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December 28, 2007

“The Résumé Factor

(click for full size)

Hrc-BbThe assassination of Benazir Bhutto had its own political reverberation on Hillary, and the campaign.

In responding to the killing yesterday, Team Clinton framed the event around the experience theme, emphasizing out how the candidate had met several times with Bhutto.  The point deserves a footnote, however, in light of Wednesday’s NYT front page piece, titled: “The Résumé Factor: Those Two Terms As First Lady.”

The interaction with Bhutto sounds impressive, no doubt.  As does the picture.  In this photo, taken in Islamabad in 1995, however, the affinity is conveyed through motherhood, as well as the fact Ms. Bhutto is looking to Ms. Clinton.  (As far as I know, Bhutto was the only world leader to produce a baby while in office.)  I assume Clinton has had more substantive interactions with Bhutto, perhaps when she was in exile.  What you have here, however, is not an example of parity or a political meeting of equals.  Instead, juxtaposed is an American first lady standing alongside Pakistan’s then-head of state.

The Résumé Factor: Those Two Terms As First Lady (NYT)

Politics and the Pakistan Effect (Newsweek)

(image: B.K. Bangash/A.P.  Pakistan. March 26, 1995.  via YahooNews)

  • http://www.sherrychandler.com Bluegrass Poet

    And why isn’t shared motherhood a valid resume point?

  • http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/2007/12/the-rsum-factor.html#comments jerri

    Wow…so in 1995 western wowmen were not forced to cover their heads. I guess it is appropriate to say we have come a long way baby.

  • Johanna

    The Clinton response has been tacky and disgraceful. Demanding an inquiry into the assassination? Hello, where is her, or any American’s standing, to make that demand? This kind of demand presumes the complete absence of Pakistan’s own statehood and therefore jurisdiction over its own affairs, and internal crimes. And she calls Bush a cowboy? Did any other nation or foreigner come forward after the Kennedy assassination and make such a demand? I wonder what the response here would have been to such a thing.