Hillary Clinton Plays the Symbols

“We all think with respect to breakthrough drugs, there ought to be some review . . . . “

“I have seen in my discussions a growing awareness now on the part of large hospitals . . . . “

“We don’t have any incentives, in fact we have the wrong incentives in the health care system as it is presently structured . . . . “

“I see the mission-driven health providers being more ready to step into our system. I’d like to give you some examples . . . . “

Yes, sure, yadda yadda yadda.

But tell us, Miss Big Shot First Lady, what are your plans for refurbishing the White House?

Just kidding, of course .

It’s only that the above sound bites--and the accompanying pictures of Hillary Rodham Clinton coolly and smoothly testifying this week before House and Senate committees--acutely symbolize television’s role in chronicling the evolution of contemporary First Ladydom.

To say nothing of its significance in the high-glossing of her public image--from controversy maker to cookie maker to policy maker--since midway in the campaign that carried her husband to the White House.

After Hillary Clinton made her snappish “stand by my man” crack on “60 Minutes,” she was widely viewed as too pushy and rough around the edges to harmonize with America’s prim concept of what a proper First Lady should be. And sniffing an “uppity woman” campaign issue, speaker after speaker cynically savaged her at the Republican Convention.

Too pushy? Rough around the edges? Out of step?

Compare those skewed, premature verdicts with her historic performance as chief designer andpoint woman for President Clinton’s health care plan, culminating with her impressive stagecraft before windy Capitol Hill lawmakers, many of whom simply went ga-ga over her.

Some of the effusiveness took on a condescending tone, as with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) telling the First Lady: “In the very near future, the President will be known as your husband.” He and some of his colleagues in both parties seemed almost stunned that a female could be as smart as she is, and as knowledgeable about such a complex topic. The speechifying and pats on the head were relentless. And with CNN and C-SPAN capturing it all, the First Lady shrewdly batted the praise right back.

Getting in touch with his inner child Wednesday, epic carper Rush Limbaugh dismissed the entire process as “sickening.”

Others saw it somewhat differently. “Hillary Clinton is very good at this,” CNN’s Candy Crowley noted Wednesday after the First Lady had spent the morning seeming to wow a panel of senators. “She gives great schmooze.”

What a difference a few decades make in this ripening TV age.

On Valentine’s Day, 1962, an estimated 46 million Americans watched First Lady Jackie Kennedy guide CBS correspondent Charles Collingwood through the newly renovated White House, saw them stroll through the Reception Room, State Dining Room, Red Room, Blue Room and Lincoln Room as she breathily noted the wallpaper, silverware, china, sofas, desks, lamps, clocks and portraits.

Although she reminded Norman Mailer then of a “starlet who will never learn how to act,” the glamorous Jackie Kennedy was widely lauded for her televised White House tour. While a departure from some of the more mundane tasks usually required of a President’s wife, her focus on fixing up the home front was generally in line with expectations of a First Lady. She also made her mark in fashion and promoting culture.

The beautification theme was continued by her successor, Ladybird Johnson. The next First Lady, publicly pastel Pat Nixon, was best known for standing by her man. First Lady Betty Ford was admired for acknowledging her breast cancer. Rosalynn Carter (who once testified before Congress, as did Eleanor Roosevelt), Nancy Reagan (who fronted an anti-drugs campaign) and grandmotherly Barbara Bush were each said to wield influence--but behind the scenes.

Having earlier used NBC to get her obligatory White House tour out of the way, however, Hillary Clinton more recently has become the first presidential spouse to aggressively enlist television in the cause of shaping public policy.

Spouses of Presidents should follow their skills and interests. If the husband of a future President is best known for growing prize-winning orchids, so be it.

Yet powerful symbols can be nurtured as productively as flowers, especially when resonating across the land in the sound bites and pictures of newscasts and newspapers. Thus, regardless of the outcome of the President’s health care plan, Hillary Clinton’s extended infomercial in front of the TV cameras--a formidable woman speaking as a pivotal Administration figure, her brain stocked with facts and theories--may be an end in itself.

Very little in politics is bankable. But just as Anita Hill facing a monolith of male lawmakers in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings appeared to mobilize support for female senatorial candidates, so, too, have TV pictures of Hillary Clinton’s testimony this week seemed to capture a seminal moment in the history of First Ladies. Perhaps even in the history of U.S. women.

After all of this, will her wardrobe and hairstyles ever again make bigger headlines than her accomplishments? If so, that would be sickening.

*

THREE’S NO CROWD: “Earlier on ‘Today,’ Katie spoke with First Lady Hillary Clinton. . . .”

Yes, well, it’s the curious nature of celebrity-driven television news that the interviewer often gets billing equal to if not larger than that of the interviewee.

What was fascinating (due to the miracle of videotape), though, was that a recent morning found the First Lady appearing on TV in triplicate, being interviewed simultaneously by Joan Lunden on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Paula Zahn on “CBS This Morning” and Katie Couric on NBC’s “Today.”

Afterward, Zahn said to her co-anchor, Harry Smith, “She was really terrific.”

Smith to Zahn: “Nice job.”

Zahn to Smith: “Thank you very much.”

Yes, it’s also the nature of TV news to be self-congratulatory.

Meanwhile, the Hillary Clinton interviews dramatized not only the multifaceted intensity of the campaign to sell the President’s health care plan to the nation (CNN’s Larry King gets her Saturday night), but also the extent to which gender bias has been corrected on these once male-dominated network morning shows.

Just as the President’s wife has strikingly recast the role of First Lady, so have the morning shows redefined the roles of their female co-hosts in the last couple of years. There was a time when the hard-news segments were nearly always male turf--the men going off to war, so to speak, while the women tended the home front. But now, refreshingly, that is largely history.

The separate First Lady segments also affirmed something else, that morning TV’s best hard-news interviewer--male or female--is Couric.