Katha Pollitt: HRC: Can't Get No Respect

If people keep making sexist attacks on Hillary Rodham Clinton, I may just have to vote for her. That means you, Elizabeth Edwards! As tabloid readers know, the wife of John Edwards told guests assembled at a luncheon hosted by Ladies' Home Journal that she felt her "choices" had made her "happier" and more "joyful" than HRC. Translation: I've parked my legal career on the shelf to mind the kids, support my husband's political ambitions and tend our wonderful marriage, unlike Hillary, a bitter ambitious career woman with a philandering husband. Well, isn't that special! Isn't she the fulfilled woman of the year! Why are we talking about whether or not a woman senator who, maybe, wants to run for President is less joyful than a (former) senator's wife who, maybe, hopes to be First Lady? Nobody would dream of measuring a male presidential hopeful on the happiness scale. If they had, Abraham Lincoln would never have been elected. It is sad to think that Ms. Edwards would play the happy-homemaker card to help her lightweight husband best a woman with about ten times as much political experience. We all know Edwards did such a great job running for Vice President--the man was everywhere!--and made such a fantastic impression in his debate with Dick Cheney. Still, I might have gone for him in the 2008 primary, because every now and then he pops up out of nowhere and says poverty is bad. Now I dunno. We bitter ambitious career women have to stick together.