Comparisons are being made between Hillary Clinton and Jesse Jackson’s wife, Jacqueline. For example, Salon’s Joan Walsh wrote in a piece titled, The Aphrodisiac of Power that “Like Hillary Clinton, Jacqueline Jackson has reportedly had a tough time looking away from her husband’s womanizing, but until now whatever suffering she’s endured has been private. Now her marital woes are everybody’s business, and she’s done nothing to deserve it.”
I agree that neither woman deserves to have their problematic marriage laundry hung out in public. But what interests me about both these marital fiascoes is that so few people in the media write or talk about what the women’s contribution to the marital troubles might be. There’s no way to know unless the women talk, of course, but everyone seems comfortable branding the straying men as assholes and leaving it at that.
Hillary talked about the psychological reasons for Bill’s misbehavior going back to his childhood. Everyone seemed to accept her interpretation and I’ve never heard or read anything, snide or otherwise, wondering what her 50% is. I thought it was extremely insulting and disrespectful, BTW, for her to ruminate in public about the childhood roots of his insecurities. Only he should talk about what his internal motivations, subconscious or not, might be. If I were the reporter, I would have at least retored with something like, “Well, then, can you talk about your own psychological problems that led you to marry and stay with a man like this?” And if she got to placing all the blame on him, I’d ask her to speculate on what her 50% of the sexual dissatisfaction in the marriage might be.
None of what I’m saying excuses the philandering, just like nothing a woman might do or say to her husband justifies his violence towards her. All I’m saying is, saints generally don’t marry devils.
On a lighter note, Salon’s Walsh reports that Jackson’s lover “…wrote the unfortunately titled book Beyond the Boundaries: Reverend Jesse Jackson in International Affairs (apparently she became an expert on his boundaries and his affairs).” And Jay Leno reportedly made a wisecrack about when Jackson visited Clinton to provide spiritual guidance, something about him bringing Clinton a Monica-type cigar and saying, “It’s a girl!”