Now-if anyone female and under the age of 82 is still present-let us go on to talk a little about that job in the context of attitudes toward women in general and wives in particular in Washington. In my time here I have seen those attitudes transformed. We aren’t “girls” anymore, and that’s not just because some of us aren’t girls anymore by even the most generous standards. The whole giggly, girly, patronizing, little-woman junk, the ladies’-lunch-with-party-favors-and-pink-dessert culture, if they live on at all, live on somewhere out of sight. Women work; women think; women count-as they always did, of course, but now with greater recognition of the fact and, so far as working and counting are concerned, certainly in greater numbers. Yes, there are still slights and there are still incorrigibles. But as compared with the old days? Don’t get me started.
In relation to wives the change has been particularly sharp. When I came here in the 1960s and for many years thereafter, wives were widely regarded as political chattel. They were meant not only to do whatever housekeeping functions went with their husbands’ jobs, but also to think what their husbands thought (at least out loud), to hold no job and engage in no activity that could in even the tiniest degree compromise their husbands’ positions or create a professional awkwardness, be it ever so minuscule. This was true in my profession as well as in politics and government: it was deeply frowned on and sometimes forbidden for reporters’ wives to be in jobs or on boards or involved in election campaigns that might create doubt about their husbands’ detachment (there weren’t enough female reporters yet to require a policy for husbands).
Well, no more. A number of bold, prophetic wives, “new age” before their time, were at work on that even before the women’s movement was much of a force, and attitudes have been truly shaken. Women in general and wives in particular are now widely believed-will wonders never cease?actually to exist, and also to be free to choose their course. The nature of the full-time work done by some-for example, diplomats’ wives-in furtherance of their husbands’ jobs has generated bitter disputes with traditionalists over such questions as whether they should be obliged to perform these tasks and, if so, whether they should not be paid.
Nobody, I think, argues that Hillary Clinton should go around sounding off against her husband’s policies or that she should get a wage for being First Lady. But there is argument over the merit, the worthiness of the functions she will be expected to perform in the White House: chooser of visitors, provider of hospitality, emissary to and contact with worthy enterprises, setter of tone, selector of projects and so forth. These are real functions. They are also important. They are representational, political, diplomatic. They don’t have to do with endless vacuuming or the concoction of cornflake-crumb-and-tuna casseroles just when one wanted to argue a case before the Supreme Court, as you might suppose they did from some of the put-down of First Ladyhood. The flowers get arranged and the lamps get dusted and the souffles rise without the ministrations of the president’s wife. But there are other things that need doing.
The White House, in other words, is more than the Oval Office and more than a state dining room. It is, as well, a vast enterprise-a household, a symbol, a source of great potential good, a place from which important values can be reflected and in which they can be reinforced by the nature of whom the inhabitants recognize, whom they hear, whom they bring together. All these are functions of state, of first familyhood, not strictly speaking of government. They cannot merely be contracted out or ceded to hired professionals. They are the Clintons’ job.
I realize that this may sound somewhat monarchical in nature, but there is a kind of benedictory political function to be performed from the White House. You need only observe the incredible lines of tourists, day in, day out, waiting surpassingly long stretches to get into the building or witness the unbelievable pleasure people get when some good deed of their school or their project or club, whatever it is, gets recognized with a visit there, to know that this is much more than an extravagant house and that those who determine how it is used have enormous opportunities.
The paradox, of course, is that the inhabitants of the White House must combine this head-of-state, vaguely monarchical function with constant recollection that these are borrowed luxuries and temporary powers. They must not, as some have, get mixed up about that and start behaving in kingly and queenly, which is to say, obnoxiously anti-republican ways. Used properly and with a personal sense of humility and proportion, the White House as a setting and a center of activity has an incredible potential. There is no cause with which either Clinton has been identified that could not profit greatly if that potential were put in its service.
Even as it is said that Hillary Clinton will be more engaged in her husband’s work than other wives of presidents have been, so I would not be surprised to find that these duties and possibilities, conventionally associated with First Ladies only, will involve her husband to an increased degree. The sorts of things they have been talking about trying to preserve once in office-contact with “real” people, an awareness of what is on minds outside the much deplored Beltway, and so forth-can depend in large part on successful, imaginative use of the White House and its magnetic powers. I’m not saying that Hillary Clinton should check her law degree and her mind at the door. I’m not even saying that she shouldn’t get involved in policy, in outside projects-whatever. I’m saying she will find there’s another serious job to do there as well, and she could be awfully good at
