Why Sen. Clinton is no feminist

Sen. Clinton is no feminist. She's ridden her husband's coattails throughout her career, and would be nothing more than an Arkansas lawyer otherwise.

But that's not my point. My point is the personal manipulating that Clinton does. She wants it both ways. We are expected to respect her as a senator, as a lawyer, as a presidential candidate -- and then we see the signs.

Hillary.

No other candidate goes by their first name. No "Barack" signs. No "John" signs. But somehow Sen. Clinton's campaign feels that calling their candidate by her first name -- as we would do with an 8 year old -- is advancing her cause.

Same with Clinton's little weeping episode in New Hampshire. One tape running in the back of most voters' minds is that the individual who will be elected president will have their finger on the nuclear trigger. And we want to know that whoever is elected will be calm, responsible, and resolute in a potential war setting.

I suspect the weeping episode hurt Clinton more than she realizes. Because no one wants a president who's going to be weepy. The president might have to make some very strong decisions, and boo-hooing is inappropriate in such circumstances.

I don't agree with Condoleeza Rice, but no one could imagine her crying. Same with former Prime Minister Thatcher across the pond. But Clinton stages a crying episode, and acts like a bad stereotype of a woman, and we're supposed to elect her president? Come on. Clinton's not a feminist. She's a wanna-be who will do what it takes to advance her career. If it involves mocking women who filed sexual harassment charges against Clinton's husband, she'll do it. If it involves making every career move she's done by leap-frogging off her husband, she'll do it. And if it involves staged crying episodes, she'll do it.

Calling her "Hillary," rather than "Clinton" is probably appropriate. Because in the end, she's just a sad little girl trapped in a late middle aged woman's body, still seeking to please men. Women like Rice or Thatcher or Feinstein don't talk about their feminist bona-fides because they don't have to. People take them seriously because they do their jobs. Would that Sen. Clinton would follow their examples.