US Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton does a lot of things. She runs for President. She rides in vans. She hides her emails from the American people. But what does Hillary Clinton really do? It’s a philosophical puzzle, really — one that only an algorithm can solve.
Enter Google autofill. We’ve already used the search engine’s little piece of predictive technology to learn the history of everyone’s least-favourite cable company, and the autofill feature also offers a great glimpse at the life and times of one of the most powerful women in the world.
It’s a pretty silly glimpse.
“Hillary Clinton does yoga”
Most of us met Hillary Clinton when she rose to national prominence during Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign in 1992. Bill won, of course, and the following January, Hillary became this great nation’s First Lady. She’d already served as the First Lady of Arkansas during the dozen years her husband was governor, of course, and established herself as a tough (maybe too tough) attorney. But the higher office would enable the Illinois-native to touch the lives of many more Americans.
Hillary Clinton cares about health. Almost immediately after his inauguration, Bill put Hillary in charge of his Task Force on National Health Care Reform. The ambitious idea behind the initiative was universal health care for all, and well, it was basically a big disaster. By the end of summer 1994, the proposal failed to win enough support in a Democratic-controlled Congress and was abandoned. When she considered her own bid for the White House in 2006, she reflected on her fated attempt over a decade earlier. “I think that both the process and the plan were flawed,” she told The New York Times. “We were trying to do something that was very hard to do, and we made a lot of mistakes.”
Hillary testifies before the House Education and Labour Committee at a hearing on health care reform in September 1993 (Photo via AP)
After working tirelessly as a New York senator, running for president in 2008, and then serving as secretary of state, the hexagenarian became a private citizen for the first time time in 34 years. Hillary became a grandmother and then retreated to her home in Chappaqua, New York where she caught up on sleep and “totally binge-watched” House of Cards. She also stayed fit. Earlier this year, Hillary revealed in a news conference about her controversial email habits that she deleted all kinds of messages, including some about her “yoga routines.”
Yes, Hillary Clinton does yoga. We’d known this for a while, but Washington really went nuts when Hillary reminded them of her new age taste in exercise. It certainly helped that this woman was about to run for president (again). Hillary’s love of yoga became a meme. Joe Trippi said the yoga thing makes her “more relatable.”
“Hillary Clinton does it matter now”
This one is actually a quote — or rather, people misremembering a quote. It’s about Benghazi.
The United States consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attacked on September 11, 2012, while Hillary Clinton was serving as secretary of state. Four Americans died, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. It was an awful thing that happened, and many people channeled a lot of their rage by pointing a finger at Hillary; the consulate was ultimately her responsibility.
On January 23, 2013, just three days after the 20th anniversary of her husband’s first inauguration, Hillary testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Ron Johnson pressed Hillary about why the American people were first told that the attack sprung out of protests and other explanations later emerged.
Clearly upset, Hillary went all fog of war and dropped this quote — emphasis mine:
With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.
What difference does it make? Does it matter now? The question became famous in the wake of the attacks. The answer? We may never know. And it certainly doesn’t help that Clinton deleted all of her emails while she was secretary of state.
“Hillary Clinton does Putin impression”
Hillary went to Canada on January 21, 2015, almost exactly two years after her Benghazi debacle in Congress. At the Winnipeg Chamber of Conference, an interviewer asked about her presidential aspirations. Then, Hillary did her best Vladimir Putin impression, for some reason.
You might as well just watch the video. It’s not a very good impression:
The key quote: “We have a process, yes.”
“Hillary Clinton does not sweat”
Before the Putin impression and before Benghazi and even before the yoga meme, Hillary became the most travelled secretary of state in history. And she did it with finesse, according to Condé Nast Traveller deputy editor Kevin Doyle. He wrote in a 2012 profile:
She does not sweat. Literally. She does not even glow. No matter how high the heat, not a drop nor a drip nor a bead nor so much as the faintest glisten can be detected anywhere about her person.
It’s an improbable physical anomaly that was cited more than once (along with superhuman stamina, uncommon thoughtfulness, and a steel-trap mind) by longtime aides and members of the press corps…
Does she suffer from anhidrosis? Do her blood vessels dilate instead? Does she sweat during yoga? Does she sweat when she runs for president? We may find out in the furious campaigning that must take place between now and November 2016. We may never know what Hillary’s excretory system does under pressure.
But we do know one thing for sure about what Hillary does. Hillary does delete her emails.
Picture: Google