Toward an Integral Understanding of

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Part II: Liberal Activism

Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the
places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you
can.
John Wesley

By David Marshall

School Years

Hillary was raised in Park Ridge, Illinois, which is a middle class suburb to the northwest of
Chicago. Her father was a pro-Vietnam War, anti-communist Republican. Her mother, who had
the greatest influence on her,1 was basically a Democrat.2
She was also influenced by her grandfather, who described himself as a "progressive." In 1961
he took Hillary to see Martin Luther King Jr. without her parents' permission.3 She saw King a
second time in 1962 with her youth minister, the progressive Don Jones.4 Stemming from these
experiences, race relations have always played a prominent role in Hillarys politics:
If there is a single defining thread of Hillarys political, religious, and social
development, it is her belief and determination, from her teenage years onward, that the
tragedy of race in America must be made right. What in part first attracted her to Bill
Clinton was her perception that he was an unusual, enlightened Southerner who wanted
to go into politics and help right the countrys greatest wrong.5
Don Jones was the most influential . . . male figure in her early life. He was controversial in
Park Ridge for introducing Hillary and her youth group to progressive ideas.6 She would later
say of Jones, He was just relentless in telling us that to be a Christian did not just mean you
were concerned about your own personal salvation.7
2

A week after classes began her freshman year at Wellesley College, Hillary "caused a slight stir
on the campus when she brought a black classmateone of only ten at the collegewith her to
church services in town." She wrote to Don Jones, I was testing me as much as I was testing the
church.8
According to Karen Williamson, one of the most active members of the African American
student organization, Hillary was always supportive of the African-American students.9 She
also tutored disadvantaged children at Wellesley, including a seven-year-old African American
girl she "formed a close bond with."10 Berkeley economist Robert Reich tells a similar story:
She and I were self-styled student reformers then . . . Years before the radicals took
over admissions buildings and shut down the campuses. We marched for civil rights and
demanded the admission of more black students to our schools. Even then we talked
about bringing the nation together. We were nave about how much we could
accomplish.11

Due to the influence of her father and her ninth-grade history teacher, Hillary campaigned for
Barry Goldwater in high school and served as president of the Young Republicans her freshmen
year at Wellesley.12 But like many of her generation, her politics drifted to the left in college.
During the summer of 1966, she worked for an anti-war professor on a book called The Realities
of Vietnam. The professor, who was allegedly being driven out of Wellesley because of his antiwar activities, gave her books to read by unorthodox Catholics Marshall McLuhan and Walter J.
Ong. These authors appealed to her because they came from a Jesuitical tradition, with
similarities to [her] Wesleyan orientation.13 Carl Bernstein elaborates:

Hillarys evolving political sensibility drew from the tenets of Reinhold Niebuhr, Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, and Paul Tillich, all of whom regarded Christian values and ethics as
essential elements in the exercise of political power; from this heritage, and her
continuing tutelage under the Reverend Jones, Hillary had no doubt that those values
demanded spiritually based intervention in the political system.14
By the end of the summer her opposition to the war in Vietnam was adamant.15 By her junior
year she was supporting an anti-war DemocratEugene McCarthy of Minnesota. She travelled
to New Hampshire several times to volunteer for his campaign against Lyndon Johnson in the
Democratic presidential primaries of 1968.16 My opinions on most human conditions, she
wrote to Don Jones, are being liberalized. 17
She was elected president of the student government in February of 1968. In April of that year
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. This event "seemed to galvanize Hillary's more militant
instincts," writes Bernstein. She screamed and threw a bag against the wall.18 She joined a
protest in Boston and returned to Wellesley wearing a black armband.19

Many of her fellow students wanted to go on a hunger strike and shut down the school. On many
campuses demonstrations had turned violent, forcing administrators to suspend classes and
cancel graduation ceremonies. But Hillarys chosen means of protest and resistance were in the
nonviolent, disciplined tradition of Dr. King, and reflected John Wesleys insistence on obeying
the law."20
She struck a compromise between the students and the administration: The students would have
a two-day strike. The administration would (1) recruit more minority students and teachers; and
4

(2) pressure local businesses to improve housing and employment opportunities for African
Americans.21
She also campaigned for a summer Upward Bound program for inner-city kids on the Wellesley
campus.22 This program still exists today as the MIT/Wellesley Upward Bound program. 23
Despite Hillarys conversion to the Democrats, her advisor in the Wellesley summer internship
program assigned her to work for the House Republican Conference in the summer of 1968. Her
adviser said to her: Im still going to assign you to the Republicans because I want you to
understand completely what your own transformation represents.24
So Hillary spent her summer in Republican politics while being a Eugene McCarthy
Democrat. Her boss was Edwin Fuelner, who would later run the conservative think tank
Heritage Foundation. He said of Hillary: I remember her being very bright, very aggressive and
not very Republican.25
Toward the end of her internship, she attended the Republican convention in Miami. Despite
little chance of success, she volunteered for the effort "to draft Nelson Rockefeller and derail
Richard Nixons nomination for president.26

After hearing Nixon speak, she thought: Im done with this, absolutely. She found the
intolerance of the Miami convention at odds with the moderate conservativism of her youth.27
5

She also drove to Chicago each day of the Democratic Convention. She was horrified by the
riots. She witnessed people her own age getting their heads split open by police batons. The
scene in Grant Parkblood, bandages, fires, burning, and tear gasreminded her of the war
in Vietnam.28

Hillary returned her senior year "determined to bring the campus more actively into the antiwar
movement.29 Her anti-war stance had put her increasingly in conflict with her conservative
father, Hugh Rodham. But she steered the protests toward nonviolent "teach-ins" rather than
violent or disruptive protest.30
She was also concerned about poverty, as we might expect given her type of Methodism.31 Once
she asked a friend to return an unopened bottle of perfume to the store because she felt guilty
about such an extravagance when there was so much poverty.

She wrote her senior thesis about anti-poverty crusader Saul Alinksy. Hillary suppressed the
release of this paper for decades, not wanting her interest in Alinskys radical leftism to damage
her or her husbands political career.32
She met with Alinsky three times as she was writing her thesis. Alinsky offered Hillary a chance
to work with him when she graduated, but Hillary turned him down.
Alinsky was disappointed. He said she would be wasting her time by going to law school. But
my decision, Hillary wrote, was an expression of my belief that the system could be changed
from within33

She caused a stir at her commencement speech when she set aside her written speech to criticize
a conservative speaker who preceded her. This earned her write-ups in Life and Time magazines,
making her more famous than Bill when they met at Yale Law School. Here is an excerpt from
her speech:
We are, all of us, exploring a world that none of us even understands and attempting to
create within that uncertainty. But there are some things we feel, feelings that our
7

prevailing, acquisitive, and competitive corporate life, including tragically the

universities, is not the way of life for us. We're searching for more immediate, ecstatic,
and penetrating modes of living.34
Hillary had an aversion to corporate life and an antagonism toward corporations in her twenties,
as well see below.
I think her speech is worth listening to. You can hear an edginess to her voicethe edginess of a
student activistthat stayed with her into the 1990s but which you rarely hear now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CAUOa5m5nY

During her time at Yale Law School, she volunteered for several various progressive causes. She
worked for the Yale Child Study Center. She conducted research for an influential book titled
Beyond the Best Interests of the Child. She took cases of child abuse at Yale-New Haven
Hospital and helped establish legal procedures for child-abuse cases. She offered free legal
advice at New Haven Legal Services for those who couldnt afford it.

In the summer of 1970 she worked on a Senate investigation into the living and working
conditions of migrant workers. One of the migrant camps she studied was owned by the Coca
Cola company. Her strategy, writes Bernstein, was to have Coca-Colas president, J. Paul
Austin, brought before the committee to testify, and held up as an egregious example of
corporate callousness." She also chastised fellow law students for interning at corporations:
At the hearings, several fellow students from Yale Law School sat across the witness
table from the senators: they were present as summer associates on behalf of corporate
clients of the law firms where they were interning. She made her contempt for such
lawyering clear, and upbraided them for their choice. Im not interested in corporate
law. My life is too short to spend it making money for some big anonymous firm, she
had said.

This summer was a personal turning point for her. She would focus her studies on childrens
law.35 I want to be a voice for Americas children, she said.

She started dating Bill Clinton in the spring of 1971. She said of Bill, He was the first man Id
met who wasnt afraid of me.36

Hillary interned for a controversial law firm in San Francisco named Treuhaft, Walker and
Burnstein in the summer of 1971. Carl Bernstein described this firm as one of the most
important radical law practices on the West Coast, celebrated for its defense of constitutional
rights, civil liberties and leftist causes."

Two of the four partners had been members of the Communist Party, and others tolerated
communists.37 In the 1950s senior partner Robert Treuhaft had been listed by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee as one of the most dangerously subversive lawyers in the
country.
10

We did poor peoples law, said Mal Burnstein. He said of Hillary, She came to us because of
the civil rights cases we did, the things we did with racial equity and other civil rights things.
That was her interest."38
As with other left-wing activities, Hillary would later play down her internship at this law firm
for political reasons. "She did not want it known that she had worked there," says Bernstein.39

Arkansas
Hillary rejected Bills first two marriage proposals. But she moved to Arkansas to be with him
just after Christmas in 1974.

However, a few days after she arrived she was offered a chance to work on the impeachment
investigation of President Richard M. Nixon. She moved to Washington, and Bill stayed in
Arkansas to run for the U.S. Congress. At one point Hillary threatened to sleep with a man in
Washington if Bill didnt stop his womanizing.40

11

She moved back to Arkansas when Nixon resigned in August of 1974. She and Bill often had
shouting matches. Once on the way to a campaign stop she jumped out of the car at a red light.
Bills campaign was desperate for money in the last weeks of the election. He was offered
$15,000 from a lawyer who represented dairy interests. Unlike Hillarys speeches at Goldman
Sachs, there would be a quid pro quoan agreement to serve dairy interests in exchange for the
money. But Hillary was adamant that they should not take the money.
"No," she told her husband. "You don't want to be a party to this!"
Did they want to win or lose, Fray [Bills campaign manager] asked.
Well, I dont want to win this way. If we cant earn it, we cant go [to Washington],
Hillary answered, according to Fray.41
She also steered the campaign away from making allegations of marital infidelity about Bill's
opponent, even though they were making similar allegations about Bill.
Bill lost the election.
But Hillary finally agreed to marry him.

In Arkansas she taught at the University of Arkansas School of Law; co-founded the Arkansas
Advocates for Children and Families; and directed a legal aid clinic and a prisoner assistance
program.

12

Bill was elected Arkansas Attorney General in 1976.

But public officials in Arkansas made paltry salaries. This put Hillary in a bind.
Bill did not care about money. He cared about his political career. Yet they both wanted children.
"She was now willing to consider a career, writes Bernstein, she had regarded previously with
overt contempt: corporate law."42
She went to work for the Rose Law Firm.
This is worth emphasizing: Hillary did not want to go into corporate law.
She wanted to be an activist lawyer for liberal or progressive politics, but she turned to corporate
law to provide for her family.
13

In 1977 Democratic President Jimmy Carter appointed Hillary to the board of Legal Services
Corporation (LSC). The Legal Services Corporation is a nonprofit organization established by
the U.S. Congress in 1974 to provide legal assistance for those who can't afford it.
This program runs counter to neoliberalism, which involves laissez-faire economics; supply-side
economics; privatization; deregulation; fiscal austerity; trade agreements without protections for
workers and the environment; and reductions in funding for social programs like LSC.
In 1979 Carter appointed Hillary to be chairperson of the board of LSC, the first woman to hold
that position.
In 1980 the neoliberal Ronald Reagan tried to drastically reduce funding for legal services for
the poor in California."
But Hillary persuaded the board to reject Reagan's proposals. Funding for Legal Services
Corporation expanded from $90 million to $300 million during her tenure.43

14

Bill won his election for Governor of Arkansas in 1978.

But he lost his reelection in 1980. He fell into a depression. Bernstein writes:
Bill's collapse after his loss was psychologically and emotionally absolute. He was utterly
undone, wounded so critically that Hillary feared he might never recover. He couldnt
face people, said Deborah Sale. It was unbelievably devastating. He just thought it was
the end of his life.44
More than ever Hillary was the chief breadwinner and financial decision maker of the family.
As reported by the New York Times in an article titled Stress Over Family Finances Propelled
Hillary Clinton into Corporate World:
The ousted governor needed a job, the family needed a place to live, and moving out of
the governors mansion meant losing the help they had as they raised their 9-month-old
daughter, Chelsea. . . .
She worried about saving for Chelseas college, caring for her aging parents, and even
possibly supporting herself should the marriage or their political dreams dissolve.
"It was up to her to just keep holding things up, said Nancy Pietrafesa, a college friend
of Mrs. Clintons who moved to Arkansas to work for Mr. Clinton in the 1970s." . . .
He was never interested in money, ever, Mr. Blair said. She is the one who had to be
sure Chelsea was going to be able to afford college."

15

She increased her hours at the law firm, traded in commodities, and joined the board at
Arkansas-based Walmartnot because she was Spiral Dynamics Orange or Ego Development
Theory Achiever but because her husband wasnt interested in making money and she felt he
wasnt reliable.45
Nevertheless, she continued to take pro bono cases for children. "She was far more interested in
her pro bono activities on behalf of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, which she
had helped found, writes Bernstein.46 She also provided free legal services for the First United
Methodist Church in Little Rock.4748
Hillary had kept her maiden name when she married Bill. But this departure from tradition
along with her northern accent, her sophisticated wardrobe, and her feminismhad caused
political problems for Bill in Arkansas.
So she became Hillary Rodham Clinton and modified her behavior to help him get reelected.
Bill won reelection as Governor of Arkansas in 1980.

16

As First Lady of Arkansas, Hillary urged Bill to make education reform the centerpiece of his
administration and led the reform herself. She also used her contacts in Washington to expand
health care to rural parts of the state.49 Notice how she dresses for this education meeting.50

17

Washington D. C.
Bill was elected president of the United States on November 3, 1992.

Now Hillary had the power to change the system. Now she had the chance to be the Alinsky
from within. She departed from the traditional role of first lady and took on a massive and
ambitious projectuniversal health care.
Her plan called for (1) a mandate to force corporations to provide health insurance for their
employees, and (2) a spending cap because she and Bill didnt think the market forces would be
enough to constrain costs.51
Both of these items run counter to neoliberalism. Neoliberals, as laissez-faire advocates, would
leave it up to the market in both cases. This radical faith in the market forces amounts to a
quadrant absolutism of the lower-right variety, often accompanied by a privileged socioeconomic
standpoint.

18

But neither Hillary nor Bill were free-market fundamentalists, as we can see by these aspects of
their health plan, and Hillary had a lifelong commitment to the social gospel. The plan raises
costs for those neoliberals seek to protect.
Hillarycare was at least as controversial as Obamacare. Hillary went on a tour of the country to
sell it to the American people, but the backlash was vicious.
People spit on her and cursed her.52 The Secret Service convinced her to wear a bullet-proof vest
for the first time.
At her rallies she faced signs saying Heil Hillary, and she could barely hear her own voice
over the boos.53

The plan also ran into problems in Congress because of Hillarys uncompromising attitude and
the deeply anti-Washington flavor of her tone. She believed that Washington led people to
lose sight of what was important . . . and focus on petty and personal concerns.54

19

She refused to compromise with Republicans and conservative Democrats. Well crush you,
she said to a conservative Democrat with an alternative plan that did not include an employer
mandate.55
She was very opposed to incrementalism, said White House adviser David Gergen.56
Unlike Lyndon Johnson, who was able to pass his Great Society legislation because he had
supermajorities in both houses, the Clintons only had slim majorities in 1993. The plan failed to
get enough Democratic votes to pass, let alone overcome a Republican filibuster.
However, Hillary enjoyed a smaller victorythe State Childrens Health Insurance Program,
which provided health insurance for millions of children from low-income families.
Senator Ted Kennedy, one of the earliest and greatest champions of universal health care, said,
The children's health program wouldn't be in existence today if we didn't have Hillary pushing
for it from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.57

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Clintonomics

Many have claimed that the economic policies of the Clinton administration were neoliberal and
that therefore Bill and Hillary are neoliberals. Often the label Orange is attached. But there are
three basic problems with this narrative.
(1) It fails to recognize the connection between presidential economic policies and academic
economists and how the academic debate about neoliberalism has changed since the 1990s.
Joseph Stiglitz, an economist from Columbia University, is a current economic advisor of Hillary
Clinton. He also served on Bill Clintons Council on Economic Advisors, including as chairman
from June 1995 to February 1997. He spoke about the evolution of the academic debate on
neoliberalism earlier this year:
I can talk about this from the point of view of academia or even in policy circles. In
academia, I think it has pretty well become rejected . . . The young students are not
interested in establishing that neoliberalism works they're trying to understand where
markets fail and what to do about it, with an understanding that the failures are pervasive.
That's true of both micro and macroeconomics. I wouldn't say it's everywhere, but I'd say
21

that it's dominant . . . We've gone from a neoliberal euphoria that 'markets work well
almost all the time' and all we need to do is keep governments on course, to 'markets
don't work' and the debate is now about how we get governments to function in ways that
can alleviate this . . . Neoliberalism is dead in both developing and developed
countries.5859
According to Bernie Sanders supporter James K. Galbraith, an economist from the University of
Texas, conservative economic ideas had intellectual legitimacy and scholarly credentials in
the 1980s and 1990s. He points out that neoliberals had prominent places in universities and
think tanks and that Robert Muller, a supply-side economist, won the economists version of the
Noble Prize in 1999.60
In 1987 the New York Times editorial board argued not just against an increase in the minimum
wage, but against the minimum wage altogether. In an editorial titled The Right Minimum
Wage: $0.00, they wrote, There's a virtual consensus among economists that the minimum
wage is an idea whose time has passed.61

22

Governor Jerry Brown ran for president on a flat tax of 13% in 1992.
In 1998 Paul Krugman wrote:
So what are the effects of increasing minimum wages? Any Econ 101 student can tell you
the answer: The higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to
unemployment.
In 2015 Krugman wrote:
Theres just no evidence that raising the minimum wage costs jobs, at least when the
starting point is as low as it is in modern America.62
In short, many progressive politicians in the 1980s and 1990s included neoliberal policies in too
great a measure because many academic economists were telling them it would help the lower
and middle socioeconomic classes, albeit in a counter-intuitive manner.
(2) It fails to recognize that Democrats only had a slim majority in Congress in Bill Clintons
first two years as president and lost control of both houses after the Gingrich Revolution of 1994.
Bill and Hillary were not king and queen. They were president and first lady in a constitutional
federal representative democracy with a system of checks and balances.63 They were never in a
position to do what they liked. If they had been, they might have passed a single-payer healthcare system with universal coverage.64
But the balance of power in Congress such as it was they were forced to make compromises with
Republicans. The economic policies of the Clinton administration were thus not a reflection of
what was in the heart of the president, let alone the first lady.

23

(3) It fails to recognize that Clintons economic policies were not purely neoliberal but a type of
third way or an early attempt at third way. For example:

Clinton raised the minimum wage in 1996.65

Clinton substantially increased funding for early childhood education.
Bernie Sanders supporter James K. Galbraith has written that the Clinton tax program . .
was on the whole progressive.66
Clinton first opposed Republican efforts to reduce the capital-gains tax. Then he struck a
compromise where Republicans would get their capital-gains tax cut (without indexing
gains to inflation) in exchange for progressive child tax credits and tuition tax credits.67
Clinton tried to reign in executive compensation by only allowing corporations to deduct
executive salaries up to $1 million, though the plan backfired.68
Many blame Clinton for neoliberal trade deals, but they fail to recognize that his call for
labor and environmental standardsand sanctions for those countries who fall below
themis often credited for the collapse of WTO negotiations in Seattle in 1999.69

Finally, for those who missed the 1990s, its worth pointing out that neoliberals spent over a
hundred million dollars trying to smear the Clintons.70 They understood that the Clintons werent
neoliberals like themselves.71

24

Senate Years

Hillary emerged from the 1990s with a reputation of being too far to the left. As reported by The
New York Times, She was seen as a fierce Democratic partisan and a symbol of the liberal
excesses of the Clinton years.72
So she began crafting a more centrist image to prepare for a run on the U.S. Senate and
eventually the White House. This rebranding included centrist positions on abortion, defense,
health care, and immigration.
A cornerstone of her new image involved a tough stance on defense. Republicans typically attack
Democrats for being weak on defense, and this might be even worse for a female Democrat, so it
was particularly important that Hillary appear strong on defense.
She won her election for the Senate in 2000.

25

Hillarys rebranding had two basic effects on the electorate: (1) conservatives resented her even
more because they thought she was trying to trick people into thinking she was a centrist; and (2)
progressives who began paying attention to politics in the new millennium saw the rebranded
Hillary and took her to be more conservative than she was.73 Jonathan Chait described the effect
of this strategy on liberals and moderates during her reelection campaign in 2006:
As a prospective national candidate, [Hillary] has two great vulnerabilities. First many
voters think shes too liberal. Second, many voters also see her as cold, calculating, and
unlikeable. . . . Her response to this was to position herself in the center, cozying up with
her former GOP tormenters in the Senate, staking out hawkish positions and making an
overture to cultural conservatives. The theory was that her centrist positions would
endear her to moderates but wouldnt cost her on the Left, because years of conservative
vilification caused liberals to bond with her emotionally.
But instead of moderates focusing on her positions while liberals focus on her persona,
the opposite seems to be happening. Moderates fear she remains too culturally divisive to
win. And liberals can't stand her centrist positioning. It's the worst of all worlds.74

26

Hillary won her reelection to the Senate in 2006.

Despite this conscious attempt to rebrand herself as a centrist, her actual record in the Senate was
progressive.
According to FiveThirtyEight, "Clinton was one of the most liberal members during her time in
the Senate. Her record was more liberal than 85 percent of all members.75
The New York Times analyzed Hillarys and Bernie Sanders voting records in the Senate and
found that they agreed 93% of the time.76
According to a scaling method known as DW-NOMINATE, Hillary was the 11th most liberal
member of the Senate.77

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Secretary of State

Hillary lost to Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primaries, but President Obama appointed
her as his secretary of state.
The secretary of states job is to implement the foreign policies of the president. This is the
fundamental mistake of most of the criticisms we have heard about Hillary during her time as
secretary of state: the secretary of state generally doesnt come up with his or her own foreign
policy.
This is even more true in the case of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It was widely reported
that Hillary was disappointed that Obama wouldnt give her more leeway in making decisions. In
the words of Dennis Ross, a special advisor to Hillary in the State Department:
What we find out is that all decision making is concentrated in the White House. That
there is no decisions that are going to be made that dont get vetted and run through the
White House, no matter how small.78
So we cannot form opinions of Hillarys beliefs based on her public statements as secretary of
state. For example, much has been made about Hillarys flip flop on the Trans-Pacific
28

Partnership (TPP) deal. She at one time said it was the gold standard of trade agreements. Then
later she said, I am not in favor of it. But her favorable comments about the TPP correspond
with her time as President Obamas secretary of state.79 They dont necessarily tell us anything
about her own views on the subject.
Hillarys only power as secretary of state was her ability to influence President Obama and his
advisors, so we depend on leaks of behind-the-scenes debates to learn about Hillarys views.
Its beyond the scope of this paper to delve into President Obamas foreign policy too deeply, but
Id like to take a look at the Libya intervention because that is one matter where Hillary is said to
have been influential.

Typically analysts distinguish between two types of interventionism: neoconservative and

liberal. But this scheme conflates two types of liberal interventionism (Orange and Green), so I
suggest at least three types: neoconservative, liberal, and very liberal.

Neoconservative interventionism (often Amber) is characterized by unilateral action,

preemptive strikes, a disdain for international organizations like the U.N., and relative
gains (meaning a narrow focus on the balance of power or security issues). A classic
example is the Bush administrations invasion of Iraq in 2003.
29

Liberal interventionism (often Orange) is characterized by multilateralism, an embrace of

international organizations, and absolute gains (meaning all the ramifications of military
action are considered, including political, economic, military, humane, etc.). But the
focus is on national interest, not sacrificing for other countries. The Gulf War, where
George Bush Sr. decided not to topple Saddam Hussein because he thought it might
splinter the coalition, is an example of liberal interventionism.
Very liberal interventionism (often Green) involves humanitarian interventions, including
military, when national security isnt necessarily an issue. They are usually multilateral
and involve international organizations like the U.N. Bill Clintons intervention in the
Kosovo War of 1999 is one example.80

There is also a type of isolationism found at each level. Pat Buchanan qualifies as a conservative
isolationist (Amber), Gary Johnson as a libertarian isolationist (Orange), and Jill Stein as a very
liberal isolationist (Green).81
But Hillary is of a third-way school known as smart power. Smart power was formed as a
middle-way position between neoconservative interventionism and very liberal isolationism by
former members of the Clinton administration after the Iraq War.82 It employs various kinds of
soft power and hard power. Hillary popularized the term when she used it during her Senate
confirmation hearing:

30

We must use what has been called smart powerthe full range of tools at our disposal
diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and culturalpicking the right tool, or
combination of tools, for each situation. With smart power, diplomacy will be the
vanguard of foreign policy.83

In March of 2011 a massacre in Libya seemed immanent as Muammar Gadhafi threatened to

kill rebels in Benghazi like rats. The primary advocates for military intervention in the
Obama administration were U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and White
House advisor Samantha Power.84
Susan Rice was a member of the Clinton administration when they decided against an
intervention to forestall the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Between 500,000 and 1,000,000
Rwandans were killed. This decision not to act has haunted her ever since. She said,
I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side
of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required.85
Samantha Power, who Madeleine Albright dubbed the activist in chief, was also a very liberal
interventionist. She had written a Pulitzer-prize winning book titled A Problem from Hell in
which she argued in favor of military interventions to prevent genocide.
31

Standing against the intervention in Libya were Vice-President Joe Biden; Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates; National Security Advisor Thomas E. Donilon; Deputy National Security Advisor
Denis R. McDonough; Homeland Security Advisor John Brennan; Chief of Staff William Daley;
and Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen.
National Security Council member Gayle Smith and Deputy National Security Advisor
Benjamin Rhodes joined Rice and Power in favor of intervention. Hillary remained noncommitted for weeks.
Then on a trip to Europe and North Africa she found that most of the United States European
and Arab allies were in favor of intervention, particularly Nicolas Sarkozy of France and David
Cameron of the UK.86 87 88

Hillary returned to Washington with news of allies urging an intervention and in favor of an
intervention herself. President Obama decided to intervene, along with European allies, Arab
allies, and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973. He cited humanitarian concerns,
alliance politics, and U.S. interests in the stability of Libya as his reasons in an interview with
Jeffrey Goldberg.89
32

The immediate humanitarian crisis was avertedor, perhaps more accurately, postponed.90 The
mission escalated into regime change; Gadhafi was ousted; and the government disintegrated
into tribal factions.
Most critics view the intervention as a mistake.91 President Obama blamed (1) his own
analysists underestimation of tribal divisions, and (2) a lack of follow-up by European allies
for the chaotic aftermath.92
My aim here is to illustrate the different types of intervention to give a more nuanced view of the
Hillary is a hawk meme and show that some of these interventions have been motivated by
humanitarian concerns.

33

Discussion
Many have described Hillary Clinton as Orange, entry Green, or neoliberal, but her record
belies these assessments.
It is clear that her commitment to the leftist social gospel dates back to her college years in the
1960s. By the 1980s her politics are unmistakably postmodern or Green.
Would Jimmy Carter appoint a neoliberal as chairman of Legal Services Corporation? Would a
neoliberal block Ronald Reagans attempt to defund Legal Services Corporation in California as
Hillary did in 1980? Would a neoliberal force a mandate on employers to provide health care for
their employees as Hillary attempted in 1993?
Given the fact that Hillary has advocated for Green policies for the past three or four decades, it
is likely that some of her departures from progressive dogma today represent a post-Green
sensibility rather than a pre-Green sensibility, particularly since she has expressed an interest in
integral theory.

34

Another lens we can use is Lawrence Chickerings Transpartisan Matrix, which maps out four
basic political positions. This matrix recognizes Freedom and Order positions on both the
Left and the Right:
Order Right Traditional (especially religious) conservatives
Freedom Right Libertarian (free market) conservatives
Order Left Social Democratic and socialist Left
Freedom Left Civil libertarian and counterculture Left93
Neoliberals are Freedom Right. They believe in economic freedom. They want deregulation,
lower taxes, and trade agreements without protections for labor and the environment. This
enables them to deprive other people of economic freedom so they can maximize their own.
The archnemesis of Freedom Right is Order Leftconsumer groups, labor groups,
environmental groups, animal-rights groups, pro-democracy groups. Order Left wants to protect
people from Freedom Right and create opportunities for people rather than leave it up to the
market forces.
Hillarys work with migrant workers, childrens law, legal services for the poor, and universal
health care are all Order Left, along with much of her voting record.

35

Some people have said, Well, if neoliberalism is dead, why are we still allowing corporations?
Why do we need trade agreements at all? Down with capitalism!
What this view doesnt recognize is that Marxism and socialism have also died. In the words of
Bernie Sanders supporter James Galbraith:
Marxism used to be the hard-boiled left-wing dissidents creed, a doctrine founded on
class conflict and the romance of working-class revolution. Unfortunately there were
actual Marxist countries; real existing socialism took care of the romance.94
Thomas Piketty, a French economist who believes in a global wealth tax, talks about how the
collapse of the Soviet Empire affected his views:
This sort of vaccinated me for life against lazy, anticapitalist rhetoric, because when you
see these empty shops, you see these people queuing for nothing in the street . . . It
became clear to me that we need private property and market institutions, not just for
economic efficiency but for personal freedom.95
We are left with a hybrid of capitalism and socialism, or individualism and collectivism, or what
Joseph Stiglitz has referred to as a multiplicity of third ways.96 This shouldnt be controversial.
Even Bernie Sanders is a type of third way.

36

Stiglitz argues that, The right balance would mean strengthening the role of government in
some areas and weakening it in others.97
He also believes that progressives shouldnt be against all trade deals, just trade deals that favor
corporations at the expense of others.98
He recommends specific changes in a paper titled Rewriting the Rules.99
Hillary has echoed this call for balance: There's nothing magic about regulations. Too much is
bad, too little is bad.100
Although she has a strong record of progressive politics, she strives for a kind of third way.
But integral politics is the subject of Part III of this series.
For now, say a prayer for Hillary, and dont forget to vote.

Carl Bernstein, A Woman in Charge (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 32.
Ibid., 20.
3
Ibid., 35.
2

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/12/hillary_and_martin_luther_king.html

37

Bernstein, A Woman in Charge, 36.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-choice-2016/transcript/

Donnie Radcliffe, Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York: Warner Books, 1993), 17-18.

Bernstein, A Woman in Charge, 49.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/hillary-clinton-2016-wellesley-president-214188

10
11

Bernstein, A Woman in Charge, 45.

Ibid., 44.

12

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Living History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 21.

13

Bernstein, A Woman in Charge, 51.

Ibid., 60.
15
Ibid., 51.
16
Ibid., 61.
14

17

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/us/politics/05clinton.html

18

Bernstein, A Woman in Charge, 60.

19

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/us/politics/05clinton.html

20

Bernstein, A Woman in Charge, 59.

Ibid., 60.

21

22

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/1993/01/12/hillary-the-wellesleyyears/OEapzWGuzSNAFiIHL2zm9K/amp.html
23

24

http://mitwupwardbound.mit.edu/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/us/politics/05clinton.html

25

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/us/politics/05clinton.html

26

Bernstein, A Woman in Charge, 62.

27

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/us/politics/05clinton.html

28
29

Bernstein, A Woman in Charge, 63.

Ibid., 64.

30

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/us/politics/05clinton.html

31

E. J. Dionne Jr., Souled Out (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 73.

32

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/us/politics/05clinton.html

33

Clinton, Living History, 38.

34

Hillary Rodham, Student Commencement Speech, Wellesley College, 1969.

38

http://www.wellesley.edu/events/commencement/archives/1969commencement/studentspeech#JtEAUD6lFK1qZZF
5.97
35

Bernstein, A Woman in Charge, 83-4.

Ibid., 85.
37
Ibid., 93.
36

38

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/feb/15/chain-email/shes-no-red/

39

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/10/opinions/hillary-clinton-biography-carl-bernstein/

40

Bernstein, A Woman in Charge, 108.

Ibid., 124-5.
42
Ibid., 139.
43
Ibid., 145-6.
44
Ibid., 173.
41

45

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/11/us/politics/hillary-clinton-money.html

46
47

Bernstein, A Woman in Charge, 165.

Ibid., 175.

48

In 1991 Hillary made a total of $160,700, while Bill made $35,000 as governor of Arkansas.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clintons-forgotten-career-corporate-lawyer-1477674562
49

Bernstein, A Woman in Charge, 159-60, 181.

50

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-hillary.html

51

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-health-care-missteps-a-chastened-hillary-clintonemerged/2016/08/25/2d200cb4-64b4-11e6-be4e-23fc4d4d12b4_story.html
52

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-choice-2016/transcript/

53

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-health-care-missteps-a-chastened-hillary-clintonemerged/2016/08/25/2d200cb4-64b4-11e6-be4e-23fc4d4d12b4_story.html
54

Bob Woodward, The Agenda (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 166.

55

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/opinion/05brooks.html

56

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-health-care-missteps-a-chastened-hillary-clintonemerged/2016/08/25/2d200cb4-64b4-11e6-be4e-23fc4d4d12b4_story.html
57

http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2016/jul/26/bill-clinton/bill-clinton-says-hillary-clinton-helped-getdone-/
58

http://www.businessinsider.com/joseph-stiglitz-says-neoliberalism-is-dead-2016-8

In another interview Stiglitz was asked, Where do you situate Hillary Clinton ideologically in terms of
economics?
59

39

I think thats a good question. I think the world today is different from where it was 20 years ago, and the
issues are being framed considerably differently. For instance, I think theres a recognition that inequality is
a much bigger problem. I think she is much more concerned about more progressive taxes and dealing with
tax avoidance of multinational corporations. I think she is very committed to that. I think progressives are
not against trade, but they are concerned with trade agreements that are pushed by corporations, for their
interests, by and for corporations. That is what we have in the form of TPP. I think it is a good thing that
she has come out against that.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2016/09/joseph_stiglitz_on_hillary_clinton_the_euro
_crisis_and_tech_monopolies.html
60

James K. Galbraith, The Predator State (New York: Free Press, 2008), 3-4.

61

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/14/opinion/the-right-minimum-wage-0.00.html

62

https://www.aei.org/publication/paul-krugman-on-the-minimumliving-wage-1998-vs-2014/

63

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/13/is-the-united-states-of-america-arepublic-or-a-democracy/?utm_term=.9e165338568e
64

Hillary not only doesnt object to a single-payer plan in principle, she may even prefer it. In 1994 she said:
I believe that by the year 2000 we will have a single payer system. I dont think its I dont even think
its a close call politically.
I think the momentum for a single payer system will sweep the country. And regardless of the referendum
outcome in California, it will be such a huge popular issue in the sense of populist issue that even if its not
successful the first time, it will eventually be.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2014/december/hillary-clinton-1994-statement-on-single-payer
In a Wikileaks email titled, Clinton is More Favorable to Canadian Health Care and Single Payer, she made
favorable remarks about both mixed and single-payer systems, while noting the downside of long waiting times in
single-payer systems.
If you look at countries that are comparable, like Switzerland or Germany, for example, they have mixed
systems. They don't have just a single-payer system, but they have very clear controls over budgeting and
accountability. If you look at the single-payer systems, like Scandinavia, Canada, and elsewhere, they can
get costs down because, you know, although their care, according to statistics, overall is as good or better
on primary care, in particular, they do impose things like waiting times, you know. It takes longer to get
like a hip replacement than it might take here.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927
In another Wikileaks email, she attributed their decision to go with an employer mandate over single-payer in 1993
to many peoples reluctance to try something new:
Then with my husband's administration we worked very hard to come up with a system, but we were very
much constricted by the political realities that if you had your insurance from your employer you were
reluctant to try anything else. And so we were trying to build a universal system around the employer-based
system.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927
65

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/21/us/clinton-signs-a-bill-raising-minimum-wage-by-90-cents.html

40

66

Galbraith, The Predator State, 59.

67

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/budget/stories/080697.htm

68

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/08/16/bill-clinton-tried-to-limit-executive-pay-heres-whyit-didnt-work/
See Kent Jones, Whos Afraid of the WTO? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 20; and Michelmann et
al., Globalization and Agricultural Trade Policy (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Pub, 2008), 60.
69

70

The Whitewater investigation alone cost about $80 million.

http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/04/01/counsel.probe.costs/
James Carville remarked, Many of us have done stupid things in our lives. None of us have had $80 million spent
to try to see what all these stupid things were.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjRZ9mO68Yg
Its also important to remember that much of the economic unfairness we have seen since the 1980s stems from
factors other than government economic policy, such as a change in social norms.
71

http://web.mit.edu/frydman/www/trends_rfs2010.pdf, 2132.
In the words of David Brooks:
You see a shift in social norms. Up until 1970 or so, a chief executive would have been embarrassed to take
home more than $20 million. But now there is no shame, and top compensation zooms upward.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/opinion/brooks-the-wrong-inequality.html
72

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/nyregion/the-evolution-of-hillary-clinton.html

73

Bay Buchanan, the sister of arch-conservative Pat Buchanan, describes the conservative skepticism about
Hillarys rebranding:
Since her days at Wellesley College, Hillary has been a passionate advocate of every liberal cause known
to man. . . . Now, after a lifetime as a liberal activist, Hillary, we are told, is no longer a liberal. Her
philosophy has evolved. . . .
Hillary, the lady with the centrist vision! Who would believe it?
If true, it is a remarkable conversion story. After forty years battling for every imaginable liberal cause on
earth, Hillary Rodham Clinton goes to the Senate and becomes a right-of-center politician? Could this be?
The darling of the Left, the Feminist in Chief, the architect of universal health care, the author of It Takes a
Village, has abandoned the causes of a lifetime and turned to the right? After years in the political trenches
with the best the Left has to offer, Hillary Rodham Clinton has rejected the ideals for which she fought so
hard?
Or could there be something else going on here?
Bay Buchanan, The Extreme Makeover of Hillary (Rodham) Clinton (Washington D. C.: Regnery Publishing, 2003),
1-3.
74

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/may/28/opinion/oe-chait28

41

75

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-was-liberal-hillary-clinton-is-liberal/

76

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/upshot/the-senate-votes-that-divided-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders.html

77

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-progressive_us_572cca08e4b0bc9cb0469098

78

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-choice-2016/transcript/

79

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/08/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-now-opposes-transpacific-partners/
I was inspired to use the name very liberal interventionism by a Ross Douthat article about the Libya
intervention titled A Very Liberal Intervention.
80

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/opinion/21douthat.html
81

http://www.jill2016.com/platform

82

See Joseph Nyes Get Smart and Suzanne Nossels Smart Power.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2009-07-01/get-smart
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2004-03-01/smart-power
83

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-use-smart-power-in-diplomacy/

84

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/02/03/a-tough-call-on-libya-that-still-haunts/

85

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2061224,00.html

86

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-shift-toward-military-action-inlibya/2011/03/18/ABiClIs_story.html?hpid=z3
87

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/joe-biden-libya-wrong-224595

88

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/02/03/a-tough-call-on-libya-that-still-haunts/

89

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/

90

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/26/libya-war-saving-lives-catastrophic-failure

See Shadi Hamids Everyone says the Libya intervention was a failure. Theyre wrong. for an alternative view
on the Libya intervention.
91

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2016/04/12/everyone-says-the-libya-intervention-was-a-failure-theyrewrong/
92

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/

93

http://www.transpartisanreview.com/the-transpartisan-matrix/

94

Galbraith, The Predator State, 151.

95

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/business/international/taking-on-adam-smith-and-karl-marx.html

42

96
97

Joseph Stiglitz, The Roaring Nineties (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003), 281.
Ibid., 293.

98

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2016/09/joseph_stiglitz_on_hillary_clinton_the_euro
_crisis_and_tech_monopolies.html
99

http://community-wealth.org/sites/clone.community-wealth.org/files/downloads/report-stiglitz.pdf

100

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927

43