Yesterday, Fuck Politeness blogged about a news story in which US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “snapped” at a student who asked for her husband’s opinion on an issue. Go read it, it’s great.
Anyway, she blogged around lunchtime and I was disappointed that by 6.30pm the SBS World News was reporting it the same way. The ABC also reported that Hillary “snapped”. (Follow the leader journalism is alive and well.)
So when a uni student in Kinshasa asks the US Secretary of State what her husband thinks about a deal between China and the Democratic Republic of Congo, I think she has every right to reply: “You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion, I am not going to be channeling my husband”.
Let’s imagine a different scenario: Condoleezza Rice’s husband (I don’t even know if she’s married, it’s just an example) is now US Secretary of State and a student asks him for his wife’s opinion on foreign policy. The story would be reported as one of ridicule. That this student blew their chance to ask someone important any question they wanted, so ha ha, let’s all laugh at them and it’ll get a million hits on YouTube.
She’s the third woman to be US Secretary of State (Dr Madeleine Albright was the first, from 1997-2001), so why all the hoo-haa?
the news with nipples 