The Maverick Tribe

Remember that girl you hated in high school?  She got A's in every class, always had her homework done on time, and seemed to be genuine friends with each of her teachers?  She was smartly dressed without being ostentatious, and would always be carrying a pen of each color, and a few pencils - just in case.  She knew to bring a protractor on the first day of geometry class.  She played sports, but not particularly well.  The marching band, the conservation corps, and class secretary were among her calculatingly diverse portfolio of extra-curricular activities.  She wasn't really a standout at anything, just a studied, solid, meticulous performer.  She was a nice girl, friendly in a way that seemed a bit forced.  And, of course, she was universally despised.  Everyone hated how she was always on time for class, how her hand was the first to shoot up when the teacher asked a question, how she never seemed to fail at anything.

As I've watched her Senate career over these last six years, I've realized that Hillary Clinton is that girl... and we Americans are her classmates.  She just wants us to like her.   Her careful incrementalism on policy, her meticulously managed public image, her bland centrism, her focus group tested sound bites, all add up to that insecure teenage girl who desperately wants to be accepted.  Alas, she is a tragic figure, for the harder she tries to impress us, the ever more perfectly palatable she tries to become, the more we resent her.  But sometimes jealousy lies at the core of resentment, and the main ingredient of jealousy is admiration.

I have a great deal more respect for that classmate of mine now than I did then.  And respect, for all my squeemishness about a Hillary Clinton presidency, is something I'm beginning to feel for her as well.