parade of campaign contributors through the Lincoln bedroom.

This is still the woman who with no credentials stronger than being the president's wife felt entitled as soon as she'd moved into the White House to take charge of an immense project to reform health care--then completely botched the job and without apology stuck taxpayers with the tab. This is still the woman who helped Bill live down his lies to the American public--lies for which he was impeached. This is the woman who by turns plays the feminine victim fearful of having her "personal space" invaded on the debating platform and the hard-nosed pol, slinging mud at her opponent.

Hillary has peddled herself to the electorate as one of those select politicians whose plans for the lot of us somehow justify odd uses of power and public trust. This is the woman who, by her actions, has over and over delivered to the American public the message that if you can just squeak past the awkward questions long enough, then evasions and lies don't matter. Apparently, by now they really don't.

Wow, that's amazing.

Ms. Rosett is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. Her column appears Thursdays on OpinionJournal.com and in The Wall Street Journal Europe as "Letter From America."