I don't get this whole PoC discussion...

[Hekate]

176. She had quite a full life BEFORE she was FLOTUS. She got her law degree. She worked for...

....The Children's Defense Fund. She made a name for herself nationally litigating and defending children's rights, a concept that conservatives found an abomination. Rightwingers and the religious right believe children have no inherent rights of their own (among other things, parents should be allowed to beat their kids in the name of godly discipline) -- so from the beginning, the RW hated this uppity young lawyer who used her maiden name.

She had to put her own career on hold in service to her husband's political ambitions, but she never stopped working for what she believes in -- human rights, civil rights. That speech in Beijing was not quite authorized, especially the way she gave it. It had impact, though.

DUers get quite exercised about her being on the board of WalMart, but WalMart was not as it is today. The original Mrs Walton kept pointing out to the original Mr Walton that there were no women on the Board, and that is pretty much how Hillary got appointed. She was long gone when WalMart transmogrified into the corporation everybody loves to hate.

When Bill went to the White House, where presidents' wives are expected to be unpaid hostesses and social directors, he asked her to instead use her fine legal mind to help get a Universal Health Care bill through Congress for him -- to sell the plan, to persuade them to bring it to a vote. But the RW already hated the Clintons, including Hillary, and they refused to have anything to do with the health care plan, which would actually have been a fine beginning.

You go on believing she's a nothing if you want to, you go on believing she has no identity of her own and owes it all to Bill.

But there are a lot of us who by gods remember history exceedingly clearly.