Hillary Not At Her Best

A question making the rounds on the internets: does this photograph make you more or less likely to vote for Hillary Clinton? The photographer captured her not looking anything close to her best; she looks older and her hair is not dealing with the weather very well. She’s looked better, even recently.

Fact is, people wouldn’t be asking this question of a male candidate. We like wrinkles and gray hair on our male politicians. Hillary Clinton, like any other politician, shouldn’t have to look perfect at all times to earn either your respect or your vote.

I think she looks more or less like a lot of professional women in their late fifties or early sixties. Maybe I’m just used to seeing professional women; I’m a professional myself and I’ve never functioned in a professional world without interacting with an appreciable number of professional women who look more or less like that. Yes, the law is still a male-dominated profession, but I can’t think of a time since I got my license that a woman in her early sixties serving as a lawyer (or a judge) was particularly remarkable. I look at that picture and I see a lawyer who, as opposing counsel, could probably make my life pretty difficult if she wanted to. Hillary Clinton is 60 years old; her adult daughter old enough to be having children herself if she wanted to be, so if she looks a little bit grandmotherly, that’s why.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. I will be that age myself one day. Hopefully, we all live at least long enough to have days when we look like that. Now, to be sure, politicians are in the business of projecting a particular public image. But part of the image they should project is one of experience, seriousness, and knowledge. Had she gotten a face lift, or been out in the weather in Iowa or New Hampshire with hair so elaborately coiffed that it looked perfect, or enough makeup on to conceal all the wrinkles, I might be more inclined to think she was presenting herself as something that she really isn’t.

I also came across a meme last night that leaders of other nations, particularly Muslim countries, might not take her seriously as President because she is female. This is an implied argument that even if we Americans take her seriously, other nations might not, so we should pick a man. That’s stupid. Besides, anyone remember Margaret Thatcher? Lady Thatcher is living proof you trifle with the female head of state of a powerful nation at your own risk. How about Indira Gandhi? Benazir Bhutto? Golda Mier? No one would suggest that any of these women were weak, wilting violets on the world stage. Thatcher was ready to nuke Argentina. Mier would have nuked Syria if she’d had nukes at all.

My concerns about Hillary Clinton as President have nothing to do with her having a few wrinkles around the mouth and eyes, and certainly nothing to do with the strange idea that because some unnnamed, unspecified foreigner doesn’t think women should hold political power, that should influence America’s collective decision about our next leader even a tiny bit. My concerns about a Hillary Clinton White House have to do with the kinds of policies she’d advocate and implement as President.