Bill Clinton is getting mostly good reviews for his convention speech last night. The 42nd president made the case that his wife Hillary is a “change maker” who improved every problem, every situation, she’s ever addressed. “You could drop her into any trouble spot, pick one, come back in a month and somehow, some way she will have made it better. That is just who she is,” he said.
Bill talked about how he and Hillary met, his repeated attempts to convince her to marry him, what a devoted mother she is and told other anecdotes from their early years together. This helped to humanize Hillary and showed glimpses of why Bill was once considered one of the best orators in politics.
But there was one thing Bill did not do, something I think would have made his speech much better: Acknowledge that he made his wife’s life much harder with his serial philandering. Not only that but he forced his wife to live through the public humiliation while he cheated in the White House. How could he talk about his relationship with his wife without at least mentioning what must have been one of the most devastating and humiliating experiences of her life?
During his speech, the only time Bill came close to mentioning it was toward the beginning when he talked about he and Hillary “walking and talking and laughing together….in good times and bad, through joy and heartbreak.”
Here’s what he could have added:
“Some of those bad times and heartbreak were the result of things that I did, mistakes that I made. I disrespected my wife in the worst way possible. I lied and I hurt the woman that I love and respect more than any other. But you know what? Hillary and I persevered. We worked through our problems — my problems — and we have a stronger marriage today than we’ve ever had. And that’s because Hillary wouldn’t give up on me.”
Maybe Clinton is incapable of saying this. And maybe this is important only to me. But I think it would have been nice to hear Bill say this last night, when he was telling a long story of his relationship with his wife. People love confessionals, and they like it when powerful figures acknowledge their flaws — it humanizes them and it humanizes all of those involved. And wasn’t that the point of Bill’s speech?
Daniel Allott is deputy commentary editor for the Washington Examiner
