Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.wpost From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: A Worthy Mission for Hillary=By MARY McGRORY= Date: Thu, 26 Nov 92 10:44:02 EST Message-ID: <35.1992Nov26.104402@AmeriCast.com> Lines: 94 A Worthy Mission for Hillary=By MARY McGRORY= Hillary Hullabaloo II is worse than HH I. Last March, there was something the hollerers could do: They could vote against her husband. Now, it's too late, she's First Lady-elect. For some reason, not clear to all of us, Hillary Clinton causes infinite consternation among those who look at her and shriek, "Co- president!" We never heard much from them during the eight Ronald Reagan years when Nancy Reagan, with the help of her astrologer, ran the country. She decided personnel (ask Donald Regan) and policies, and none of the people who are now in a lather about "undue in- fluence" of an "unelected person" ever turned a hair. Of course, Hillary Clinton will be the co-president, and more power to her. Her husband values her opinions - his respect is a good thing for men to see. He values her political judgments, and he should - they are acute. And yes, he wants her to sit at the table when they have people in for dinner to talk about what they are going to do come Jan. 20. The president-elect has displayed a rather winning humility as he approaches the world's biggest job. He is beholden to a number of people, and he admits it, not in a showy Academy Awards way, but in what he does. He is dependent on Albert Gore Jr., his vice president. He has a debt beyond repayment to his wife. Had she lifted an eyebrow out of sync when the stories about his infidel- ities were raging in New Hampshire last February, he would have been lost. He said on election night, and it was the literal truth, that he couldn't have done it without her. Last winter, when the umbrage-takers massed for attack over Hillary's cookie- making remark - which wasn't well-put but hardly warranted the outcry it caused - she showed why she is as good a politician as he is. She stopped being take-charge and cutting-edge at meetings they both attended, quit introducing him, at greater length than he spoke, and quit policy-crunching in public. The job was more important to her than having her own way. Off went the headband; softer was the hair. She came with cookies. In the summer, the country saw her with her sister-blonde, Tipper Gore, on the bus tour and forgave almost everything. The two cou- ples looked like people you would like to see coming through the hedges to your cookout, and everyone relaxed. But the flapping and fuming has begun again, because it seems, she, as one of her critics put it, "ran off her mouth" at a dinner her husband gave for congressional leaders in Little Rock, Ark. What they really meant was that she shouldn't have been there. "Unelected," you see. But as the president-elect observed, "She knew more than we did about some things." House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), who sat beside Hillary at the dinner, testifies that her interventions were "entirely appropri- ate and useful." She spoke knowledgeably about the retraining commission headed by Ira Magaziner, an issue at the heart of the Clinton assault on joblessness, about the possibility of getting money back from savings and loan executives. She knew about them because her Little Rock law firm had represented some of them. Maybe the First Couple talks about the possibility of her having a government job, maybe a Cabinet post. That would be okay - she's qualified, competent. It would send traditionalists into orbit, but this is the new order. She's a feminist and might want to make the point that a spouse should not be excluded from the top. But what might serve us all better is if she were to concen- trate on her cause. Her cause is children, and what could be worthier? She has served the Children's Defense Fund for 20 years. Children never needed a friend more. Abuse and neglect are on the rise. She might even take on the subject of teenage pregnancy - mere men pale at the thought. Hillary Clinton knows that we are going to lose a whole new gen- eration -and our cities - unless we start paying attention to children who are treated like Kleenex by abusive parents and ig- norant courts. She might lead the way in going to ghetto schools to tutor children, some of whom have never been read to in their lives. She might even send her daughter to one of Washington's public schools, to help revive them. A prominent pupil does wonders for a classroom. Hillary Clinton is an advocate of children's rights, God bless her. Washington, with its high infant mortality rate, its boarder babies, its lamentable record on foster care, its teenage preg- nancy rate, was just made for her. Let's forget everything we heard about her and greet the children's friend.<02:27 11- 26C9999----- Copyright 1992, The Washington Post. This story is from the Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar- chived or redistributed. For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor- poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)