Hillary...

They say Hillary Clinton is a polarizing figure, and that everyone has an opinion of her. I'm not sure how I've managed it, but somehow I've fallen into that elite 2% of voters in the "confused and undecided" category.

Is she too polarizing? Is she sincere? Is she a good leader?

Not sure.

I read a good Mother Jones article that tries to make sense of why she's so controversial (hat tip to Not Ophelia of fMh).

It's unfortunate that so much of the controversy surrounding her is because of her personal life. Especially since her personal life isn't that controversial.

So she forgave her husband for having an affair. So what? I heard people say "She doesn't really love him, she's just staying with him to stay in power." And I would think "How do you know what their marriage is like?"

The whole thing was a private matter within their relationship, and I'm not sure why the rest of the planet was so concerned about it.

I guess they're concerned because Bill lied about it, of course, which he shouldn't have done. But somehow I can't get as worked up about someone lying when faced with intimate questions about his private life as I do about lies that affect the fate of the entire world such as reasons and evidence for going to war.

(It's an unfortunate side-effect of the information age that we're all so knowing and cynical these days that we don't even expect our leaders to be honest...)

I know, I know, it's absurdly ironic of me to be bringing up that whole Monica scandal in a post about how we shouldn't be talking about that!!! ;-)

It reminds me of my first trip to Paris! I spent a month there at a math conference right at the height of the Bill-and-Monica thing.

I wasn't following the scandal intentionally, but it seemed like everyone wanted to make sure everyone else was up to date on the latest gory details. You might think going to France would turn down the volume on it a little. Nope. It was worse.

The reason it seemed worse was because people would meet me and want to make conversation, and as soon as I said I was American, the first thing people would say was "Oh, Bill-and-Monica!!! Hahahaha!!!" and start in on the latest scoop.

The funniest time was when I was talking to a cashier at a supermarket. He started with the usual "Bill-and-Monica!!! Hahahaha!!!" Then he proceeded to explain to me that they never have this sort of scandal in France because in France people don't worry about such things.

And I was left thinking "Ummm... Who brought this up, you or me?"

But I'm starting to wonder if maybe that guy was right, or at least was right that the French have a bit of a different attitude.

One time (more recently) I was chatting about politics with some colleagues, and they started joking about how one guy who was the president of France died while having sex with a prostitute. (To any French people reading this: Is that true, or were they just pulling my leg?)

My colleagues laughed it off saying, "It was an honest transaction -- he paid up front, fair and square," and "You've got to go sometime, and there are worse ways..."

So now you're probably asking "Um, Chanson, what the hell does this have to do with Hillary?"

Nothing, I guess.

Anyway, I don't think anyone's reading this blog for the political commentary... ;-)