Henrietta Hay's Column

An open letter to my Commander in Chief.

Dear Bill,

Now that the election is over and, I have had time think about it and read what everybody else thinks about it and have taken the black crepe off my front door, I have some advice for you. I suspect that, like most unsolicited advice, it will go unheeded but that has never stopped me.

Right now things look pretty gloomy for liberal Democrats. Today I would say your chances for a second term are somewhere between the Broncos in the playoffs and a white Christmas in Phoenix. But so what? The ball is in their court now and look at all the freedom that gives you. Anyway, there are a lot worse things being a one-term president, like being a one and a half term one. Ask Richard Nixon.

So what are you going to do, Bill? It seems to me you have two choices. You can move to the right and compromise and conciliate and be the nice guy until the cows home and all you'll do is lose the support you have now. Or you can stand firm like Harry Truman who battled a hostile Congress, which he called the "do-nothing, good-for-nothing 80th Congress" and go down in history for integrity and guts. You didn't get elected by denying your beliefs.

Here is the unasked for advice, Mr. President. Veto every right-wing bill that comes across your desk. What have you got to lose? The veto power that was so carefully written into the constitution as part of the system of checks and balances can keep the Newthouse of Representatives from running hog-wild. On the other hand, you probably won't need it much. Gridlock will probably keep any bills from getting to you.

You can't let the women down, Bill. We have had a taste of equality and we aren't about to give it up. The genie is out of the bottle. We held our own in a tough year for women and democrats. There are more women in Congress, more in your administration than we have ever had before. The exit polls show that while 57% of males voted Republican, 54% of females voted Democratic. So you owe us one!

You have supported the issues we are concerned with: women's reproductive rights, expanded daycare, family leave, women's health research, Headstart, gun control, worldwide population control. Don't leave us hanging, Bill. We've worked too hard.

Our role model is Hillary, who has scared the dickens out of the electorate. Let's face it. A lot of your trouble started when you fell in love back in Yale and married her. How were you to know you should have married a Nancy Reagan? An intelligent, articulate, ambitious professional woman does not yet fit the image of a president's wife and you have both had to live with a vicious hate campaign because of it. After she got chopped up over health care your handlers tried to hide her.

Put Hillary back out in front, Bill, and let her be the leader she is. And listen to her. In Jacarta she said, "I think the president has to stand for what he's stood for. He has to stick with his principles and protect the progress that has been made."

So now you are faced with a Congress led by that angry man, Newt Gingrich. He has laid down the gauntlet; "Cooperation, yes; compromise, no." Actually, he sounds sort of familiar out here in the boonies. Only we call him Doug Bruce.

How can you cooperate with a man who has suggested that Susan Smith would not have drowned her two children if the Republicans had been in charge? We understand your natural tendency to negotiate, but you can't negotiate with a fanatic, so get out your pen and start practicing writing "Vetoed."

You were our great hope after twelve years of ultraconservative anti-women, anti-civil rights, anti choice, anti-everything administrations. Believe me, there are still lots of liberal Democrats out our way -- well, some -- but we need a committed leader. You've already started to cave in on school prayer. Please, Bill, it's time to stand up for your liberal principles and take your chances.

As Molly Ivins says, politics aren't left and right -- politics are up and down. We're down now, but we'll be back up again.

Best wishes to you and Hillary, Henrietta.