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Miss Hillary Rodham by MARGARET DICKSON I do not actually remember reading about Wellesley College senior But Americans were not sure about a First Lady who was a policy wiz Hillary Rodham addressing her graduating class in the spring of 1969. I uninterested in "baking cookies," and she was not only criticized but was, after all, a self-absorbed teenager preoccupied by the dramas of my savagely parodied. After her plan to reform our nation's healthcare system own life. failed only to be resurrected and achieved by President Obama in the next I have certainly seen photographs of that day — some published in Life decade, Hillary Clinton, who by that time had finally agreed to take her magazine — revealing a clearly bookish young woman in glasses, a bun husband's name, largely retreated into the White House as a traditional and an academic gown speaking at an outdoor podium. She was the first First Lady hostess and helpmate. "A polarizing figure" is a term applied to student ever asked by students to address a Wellesley commencement her, especially during her husband's Presidency. Then it was her turn. Hillary Rodham Clinton ceremony. She was also serving as presiding officer of the college's student She launched her own political career as a United States Senator senate and as president of its Young Republican Club. Said the college representing New York, followed by four years as our nation's most president in her introduction, "There was no debate … as to who their spokesman was traveled Secretary of State with a credible run for the Democratic Presidential to be — Miss Hillary Rodham." nomination in between. Her tenures in both positions have been viewed as highly Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's recent health scare has triggered many successful, and she has been the most admired American woman for the last 11 years. thoughts about this woman, a Baby Boomer like me, who has lived her life on not only Throughout it all, including her husband's humiliatingly public infidelity, she a public stage, but an international one. Her joys, her sorrows, her achievements, her maintained her dignity and her privacy. She did not stand by her man in public as failures and her embarrassments are known to all of us, because we have watched her many other political wives have done, nor did she criticize him for all the world to since she mounted that Wellesley stage to speak to the young women with whom she hear. Friends say her religious faith is strong and sustaining even though she keeps that had just spent four formative years. private as well. It seems to me that Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has been both reviled and As our outgoing Secretary of State, her recent health crisis may well have been adored as a public figure, has been true to herself throughout her long tenure on the brought on by her nearly constant travel to places far and wide, well known and world stage. obscure, on our nation's behalf. Either way, it has focused our attention on her lifeThere are also photographs of Hillary Rodham as a law student and her beau, a long service to many causes and to millions of people around the world. tall good-looking fellow law student from Arkansas, a Bubba-born whose future held Like her or not, her life continues to play out, with the next chapter still unclear. a Rhodes scholarship and a two-term U.S. Presidency. Some of her friends were It seems to me that whatever life has doled out to her, Clinton has remained true to nevertheless shocked when she chucked — actually just postponed — what they saw herself. It is we, Americans, who have changed. It is we who have evolved. It is we who as a promising high-profile legal and political career to accept Bill Clinton's longhave become accepting of talented and accomplished women. It is we who have come standing proposal of marriage and move to Arkansas. She practiced law there and to appreciate an American who chooses to serve her nation on many different fronts. worked on children's and family issues, while he climbed the political ladder as state Interestingly, the Secretary of State thinks so, too. Last year, more attorney general and then governor. than 40 years after she first appeared in Life, Clinton told Elle magazine, The story since then is familiar to all Americans. "There is a certain consistency to who I am MARGARET DICKSON, ConIn his first term in the White House, the couple famously declared that Americans and what I do, and I think people have finally tributing Writer, COMMENTS? were "getting two for the price of one," a reference to Hillary's obvious competence. said, 'Well, you know, I kinda get her now." Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. INVENTORY SALE 50% Off Select Sports Gear! 50% Off Select Sports Gear! Baseball Football Soccer Baseball •• Football •• Soccer Two Great Businesses Under One Roof! Hours: 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. M-F 3006 Bragg Blvd. 910.323.1791 www.trophyhouseinc.com WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM JANUARY 9-15, 2013 UCW 5