The other day I saw a photo of Hillary Clinton going into the Senate. I have a kind heart, so I won’t say that she looked like a teenager’s room, but I did conclude that she must have had a better maintenance contract when she was First Basilisk. You could tell that she needed new siding and maybe her lawn mowed and some paint on her trim.
I saw a science fiction movie once, the kind with a twelve-dollar budget and actors they probably found in a bus station. Anyway these scientists were doing experiments with radioactive gunch. It’s what scientists do. They’d pour it into test tubes and it would bubble like grits if you don’t watch them and turn colors.
I guess it didn’t work because they threw it in a landfill and went off to shoot pool. Well, that landfill started to jiggle, and humph, and sort of pile up on itself, and finally set off to eat Boise. It left a trail and looked like it needed combing.
I don’t know why I thought of that.
We were talking about Hillary. When she and Bill lived in that nice double-wide on Pennsylvania Avenue, she was sleek, probably because she had terrific make-up people who did injection molding, and she’d say, “Cookies,” and “Children,” and all the ladies would vote for her so she could be the Senator from New York. It helped that New Yorkers are dumber than rutabagas.
But people who knew her said she was icy cold and crocodilian.
So I reckon we’ve got one of those profound social questions that you can do a doctoral thesis on:
“Hillary Clinton: Cookie Monster, Walk-In Fridge, Or Dumpster?”
Thing is, you can’t look at Hillary in isolation. (Actually, I don’t feel a pressing need to look at her at all. But we’re being sociological.) If you want to make sense of the Clintons, the best way is to understand them as the revenge of the Confederacy. Nothing else makes them plausible.
My guess is that a secret society, in Montgomery or maybe Chattanooga, figured that the South would never Rise Again, but if they could bring the North low enough, it would be the same thing. I reckon the conspirators meet in a duck blind out in a swamp and drink Franklin County shine (’cause it’s the best) and eat okra. Then they plot.
Now, think about this. Suppose you wanted to destroy the Union, and humiliate it, and make everybody cross the street when they saw it coming. You’d probably start by making some hamhock grifter President. You can actually embarrass a country into submission, except maybe the United States. So I guess they called Little Rock, and got What’s-His-Porkchop to run. They knew Yankees didn’t have better judgement.
Hillary was part of the plan from the beginning. The Committee for Southern Revenge knew that Bill had a character that made tapioca look like reinforced concrete. A vertebrate influence was needed to steady him. Besides, Bill would have to leave office in eight years, taking everything in it with him. They saw Hillary as the iron spine of formless mendacity. She was their hope for continuing the havoc.
It worked pretty well. Ol’ Willy Bill came into Washington honking on a saxophone like a cheap rock band and proceeded to grope women and rut and lie more than he breathed. The Yankee Capital had always had the charm of a theater seat’s bottom. Now it had become ridiculous. Can you imagine what the French thought? They didn’t have Elvis or an army that you’d notice, but they did have taste.
The Union had been brought low. It was revenge sweeter than a pair of Moon Pies stuck together with sorghum syrup.
For eight years, Willie Willie was a serviceable embarrassment. In fact he was spectacular. He sold secrets to the Chinese and did chunky interns. He’d look you in the eye like a sincere cow with an uncle complex and say, “Ah feel yore pine,” and maybe your leg too. Wise men locked up their daughters and the dog and the whole business was funnier than a toad frog in a milk shake. I guess people in Little Rock laughed and laughed, ’cause they knew it was going to happen.
The next trick for the boys in the duck blind was to get Hillary to be President. I’m serious. They knew she would wreck the Union as Marse Bob and Stonewall never could. She would be like getting a second shot at Gettysburg, but as an inside job.
Sure enough, Willy Bill’s eight years ran out, and he left, selling pardons like New Year’s at Wal-Mart. This, what with looting the White House, proved to be a problem. The duck blind worried that even the American public might not be crazy enough to elect Hillary after that. She did her best to help. She said that, why, she was just shocked about those pardons, and how she was just a li’l ol’ housewife, and baked, and thought about children, and didn’t worry her silly little head about politics or what her husband was doing.
Everyone figures that when the White House comes open, she’s going to run like bad nylons and, if she wins, then Bill could be first lady and they could steal everything in the White House they didn’t carry off the first time. Political insiders in Washington think she’d mostly likely pull it off. She’d get all of the black vote, most of the women, and the men would all move to Canada.
The Committee for Southern Revenge didn’t want to take chances. They wanted her to get male as well as female votes. This required a balance between virility and domesticity. Domesticity was easy. She could just say “Cookies” a lot. But . . .virility?
So they got a custom-leather store to make Hillary a codpiece, and Fed-Exed it. Suede, with alligator straps, and a little pocket for car keys. It should get here in a week or so. I hear it’s stunning, and ought to intimidate hell out of the Chinese.