A Job for Missus Clinton

Matt Bai, a political columnist and screenwriter, made an excellent observation at Yahoo about Hillary saying she is going to have Bill run the economy.

"Economic policy isn’t something for which you name a czar, like Ebola or Asian carp. (I’m not making this up — there is actually a czar for that.) It’s kind of a central plank of the presidency. It’s the reason we elect you, more or less," Bai wrote.

Policy, yawn.

Now for the good stuff.

From Bai:

Second, there’s something troubling here on the feminism front. Love Clinton or disdain her, you have to acknowledge that she spent the last 16 years — since she first ran for Senate in New York — doggedly building her own political identity, separate from her husband’s. No one who’s serious about politics now describes her as unqualified for the office.

She’s readying to run a campaign aimed squarely at women, on the theory that Donald Trump reminds most female voters of the high school gym teacher who creeped them out. “I’m with her” is a slogan meant to underscore Clinton’s historic, barrier-breaking significance, which is real.

So it’s difficult to understand why Clinton would toss aside that hard-won image as an independent and powerful intellect in her own right, all for the votes of a few white men in Kentucky.

It’s one thing for Obama to deputize Bill Clinton as his economic salesman and let him go out there and steal the show, as he did at the 2012 convention. But the unfortunate truth is that it’s different for a woman, and it’s different for a wife. If Hillary wants to keep inspiring the little girls of this country, she probably shouldn’t go around saying she’ll turn over the big stuff to her husband.

Bingo.

She is Missus Clinton.

He is Mister Trump.

Mister Trump is an expert on Trump, like Mister Science is an expert on science and Mister Clean is an expert on clean. What is Trump? That is the last card you lay down to snatch victory from the clammy hands of your opponent. It isn't just winning: it is crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentations of their women.

The subtext that Bai missed because he is only 47 is the old stereotype of a housewife who could not balance a checkbook and had to be given an allowance to keep her from spending everything on clothes. As Barbie said, "Math class is tough."

Instead of president, we should put her in charge of tending the Asian carp. In no time, under her watchful eye, they'll be gone.

Coming in June -- "Trump the Press: Don Surber's take on how the pundits blew the 2016 Republican race."