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Last: More on the Clinton Co-Presidency

1:10 PM, Dec 20, 2007 • By JONATHAN V. LAST
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Bill Kristol notes the oddness of Hillary Clinton speaking as if she had been co-president during the 1990s, but it's actually odder than the boss knows. I spent the early part of the week following Clinton around Iowa and was struck by two formulations she used to talk about her role as first lady. Talking to a crowd in Des Moines about her pursuit of government healthcare in the early '90s, Clinton said,

And when I was fortunate enough to go to Washington to be part of my husband's team, we tackled one of the hardest problems we have: healthcare. And I was glad to tackle it because if it was easy, anyone could do it. ...

In Davenport she said,

We knew how hard it would be. But why run for office if you're not willing to tackle the hard problems. So we tackled them.

Except that Hillary didn't run for office and that she "went to Washington" to be "part of the team" only in the sense that she was married to the man elected president.

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