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PERSON OF THE YEAR

Hillary Rodham Clinton

by Rod Amis

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TIME magazine picked George W. Bush as their Person of the Year. Newsweek chose Oprah Winfrey as the Woman of the New Century. Meanwhile, Loyal Readers of the G21 and subscribers of our Mailing List overwhelmingly thought the Person to Watch in 2001 was HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON.

Love her or hate her, Ms. Clinton is now an historical first as the First Lady who went on to national elective office and who some people are already talking about as a future Presidential candidate, perhaps our first woman President of the United States. Maybe, we decided here, our readers are onto something.

Senator Clinton (get used to saying that) is one of the most complex and intriguing figures to emerge in American politics in years. Like her self-avowed heroine, Eleanor Roosevelt, she is the pre-eminent female of her time; spotlights find her, for good or ill.

Brainy, serious, and determined, we often missed part of her glow because of the charisma of her partner, our out-going US President. And the story is marred by all the media attention of the Clinton era: Vince Foster, Travelgate, Whitewater, the failed national health plan initiative, a film starring John Travolta and Emma Thompson in the roman a clef Bill and Hillary roles, her husband's multiple "bimbo eruptions" ending with the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment process.

She fed the fires, of course, suggesting on a massive public forum like NBC's "Today" show that there was "a massive right-wing conspiracy" against she and her spouse. And, many believe, she had lied years earlier on CBS's "60 Minutes" in order to achieve the goal of reaching the White House.

Her rise in public prominence began with the first Clinton administration, when many conservative denigrators portrayed her as "Co-President" and were hellbent on making sure the national health plan initiative went down in flames. Hillary, as point-person on the initiative, took a lot of heat. By the second Clinton term she was pushing cookie recipes in order to show America that she could be a "traditional" First Lady and step out of the political kitchen. For a woman of her intelligence and accomplishment, this surely must have rankled. But then, there was Whitewater nipping at her heels.

What followed were years of continuing to advocate for her favorite causes, especially those of women and children --- America's poorest and most neglected people by any metric --- and dutifully standing for photo opportunities and the State of the Union address. There were also the frequent (some might say compulsive and endless) fundraisers.

And once the Senate candidacy was announced, the New York press corps fell over themselves to uphold their reputation for brutality. We talked about that here.

Now, after a much-covered and often-ridiculed campaign as a "carpetbagger" in the Robert Kennedy tradition, she is the Senator from New York. And she did it without completely running away from Bill, unlike defeated Presidential candidate Al Gore.

In the process, our readers decided and this magazine concurs, she has approached the ranks of Indira Gandhi, Gold Meir, Benazir Bhutto, Margaret Thatcher and Sonia Gandhi, all women who went on to be national leaders. And that's part of the anomaly of America: we may be one of the last nation's on earth to accept leadership by a woman.

This is not saying, of course, that The World's Magazine believes Hillary Clinton should be that woman --- but someone has to be. And given the touted choices over the last decade, California's faux-Democrat Dianne Feinstein, New York's pedantic Geraldine Ferraro, and Texas's resident conservative parrot Kay Baily Hutchison, Hillary --- once she learns the ropes of congressional compromise and steps out of the shadow of Bill --- might be our first best hope.

Thus, we come away from our first-ever G21 Readership Poll for Person of the Year with as many reservations as encomiums. Ms. Clinton has much to recommend her and much she must address, as do we all. Only perfect times will produce perfect leaders. And perhaps we need to give this great woman the benefit of a few doubts and let events assist her in rising to the occasion.