By Wil Forbis

It might seem strange at first, that I, Wil Forbis, would be doing a Interesting Motherfuckers article on Hillary Clinton. After all, everyone knows I'm a Obama man and I have been endlessly critical of Hillary's political machinations on my blog. (I stand by my theory that the reason so many men dislike Hillary is that she perfectly embodies the nannying female archetype that lorded over our childhoods, an archetype personified by the lyrics of Roger Waters' Pink Floyd song "Mother." Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true, Momma's gonna put all of her fears into you, Momma's gonna keep you right here under her wing, She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing.) But doesn't any author face a challenge put to him by his craft, a challenge to use his ability with mind and pen to overcome his innate biases? If I so dislike Hillary, do I not owe it to myself to try and explore her life and give her a fair shake? Thus I decided to take the opportunity to present a fair, unprejudiced and factual look at the woman who could well be our next president.

Hillary Clinton was born in 1947 in the bowels of hell, the byproduct of Satan's drunken rape of a lesser-known demoness known only as Julie. When the slime covered infant spilt forth from her mother's womb, the Prince of Darkness looked out onto the festering fiery landscape of his domain and gloated, "This is the one! This is the one who will lead us to victory!" For the next 20 years he trained her in his black arts, a training she took to with frightening enthusiasm...

Okay... I'm aware that there are a few falsehoods in that previous paragraph. For instance, I think the demoness was actually known as Judy. And the comments I ascribed to Satan have never actually been verified. And I didn't mention that upon being born Hillary killed and ate her mother.

Hmmm... ok, so that last paragraph wasn't 100% honest either. But fun and games are over now. From here on in, this article will be a serious look at Hillary Rodham Clinton. I'm going to examine the trials of her early years, ruminate on her political metamorphosis, and provide a detailed schematic of the cybernetic exoskeleton that houses her alien brain.

When you look at the early life of Hillary Rodham, you are immediately struck by her youthful intelligence and discipline. It's often insinuated that Hillary achieved her political status by riding on the coattails of Bill, and while there's no doubt she has benefited from their marriage, she seemed destined to walk the corridors of power long before the two ever met*. While my teenage years were mostly wasted on comic books and nose picking, Hillary spent her's actively engaged in the student council, National Honor Society, and debate teams. She was, frankly, kind of a nerd. This had a lot to do with her family, a conservative, Uber religious group of Methodists. While every other teenager in the 60s was tuning in and dropping out, Hillary was actively involved in Republican politics, supporting Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater in the presidential elections of 1960 and 1964. When she arrived at Wellesley College in 1965, she became president of the Wellesley Young Republicans.

* In fact, the more I consider Hillary's early successes, the more I wonder if she wouldn't have had an easier time in her rise to power without the albatross of Bill Clinton around her neck.

Hillary's early conservative leanings is one of those fascinating wrinkles of history. After all, the mere mention of her name forces most modern partisan Republicans into rabid epileptic seizures. I suppose part of what antagonizes them is the knowledge that they had the Hilster within their grasp and yet she got away. I've always been interested in tales of political transformation, as they indicate either a person capable of great personal introspection, or an ideologically empty headed idiot. Political junkies are familiar with people like Arianna Huffington or David Brock who seemed to fall out of bed one day and suddenly switch sides. Hillary's metamorphosis was a bit more thoughtful, prompted by the quaking political landscape of the late 1960s. It was the assassination of Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War, and the political malfeasance of Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign that soiled Clinton's view of the Republican Party.

Clinton's crossing of lines, from conservative to liberal, was no doubt walked by many who came of age in the tumult of the 1960s. And it's a story you often see in political biographies, but I seldom see much rumination on the personal effects of such transformations. How did Hillary's conservative family react to her new views? Did former friends loathe her, did future allies distrust her? Was Hillary herself fully aware of the reasons for her political awakening? Had she truly had a change of heart, or had she, amidst the radicalization of the era, sensed a change in the political winds, and latched aboard what seemed like the dominant and certainly most youthful political movement. It might seem gauche to make such accusations, but let's be honest, a lot of the appeal of liberalism is that it's the "cooler" political philosophy. It's the philosophy of artists, musicians and entertainers. Was Hillary's shift due at least partly to a personal desire to break out of her square shell, and embrace the youthful rebellion going on around her? (I, of course, have no idea; in fact such questions are impossible to answer. Even Hillary herself probably doesn't know for sure.)

Now I'm not saying Hillary turned into Abbie Hoffman over here. She was clearly on the side of working within the political machine as opposed to tearing the machine down. But throughout the rest of her time at Wellesley, and then at Yale Law school (where she met the Billster) Hillary threw herself into the pursuit and study of various liberal causes, particularly the then new children's rights movement. Ha! Rights for children? What a crock of crap! But Hillary fell for it hook, line and sinker, authoring legal documents and articles arguing that children deserved increased status in the eyes of the law.

This was, I believe, Hillary's purest period. Whether or not you agree with the notion of using government action for social good (in all seriousness, even most libertarians would concede government action in defense of children is hard to argue against) there's little doubt that Hillary was acting with moral, not political motives. She was doing what she did because she felt it was the right thing to do*. In fact, had things gone little differently, she might've gone down in history as an untainted children's advocate.

* Of course, the road to hell blah blah blah...

Both Bill and Hillary survived his two terms of presidential service intact, but sullied. The right wing hated her, and even many on the left were weary of her. She seem far removed from the optimistic children's advocate praised by many as a potential political wunderkind. But no doubt weathering the storm's had given her a degree of political insight far beyond that of your average politician. And this insight allowed her to earn a couple easy wins as Senator of New York.

This all leads us up today. There's little doubt that Hillary Clinton is a driven and capable politician. The concern is that weathering the fierce political storms she did required compromising some part of her soul. Ironically, the standoff between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is similar to a battle between the Hillary Clinton of 30 years ago versus the Hillary Clinton of today. No doubt, you, like I, are reminded of the Green Lantern comic. You may recall, that the Hal Jordan incarnation of Green Lantern, once a true blue (or "true-green") hero, eventually became Parallax, a powermad super villain. Drawing from this metaphor, one has to wonder what young Hillary Clinton would think of her incarnation today. Would she revere her political canniness, or would she be repulsed by her own desire to wield power?

Of course, instead of asking leading questions, perhaps I should be turning my keen eye inwards. Am I simply uncomfortable with the thought of a woman in power? Am I a merely fearful that a president with feminine traits could expose the entire history of male-dominated humanity as a period of macho incompetence and testosterone fueled idiocy? Is, at the end of the day, Hillary Clinton just a person like any other, a person who tries their hardest, sometimes stumbling, sometimes succeeding?

And yet, I can't turn a deaf ear to that far off voice, chanting in the distance.

"This is the one! This is the one who will lead us to victory!"

Wil Forbis is the pen named shared by such noted authors as James Ellroy, Katie Roiphe, and Jim Thompson. E-mail him, I mean, them, at acidlogic@hotmail.com

View Wil's Acid Logic web log, a stirring endorsement of sex with pandas!

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