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Ellison's Must Read of the Day

Ellison Barber
April 10, 2014

My must read of the day is "What It’s Like To Actually Know Hillary Clinton," in BuzzFeed: 

The search for the next scandal, or for a more revealing glimpse of the woman who could, again, be the country’s next president, is what Max Brantley calls "the eternal question." The Arkansas Times editor has covered the Clintons since 1974. "It’s a continuation of the same," he said. "Everything old is new again."

"It never ends," [Ann] Henry said.

The latest descent back into the 1990s came in February, when a cache of documents housed at the University of Arkansas sparked a familiar chain reaction of coverage, history, and confusion. The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative site, published selections from the archives in what the Drudge Report teased as an explosive story on the Hillary "Sex Files."
[…]

Brantley, the Arkansas Times editor, said the notes provided were a rare "window" into Clinton’s thoughts on the affair. "But did they finally catch the road-runner? Well, no." Still, after the Free Beacon report, the Blair papers became front-page news, and reporters from national outlets flew to Arkansas to leaf through the boxes themselves in the harshly lit Mullins Library basement.

I disagree with the assertion that there were no "revelations" in the Free Beacon coverage of the Blair papers, and I think I’ve made that argument before—but this article does address an interesting and seemingly widespread feeling that when it comes to Hillary Clinton’s past nothing is new.

I don’t think that’s really accurate.

Here’s what people seem to forget when they swear Hillary Clinton’s past is "old news" and news that everyone knows, but no one cares about anymore—there’s a swath of voters who have never heard it.

Election Day in 2016 is Nov. 8. The youngest people voting will have birthdays in 1998. When President Clinton left office, they were approaching their third birthday. When they were five "Friends" aired its final season. I think Nickelodeon was still in its heyday throughout the majority of their childhood—I know Disney channel was dominating with life changing series such as "Lizzie McGuire," "That’s So Raven," and "Wizards of Waverly Place" (all were legitimately great shows, by the way, and I will defend any of them).

Beyond that, many people who, like me, were born in the late eighties don’t remember much about the Clinton presidency or Hillary’s role in it. In September of 1994, when HillaryCare was officially declared dead, I was one month away from my fourth birthday—and I’ll be in my late-twenties by 2016.

If Hillary Clinton runs, her past is and should be relevant simply because it’s her record and all of that matters, especially if she wants to hold an office such as the presidency. We have to stop acting like any Hillary news is useless because it’s from the 90s. It’s idiotic to dismiss that information as old news—it is part of what defines her as a person and a potential candidate today, and it is new information for a significant amount of voters.