America's Favorite Sport: Hating Hillary Clinton. The Scandals, Real and Imagined.

"The central point about Mrs Clinton, however, is that she is being judged by an absurd double-standard. By any respectable measure, she is one of the most impressive Democrats of her generation. If she was a man, her toughness and intellect would win universal approval". That was The Economist in a column titled "Hillary Clinton, trail blazer" published in December 1992. Yes, 1992.

The Clintons are surely to be blamed for the predicament they find themselves and for putting the Obama White House, an administration that has been remarkably scandal free, in a fix. The day Hillary became Secretary of State the Clinton Foundation should've been shut down or transitioned or far stricter rules for accepting contributions be put in place. On the issue of the Foundation I'd also fault the Obama team for not insisting on any of that though they did insist on a number of rules before she was indeed nominated. All that said the emails and the Foundation related stories have been so vastly exaggerated to make Clinton look like she is some Don Corleone. But then, as Economist argued in the article, hating Hillary Clinton, actually just her, not Bill Clinton, for nearly 3 decades has been America's most favorite national sport.

First, the emails. A bit of perspective here. In 2007 Bush's Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez had fired 8 US attorneys and a Democratic run Congress investigated. The investigation turned up the fact that the then White House officials used personal email addresses willy nilly. Many emails, now said to be 22 million, the White House said were lost. While calling commentator Juan Williams's claim that there was 'zero' coverage of that as false Politifact did concede that compared to the outrage and coverage given to Hillary's email saga it was nothing. Poltitifact conducted a Lexis-Nexis search of related articles and found 125 newspaper articles about the Bush White House email affair compared to 1700 articles on Clinton's email travails. Politifact does point out that the two cases differ in one significant manner, in the Bush White House affair Bush himself, as President was not even remotely involved, whereas in Clinton's case it happened to be a prospective presidential candidate who could very well become president.

Now, why did Clinton do the private email server snafu? Prior to assuming office Hillary got in touch with Colin Powell and asked him questions about how he handled emails and correspondences. Powell happily used to send emails from his private email addresses and he decided that such emails were not public records. Also, fed up with restrictions that the NSA/CIA wanted him to observe Powell, in his own words, "we just went about our business and stopped asking". An important caveat, Powell did not use a private email server.

With this backdrop Hillary Clinton decided to use a private email server 'for convenience' which would help her avoid having a private email account and an official one. When her tenure ended her lawyer and her team decided which was 'private email' and deleted them from the server. Sure, this sounds fishy, illegal and corrupt BUT at the end it is not at all different from what Powell did. As for classified emails that were found on her server. That is a complex issue. Many were classified ''secret' at a later date and not at the time it was sent. This was standard practice in government. Even a State Department official jousting with an FBI official to reduce the classification status, not granted though, is routine.

We've to get one thing clear the Federal government, especially at the President's cabinet level does NOT function like the IT department of a private company. That the FBI, despite director Comey's characterization of Clinton and her team as being 'extremely careless', would not decide to charge Clinton has caused sufficient heartburn amongst many and that alone has caused many to suspect that the investigation was scuttled. Of course, the recent resurrection of the case in a politically suspicious manner has made yesterday's critics of Comey today's supporters and vice versa. Legal scholar and author of books on US Supreme Court Jeffrey Toobin in a column flat out declared "Clinton has committed no crimes with regard to her emails". Let's also remember that former CIA director and 4 star general David Petraeus, who intentionally and knowingly gave classified material to a biographer who later became his mistress, was also not charged.

The New York Times which originally published the email story in it's endorsement of Hillary for presidency finally conceded that the matter was one for the 'help desk'. A column in left leaning magazine Vox sums it up in the title, "The real Clinton email scandal is that a bullshit story has dominated the campaign". And The Economist agrees, "In the annals of political misdeeds, future historians will not pause on Mrs Clinton's emails long. But they will marvel at how an exaggerated belief in her malfeasance created the conditions for Mr Trump to seize the White House".

Without a doubt the Clintons were peddling influence when they were raising money for the Clinton Foundation but that is perfectly legal. When Sanders repeatedly cast aspersions on Hillary giving speeches to Wall Street she bristled "if you have something to say specifically Senator come out and say it". Till today there is not a single shred of evidence to show pay for play. Not a single legislation or favoritism was shown by Hillary either as Senator or as Secretary of State.

A notorious charge is how the Clintons forged relationship with a Russian industrialist and facilitated the sale of US uranium maker to Russia in exchange for a donation to the foundation. Contrary to the popular myth about the press ignoring her scandals it was, yet again, New York Times that first reported on the supposed scandal. Buried in an article titled ominously "Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal" was this "whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal". Essentially there was no story but hey why bother. Politifact conducted a detailed fact check on the Uranium story and said that the deal was approved by multiple federal agencies and the deal was part of a complex altering of geo-political strategy to engage with Russia.

The Associated Press reported with fanfare that more than half of Hillary Clinton's visitors were donors to the foundation. For nearly two days the press and Cable TV coverage ran around like headless chicken. Then the verification happened. AP essentially screwed up. What the AP story did not mention in its attention grabbing headline was that it was a percentage of people that Clinton met that did not include heads of states and other federal employees. Essentially it was nonsense. There was, yet again, no story.

After the FBI director dropped a bombshell about "re-opening" the investigation into Hillary's email case the networks and press worked themselves into a furore. Nearly two days Hillary's campaign was literally besieged and pummeled akin to how the Trump campaign was pummeled after the release of the Billy Bush video in which he boasted of grabbing women by their genitals. Unlike the Billy Bush story which had no ifs and buts the FBI story started to unravel. The Director did not have a warrant to search the laptop they secured from an estranged husband of Hilary's aides which supposedly contained emails from Hillary's private account. Also, the investigation of that aide's husband itself was due to an unrelated case. Further leaks from FBI showed that the Director refused to push ahead with Trump related investigations because it was close to the election. But in two days Hillary's campaign suffered a near fatal body blow and we will know Tuesday if that really costs her the election.

Meantime, Fox news host Bret Baier went on air to claim that the FBI was close to charging Hillary for irregularities with the Foundation. Again, for two days the news spread like prairie fire and then Bret Baier apologized that that was really not true. Trump campaign manager told CNN that though the news was false the "damage was done". That, my dear readers, is absolutely true.

The wikileaks email release is another yawn. We cannot forget the fact that Julian Assange, prompted by Putin or not, is interfering with US presidential elections. What wikileaks is doing is no different from what the Watergate burglars attempted to do. Couple of excerpts caused some stir and as usual unfairly so.

In one of her speeches Clinton spoke of how she dreams of a "hemispheric where there are open borders and open trade". Immediately the right and left pounced on it; one to say that she believed in open borders; another to say that she was hypocritical in opposing trade pacts. Nonsense. Sure, her opposition of TPP is politically expedient but nowhere has she said she's totally opposed to trade. No sensible person can be. Further, seen in context the remark extends to combating climate change and not about opening borders to illegal immigrants.

Another eye brow raising remark was where she said that sometimes one has to have a public opinion and a private opinion. Immediately everyone pounced on it and said "aha, there you go hypocrite. Crucify her". Nonsense. What Hillary was saying was how politicians have to sell policies to different audiences and moderate their presentations. It is not for nothing that governing was called akin to sausage making. Whether it is the Civil Rights legislation or the 13th Amendment or the Affordable Care Act they were all passed with inordinate amount of skulduggery and politicking. This is NOT a bad thing in totality. A rambunctious and large democracy like US has competing interests and each senator or congress person tries to do what he/she thinks their constituents demand. Balancing that requires deal making. And, sometimes, as JFK learned during the Cuban missile crisis, the public has to be kept in dark about a defense deal. Transparency is overrated.

While there was absolutely no bombshell the steady drip drip of wikileaks took a toll on Clinton's ratings during the home stretch. Just as Trump's led tape and implosions during the debates were hogging the limelight I saw TV commentators spend time discussing Trump's latest craziness and then with a pious desire to restore balance to the news segment would pivot to Clinton's emails and preface the remarks with "well Clinton is no saint and she has her own problems like the wikileaks today which said...." Then it would be a discussion on how some campaign official wrote uncharitably about Sanders, their hard elbow strategies to knock off Sanders etc. Sanders himself laughed it off saying "well if they had hacked my campaign's email they'd find similar emails about the secretary". Yes, this is what campaigns do.

The consensus view about the email was that Hillary Clinton comes of as a moderate and that she's no fire breathing progressive radical. Even the much anticipated speeches to Goldman Sachs contained no shred of controversy. There was, contrary to what was expected, no hypocrisy or no bootlicking. By and large editorials then rounded off by saying that Clinton comes off as a nuanced person who takes the world in all complexity and fleshes policy out of it. A thankful and much needed balance compared to her competitor.

The Clintons, particularly Hillary, are the most investigated politicians since Richard Nixon. Unlike Nixon they were never charged or indicted on any criminality and yet just the fact that they have been repeatedly investigated becomes, by circular logic, proof that something must have been amiss. Whether it is the Monica Lewinsky scandal or the email scandal the irony is neither investigation started there but they started as inquiries into something else that Hillary supposedly did. The emails were a collateral finding that came out a very highly partisan investigation into Benghazi against Hillary. The Benghazi investigation was complete political theater at the end of which even the republicans conceded Hillary did nothing wrong.

Picture Courtesy 'The Economist' from article "Hillary Clinton, Trail blazer"

Given how the GOP has loathed and investigated her one can only sympathize with her desire to have control of her emails. Unfortunately her remedy only deepened her misery. The fact that a partisan investigation led to this should not be lost sight of. No politician, if investigated so extensively would come off clean.

Mots importantly we've to note that while investigation after investigation has gone into Hillary's affairs we've seen next to nothing on Trump University, Trump Foundation, Trump's bankruptcies, Trumps's taxes that are being audited by IRS etc. While there have been articles by NYT and Washington Post here and there the wealth of material on Hillary, thanks to the investigations, is Himalayan compared to that of Trump's. Further as a GOP congressman conceded it is easy to launch congressional investigations on Hillary because she was a former secretary of state whereas Trump is a private citizen. But then the FBI which is eager to investigate Clinton foundation based on a book and news items is suspiciously silent about Trump foundation which was indeed found to operate illegally in New York City by New York City attorney general.

There is no rational explanation for the intense loathing that Hillary Clinton inspires without including the element of sexism. Economist notes in the article 'Hating Hillary', "the ferocity of such barrages reflected something more: the deep full lines the couple were straddling. The first baby-boomer president and his pushy wife represented a cultural shift that much of America feared....The obvious inference, that Mrs Clinton's unpopularity was fueled by sexism, has always annoyed her critics almost as much as she has. But it is otherwise hard to explain the gap between the measured criticism Mrs Clinton's behavior has sometimes invited and the unbridled loathing that has shown up in its place".

Hillary haters will show a characteristic disdain for facts and will hop from one conspiracy to another until one concedes that she has to be jailed. Though many will eschew the rabid scream of Trump voters of "lock her up" the arguments will be tailored to lead to that conclusion. "She's a corporate shrill" they'd say but when pointed out that she, not Bernie Sanders or Obama, led the fight to create universal healthcare and was literally lacerated by the GOP and the insurance industry the retort, with dollops of sneering contempt, would be "oh well she sold herself after that". "She's a wall street sell out" would be a complaint but when pointed out that Sanders voted for the Commodities and futures treading act the complainer would jump off to another conspiracy. Essentially Hillary Clinton has, in their view, prostituted herself and deserves to be frog marched into prison if not nailed and crucified. After all nobody wants such extreme medieval punishment.

All of the above is NOT to suggest that Clinton is blameless. Clinton needs to learn from the email travails and the stories about Foundation that she has, fairly or unfairly, a severe trust deficit. As one who seeks to occupy the highest office of the land she needs to show Americans that she's better than this. Shut the damn Foundation, put the coterie on a leash and work extra hard to show transparency and earn the trust of America.

Hillary Clinton: A Role Model for Girls. Period

Hillary Rodham Clinton stands poised to make history and shatter, what she aptly called, the 'hardest glass ceiling' by becoming the first woman president of United States and yet women voters have not only been lukewarm to her candidacy but many even consider her in terms that are no less sexist than her male detractors, of whom there are legions. Sexism is a state of mind and has little to do with the gender of the detractor.

A group of women professionals shared a photograph of first ladies, current and former, and went gaga over Michelle Obama while omitting any mention of Hillary Clinton. These professionals, incidentally, also want to encourage, through mentorship, other women to aspire and achieve professional success which they feel needs training to surmount the odds of the working place where women are still seen as less than equals. Asked "what about Clinton" the response was "the jury is still out". This is stunning sexism and would be called out as such if a male had said it. Michelle Obama is a charismatic first lady and remains a traditional first lady espousing non-controversial feel good causes like combating obesity, a national epidemic, with feel good initiatives like growing a vegetable garden in the White House and by exhorting people to exercise more. On the other hand there's Hillary Rodham Clinton, former first lady, first woman senator from New York, first woman to win primaries in a major party, first woman nominee of a major party and former secretary of state. How could a group of strong willed independent minded women, especially those who run a group meant to promote women leadership, ignore Clinton and hold Obama higher? Sexism, albeit of a different kind from the readily recognizable one by males.

Whether it is 2008 or 2016 women in the democratic primaries did not flock to Clinton but they backed Obama and Sanders enthusiastically. In both cases Clinton was seen as not "progressive" enough compared to her rivals. This is not the place to litigate the merits or demerits of those arguments.

The Lady in the Pant Suit. Image courtesy http://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/622x350/public/images/2015/06/061715-hillary-clinton-pantsuits-lead.jpg?itok=LI0CvZMq

Lost in the din was the fact that while Clinton got no favors for being a candidate who could make history. She was rather held to a different standard, mostly because the candidate was Hillary Clinton and almost as frequently because it was a woman candidate.

Clinton has been in the national public eye for over 20 years since her husband got elected as president in 1992 and yet it was not until this year did the media unearth a little spoken of speech delivered by her in 1969. Clinton led a group of students and demanded from the dean of Wellesley that a student representative should be allowed to give a speech during Commencement. Clinton herself was the chosen speaker. Echoing FDR she said "Fear is always with us but we just don't have the time for it now. Not now". In her speech Clinton passionately spoke of poverty, student diversity and most importantly, rather shocking  to some, rebuked a sitting senator who was the Commencement speaker. Senator Edward Brooke, first African-American elected to the senate, cautioned against "coercive protests" in his speech. Clinton, ad libbed extemporaneous remarks to say "Part of the problem with just empathy with professed goals is that empathy doesn't do us anything" and she went on to say, in words that a Obama or a Sanders would later use, "for too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible. And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible". A young girl changed tradition at a hoary university and went beyond just rising up to the occasion and verbally dueled with a senator.

In 1995 Clinton gave a rousing classically feminist speech in Beijing that told the world "women's rights are human rights". It was, given the fragile state of US-China relations at that time, a gutsy speech and one that inspired many women.

"Women's Rights Are Human Rights" -- Hillary Clinton in UN Conference at Beijing in 1995

Today voters remember the Whitewater investigation, more appropriately it should be called witch hunt, as the start of the perpetual air of suspicion that would always hover above Hillary. What is less remember or completely unknown is Hillary redefined the role of a spouse of a politician in office. Not since Eleanor Roosevelt had a politician's spouse played a pivotal role in the administration. Whether as first lady of Arkansas or of the nation Hillary lived up to the promise of Bill, "two for the price of one". In Arkansas Hillary chaired the Education Standards Committee that literally reformed Arkansas schools to make them one of the nation's best from what used to be one of the worst.

Hillary Clinton and her campaign have not done a good job of introducing her to the voters. Bill Clinton's speech about his wife in the Democratic convention provided a sweeping view of the person Hillary was. As a Yale student Hillary involved herself in laws regarding child abuse, migrant labor and legal assistance for the poor.  She went on to write an oft cited article in Harvard Law Review titled "Children under the law".

When Bill Clinton lost the 1982 gubernatorial election he became, as he joked, 'the youngest ex-governor'. Hillary worked to get him rehabilitated and in response to suggestion that her retention of her maiden name does not help she changed her name to Hillary Rodham Clinton. That's the price a woman had to pay.

We forget that before Obamacare there was Hillarycare. Clinton fought a bruising battle for Universal Healthcare. The battle almost derailed her husband's nascent presidency. Her mastery of the subject remains unrivaled. In 2008 Obama airily promised universal healthcare without a provision called 'mandate' unlike that of Clinton's. Clinton's plan that included a 'mandate' was derided as a 'tax'. As president Obama's plan included a mandate and the US Supreme Court later called it a tax. While her efforts to overhaul the nation's healthcare burned to the ground Clinton gained a small but very significant victory by working with her Republican detractors to create a Children's Health Insurance Plan (CHIP). Today that plan helps millions of poor children get lifesaving health care. If this is not leadership what else is?

Hillary Clinton's run for the US Senate showed her at her best. Ridiculed a 'carper bagger' Clinton worked her heart out to earn the votes and her opponent's sexism helped. During a debate Clinton's opponent Rick Lazio walked up to her podium and glowered above her and hectored her into signing a declaration.

Asked about her high unfavorables recently Clinton opined that her favorability ratings are usually very high while she's in office as First Lady or Senator or Secretary of State but drop, precipitously, when she's running for office. It was an astute observation that says she shares an interesting relationship with the  electorate. Her brilliance and experience is never in question and, to be fair, she herself is in question when she is seeking office but, to be equally fair, some of those questions are often in the tone of "any woman, but this woman". This is despicable cop out by those, men and women, who hold Clinton to a harsher standard because she is a woman to pretend like they would vote for a better woman. No and No and not at all.

Clinton has sponsored more successful bipartisan legislation than Obama and Kerry. In the Senate Clinton earned the very grudging respect of her GOP colleagues who had declared earlier never to do anything that would even remotely help her look good when she decides to run for the presidency. Though she entered the senate as a former first lady she played by the rules in a chamber that has archaic rules of seniority. A landmark work of her in the senate was getting the healthcare help that firemen of New York City who worked at the World Trade Center needed. She took on the Bush administration and got billions for New York City. A representative of the Firemen Union, a traditional republican supporting group, expressed admiration recently for her work. How this work even rated as "jury is out" category by a group that purportedly exists to help women become leaders? Pray, what kind of leaders do these women want to create? Ah, the politically correct woman leader who'll plant vegetable garden and talk about healthy diet. If a man had drawn such a distinction he'd be called, correctly, a sexist and these women should not be spared that label either.

8 years later things were not much different when she ran for the presidential nomination. At New Hampshire two men stood in a Clinton rally holding up a T-shirt that read "go home and do laundry". Clinton, running for elected office, had to manage an adroit chuckle to brush it aside with a "the last vestiges of sexism are alive". Charged endlessly that she's icy and does not show 'human warmth' Clinton partly won the state when in a candid moment she almost choked answering how she picked herself up every day despite the drumbeat of defeat from all quarters. Nobody thought it was abominable when a debate moderator cheerfully asked why she is not liked by many, because, after all, a woman should be liked by all. Never mind that all politicians, male or female, are not universally loved. Obama and Bush remain hated by half the country and yet it is only Clinton who gets that question. Obama, in an unfortunate moment for him, interjected to answer, without even looking at her, "you're likable enough Hillary". Clinton won New Hampshire, narrowly. The world loves a woman when she acts, well, 'womanly', looking askance for support and craving public approval but hates her when she is strong and is a rampart of strength.

The millenials we're told don't think it's a big deal anymore to elect a woman to office. That is wrong. Dead wrong. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in her memoirs recalled how she was taunted by her male colleagues for her appearance. It took Obama 8 years to acknowledge that Clinton, as a woman candidate, was measured by different standards.

It is ok for male candidates to strut about in the same dark suit, white shirt and red tie combo every day but Clinton's wardrobe was closely scrutinized for including when she wore tops that, horror of horrors, seemed to show just a hint of a cleavage. The storied Washington Post screamed "Hillary Clinton's Tentative Dip into Neckline Territory". From exposing Nixon and Watergate The Post's journalism had dipped, not tentatively, into 'neckline territory'. Defending the article the columnist said that how a candidate delivers the message, "the tone of voice, the appearance, the context", matters. Really? How many articles are devoted to any male candidate's wardrobe choices in that context? The Post's then media critic Howard Kurtz wrote an explanatory column about the scurrilous post article and helpfully titled it "Cleavage & the Clinton Campaign Chest".

A popular cop out admonition about Hillary Clinton is her standing by Bill Clinton despite his peccadilloes. Women, who anyway hate Hillary, often say with righteous indignation "oh I'd have left my husband". Did not Tolstoy teach us that "each unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way"? It never strikes many that Hillary and Bill could possibly love each other too much and love in such a way that it triumphs the pain. These are two very politically active spouses with a deep strain of activism in their veins. They, as a couple, have done much to shape up the Democratic party after the humiliating landslide loss of Hubert Humphrey. Marriages are complicated and the Bill-Hill marriage is complicated too but it is none of the voter's business. Let's not forget that Eleanor Roosevelt and Jackie Kennedy, not to mention a long list of others including most recently the wife of David Petraeus, all have stood by their philandering husbands.

Google the words "Hillary Clinton screaming" and you'll be surprised by the number of articles on that. Obama, Sanders and, of course, Trump all scream at the top of their lungs but it is Clinton who is considered a shrew because she speaks at the top of her voice. If she speaks softly she's seen as weak, not just weak but 'woman like weak', and if she speaks loud she's screaming. Late night comedian Jimmy Fallon mansplained to her how as a woman candidate she can never catch a break on her decibel.

Ask any working woman today and she'd confide how a male boss would look disapprovingly at her taking a sick day off or god forbid a day off to take care of a sick child. Yes, Clinton has a penchant for secrecy that is fueled by how her privacy has often been violated by witch hunting opponents and a public that simply thinks she's a congenital liar. But, it was not just her penchant for secrecy that made her to be less than forthcoming about her pneumonia afflictions. She later confided that as a woman, especially as one who's stamina is being questioned by her misogynist opponent, she thought she could downplay the news and work through the sickness. No, it is not easy to run as a woman for the highest office of the land even today.

If Donald Trump delegitimizing Barack Obama's birth and thereby the presidency is correctly labeled as racism then why is delegitimizing Clinton winning the nomination not labeled sexism? If it was ok for Obama to win the nomination powered by unprecedented turnout of the black vote why is it any less when Clinton does the same? Who gave Sanders the right to run down Clinton's victories as something she won "in the south"? First they said she won the primaries in the South. Then she won the Mid West. Then she won the North and then she won the very liberal California. Two days before the New York Primary pundits were musing over a possible humiliating loss for Clinton in her home state after Sanders held rallies attended by raucous tens of thousands, twice. Clinton won by a wide margin and then pundits and others brushed it as "oh well it's her home state".

The Sanders candidacy has cast a shadow on how brilliantly Clinton won against heavy odds. Nothing illustrates this better than what happened in the Dakotas. North Dakota had a caucus, a format that heavily favored Sanders's motivated youth vote, and Sanders won by 40 points. South Dakota had a traditional primary, a format that is truly democratic and tends to favor Clinton whose voters are older, and Clinton won by 2 points. But the real story is within. The total votes cast in North Dakota were 400 and Sanders got 250, Clinton 101 and uncommitted 10. The total votes cast in South Dakota were 53,00 and Clinton got 27046 to Sanders's 25,958. Sanders carried the Alaska caucus by 63 points by taking 440 votes to Clinton's 90 votes. In the much anticipated California primary, Clinton got 2.7 million votes and bested Sanders by 9 points to his 2.3 million votes. In New York out of 1.8 million Clinton garnered 1.05 million and beat Sanders by 16 points for his 750,000 votes. When all was done Clinton led Sanders by millions of votes and hundreds in delegate count. Yet, on the night she officially crossed the threshold and made history by becoming the first woman nominee of a major party Sanders not only refused to even acknowledge that but he even went to the extent of disputing her win.

Clinton showed what leadership is in 2008 when after a very hard fought primary Obama barely edged her, unlike how she beat Sanders handily in 2016, she not only bowed to the inevitable she turned herself into the most committed soldier to getting Obama elected. A group of African-American women told NPR that Clinton's conduct earned their respect. How Clinton conducted herself vis-a-vis Obama earned the votes of a critical section of the Democratic party and it is precisely those voters that Sanders brushed aside.

The sexism of Sanders was very latent and couched within his perfectly democratic rights to fight for an electoral victory that he thought he should get but many of his followers did not bother with any fig leaves and flaunted their sexism against Clinton. A Washington Post analysis of sexist tweets showed that of all the sexist tweets against Clinton nearly 14% came from Sanders's supporters. When Sanders's combative campaign manager Jeffrey Weaver said Clinton's "ambition" could tear the Democratic party US News rightly called it out as sexist by saying that running for the presidency, indeed, takes ambition and Sanders himself was no less ambitious by calling for a revolution and therefore to single out Clinton, a woman, for ambition is sexist. Sanders acted so sexist during a debate that left wing economist and columnist Paul Krugman said Sanders was beginning to mirror the "Bernie Bros", a virulently sexist group of Sanders supporters.

Another popular trope to discredit Clinton is to accuse anyone or any organization supporting her as being "in the tank" or, oh the horror, "establishment". This came mostly from the Sanders supporters. Sure, not every criticism of Clinton should be tagged sexist and there is ample in Clinton's conduct and ideas that could be subject to fair criticism. But criticisms often descend into delegitimization of her candidacy and her wins. Editorial boards of newspapers sympathetic to Sanders's policies gave him latitude to explain details regarding his foreign policy and his central theme of taking the financial industry to the woodshed and Sanders, to their surprise, came out woefully uninformed or to be blunt, clueless. Naturally, they all endorsed Clinton and for that sin alone they were tarred with the "establishment" brush. Commenting on a Washington Post article that sought to explain to Clinton why she's not winning by a large margin against a horrible opponent like Trump a reader listed a whole litany of epithets, "lying, imperious, vindictive, harridan". Harridan? My foot. The comment was a top pick comment. Clinton, as per the fact checking site politifact, is no more lying than Sanders and way more truthful than Trump who has no notion of what truth is. Calling for a 'revolution' is not imperious but Clinton is. Let's not fool ourselves that Clinton's candidacy is something that's not historical and that her struggle in the polls is only because it is a Clinton.

Amongst the so called progressive it is an article of faith that Clinton is hawk compared to the peacenik Sanders. Sanders is a hypocrite when it comes to war. He often claims that he voted against the Iraq War resolution because he felt it did not meet his criteria owing to lack of specifics, plans etc.  By that standard he should've voted against the Afghanistan war too but he happily voted for it because he realized that voting against it would cost his senate seat and he did not, in his own words, want to lose an election for the sake of a war vote.

The Iraq vote has been used to literally pillory Clinton for nearly 8 years. What is little known is how Obama very adroitly cast only "present" votes, not even abstentions, as state legislator in Illinois and cast every vote for Iraq related resolutions later just as Clinton. Unlike Obama Clinton was not known to shy from action. Senator Tom Daschle advised freshman senator Obama to prepare a run for the presidency as early as possible and not be inhibited by lack of experience. Daschle reasoned that a freshman senator will have little or no votes to defend. Yes, Obama mounted a successful campaign because, unlike Clinton, he had nothing to defend.

From Madeleine Albright to Samantha Powers and Hillary Clinton it is interesting that strong willed women have persuaded American presidents to initiate a military action in the interest of preventing genocides. If this is hawkish then so be it. Rarely has a presidential candidate been so experienced and shown such deep engagement with issues as Clinton has. If there is one thing that Clinton will never be accused of it is inaction.

There is endless prattle about Clinton and Benghazi but little note of the fact that as Secretary of state Clinton worked with republicans to increase "survivor benefits for military families" from a paltry $12,000 to $100,00. Pray what is Sanders's legislative record, that too with bipartisan support? Nothing. Zilch. To say that he does not have a commendable legislative record because he's a puritan warrior only insults the process of democracy.

Clinton has a great record of working with republicans. As member of the Senate Armed Services committee she earned the respect of senators like John McCain. Today, faced with a Trump takeover of the White House, droves of republicans, diplomats and others, have endorsed Clinton. This is a stunning act that is often taken little notice. Newspapers in deep red states that have never endorsed a democrat in many decades have endorsed Clinton. If this person is not a role model for women who else is?

For those sexist doubters of whether a woman can be a commander-in-chief another woman from another era answered best when her island nation was threatened total annihilation by an armada.

"I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and thin foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonor shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field".

The words of Queen Elizabeth spoken to her troops at Tilbury will be vindicated by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Let us then elect Hillary Clinton, not only because she's a woman but because, today, she's the best choice. Anyone voting for Trump, directly or indirectly is a traitor to the American dream and such votes have the danger of making November 8th "a date that will live in infamy". Hillary Rodham Clinton is all that stands between a racist, misogynist, bigot and the Oval office. Let's get Hillary Clinton elected so that we can make the words of Longfellow, that FDR quoted in his handwritten letter to Churchill amidst another era of great peril, come true:

Sail on, Oh Ship of State!
Sail on, Oh Union strong and great.
Humanity with all its fears
With all the hope of future years
Is hanging breathless on thy fate

References:

1. North Dakota Caucus http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/north-dakota
2. South Dakota Primary http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/south-dakota
3. Alaska Caucus http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/alaska
4. California Primary http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/california
5. New York Primary http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/new-york
6. Washington Post Analysis of sexist tweets https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/02/24/these-6-charts-show-how-much-sexism-hillary-clinton-faces-on-twitter/
7. Sanders campaign and charges of sexism http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/opinion-blog/articles/2016-04-15/sanders-self-righteousness-allows-sexist-overtones-in-attacks-on-clinton
8. Queen Elizabeth speech to troops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_to_the_Troops_at_Tilbury
9. Jimmy Kimmel mansplains to Hillary Clinton https://youtu.be/j2wBpYT6Zlo
10. Hillary Clinton and Surviving families benefits http://correctrecord.org/hillary-clinton-a-record-of-service-to-veterans/
11. Obama's "present votes" http://www.factcheck.org/2008/09/obamas-legislative-record/
12. FDR's letter to Churchill https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/churchill/interactive/_html/wc0112.html
13. Hillary Clinton's Commencement speech at Wellesley http://time.com/4359618/hillary-clinton-wellesley-commencement-transcript/
14. Why Hillary Clinton's Beijing speech matters http://time.com/4125236/hillary-clinton-beijing-speech-video/
15. Washington Post article on Hillary Clinton's 'neckline' http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071902668.html
16. NYT article about the Post article on Clinton's 'neckline' http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/us/politics/28hillary.html
17. Washington Post article by Howard Kurtz "Cleavage & Clinton Campaign Chest" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072702369.html

Jayalalitha Jayaram: A Riddle Wrapped in an Enigma. A Life of Tragedies, Hubris, Victories and Downfall.

The conviction of Jayalalitha Jayaram, a sitting Chief Minister, for amassing wealth beyond known sources of income and her subsequent unseating as Chief Minister, is without parallel in Indian political history. The conviction has sent the state into a spiral of constitutional crisis and stirred the political scene just when Jayalalitha seemed to reach the peak of her political career bagging almost all the seats in the just concluded parliamentary elections when Tamil Nadu, contrary to the most of the country, did not vote for BJP.

Jayalalitha had never known peace in her life ever since her idyllic school life was rocked by her mother demanding that she start acting in films lest the family, until then rich, comes to the streets. A nubile teenage girl was thrust into the ugly chauvinist world of films. Her first movie was rated 'Adults only' because she had appeared in sleeveless blouses and drenched under a waterfall, for a song, thus too steamy for the staid and conservative 60s. She, as the story goes, could not watch her own debut movie in theaters because she was not an adult. Also, her character in the movie is that of a young widow, a very inauspicious role for a debut film. One can only imagine the turmoil of a teenager, who scored a state rank in her Matriculate exam, in being subjected to such lecherousness.

In due course the reigning demigods of Tamil filmdom, MGR and Sivaji, had Jayalalitha as heroine in many of their movies. Her pairing with MGR was a hugely successful one with a chemistry that set tongues wagging and was so to later be the reason for a more bitter phase of her life, politics. In those days male chauvinism reigned supreme in the sets of a Tamil movie. Whenever MGR entered the film set all actors, especially the actresses, had to stand up. That was the least bothersome of what the actresses had to endure.

When her movie career started to wane she was in love with an already married fellow actor Shoban Babu. A very famous interview by her in those days had her viewing Babu from the balcony of the her leafy Poes garden bungalow through a binocular. She had, with uncharacteristic candor for those days, told the interviewer that she and Babu were 'going steady'. The photo and quote would be used repeatedly by her political opposition in later years to ridicule her. Yet again her life was not to be decided by her. MGR, who felt his own popularity was waning, decided to rope in his favorite heroine to be his party's propaganda secretary. Jayalalitha came out of a sort of retirement to dance in the World Tamil Conference convened by MGR. In later years her political enemies, all male, would chucklingly ridicule her that she was a 'danseuse'.

Jayalalitha became an extra-constitutional authority as the party's propaganda secretary. Though women politicians have existed in Tamil Nadu, including MGR's own cabinet, none had the charisma, the proximity to MGR and therefore the power as Jayalalitha did. When she addressed meetings no other party functionary, especially a male, would be seated next to her. It was said that camera men from new organizations were instructed on where they could photograph her from lest any unintended  unflattering pose be captured. When Khushbu resigned from DMK a popular photo that did the rounds on Facebook was one of her bending, with folded hands, in front of Karunanidhi in an unedifying angle. Perils of being a woman politician are many.

Again, Jayalalitha's world was rocked when her mentor and protector MGR fell ill suddenly in 1984, barely a few years since her debut into the political world. MGR's old acolytes, none of whom had any inkling of respect or regard for Jayalalitha, became a circle of coterie and she was left out in the cold. MGR returned from Brooklyn USA, a battered man. His oath of office ceremony was held in-camera. Those were Jayalalitha's years of political wilderness. On Dec 24th 1987 MGR passed away in his sleep.

MGR's body was kept in state at Rajaji hall for public display. Jayalalitha planted herself firmly at the head of MGR's corpse in full glare of TV relays. It was rumored that relatives of MGR's wife and others, annoyed at Jaya hugging the limelight and sending a not too subtle message on who will carry on the leadership, tried to dislodge her from the spot by pinching her. Later Jayalalitha committed a snafu by getting onto the gun carriage that was carrying MGR's corpse for the funeral rites. She pushed down headlong, again, in the full glare of TV live relay.

MGR's party was split with one section headed by his wife and yesteryear actress Janaki with the other headed by his protege, and some would say his romantic interest, Jayalalitha. Male political leaders of Janaki's faction freely indulged in innuendoes and insinuations against Jayalalitha that crossed all borders of decency. One Janaki supporters went to the extent of saying "when we see Janaki we feel like folding our hands in respect but not so for Jayalalitha" (the real quote was rumored to be even more objectionable). In the following election Karunanidhi, who had been frozen out of power for over a decade thanks to MGR's legendary charisma, returned to power. Though MGR's fractured party was defeated it was Jayalalitha who emerged victorious with far more seats than Janaki's faction thus eliciting the mantle of MGR to lead his party.

Jayalalitha entered another period of wilderness. During those years she endured withering sexism from her male opponents. Ridiculing her habit of appearing on the balcony of her home and waving to her supporters Kalimuthu coined the phrase "balcony damsel". He'd later grovel before her to become speaker of the assembly. It was during this time that she suffered a serious accident.

When Karunanidhi rose to present the annual budget Jayalalitha objected that a 'criminal should not read out the budget'. In 1979 when Indira Gandhi visited Tamil Nadu Karunanidhi's DMK had staged a black flag demonstration which had turned violent and Indira Gandhi was injured. Asked about Mrs Gandhi's bloody injuries Karunanidhi obscenely retorted that a woman could bleed for other reasons. A case of attempt to murder had been registered against Karunanidhi and was still not closed when he was elected CM in 1988. Enraged by Jayalalitha's charge Karunanidhi reportedly told her to "go speak to Shoban Babu". Now an angered Jayalalitha reportedly charged her  party men to snatch the budget copies from Karunanidhi's hands. At this point bedlam ensued. Jayalaitha exited the assembly disheveled and shaken. She later addressed reporters in the same state setting the rumor mills afire. It was rumored that a senior member of Karunanidhi's party had attempted to disrobe and humiliate her.

Dravidian party members, many of whom, including Karunanidhi, were bigamous were notorious for being disrespectful towards women. Their patron saint C.N. Annathurai, when asked about his dalliance with an actress, gave a repartee "neither is she a chaste woman, nor am I a saint who renounced all". Asked about rumors regarding a woman claiming him to be her husband Karunanidhi gave the famous reply, referring to his second wife Rajathi as "mother of my daughter Kanimozhi". DMK party speaker Vetrokondan and others like him were known to indulge in not just double entendre but plain ribaldry concerning a childless MGR and spinster Jayalalitha in their speeches (see a sample of Vetrikondan speech here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-XIvFJaLJ0. It was a culture that both principal parties indulged in freely. ADMK party speakers then repaid in kindness with the predictable fodder of Karunanidhi's marriages. Such was the culture spawned by Dravidian party politics. Later in Jayalalitha's years a stable of speakers that included cine-actor S.S. Chandran and others kept up the tradition.

Prodded by Jayalalitha the Tamil Nadu government was dismissed using Article 356 by the pusillanimous and toady Chandrasekhar government at the center. Jaya administered to Karunanidhi in 1991 the medicine he had given to MGR in 1980. The subsequent election saw an earthquake when Rajiv Gandhi was murdered in a sleepy town in the outskirts of Chennai. Shocked by an assassination in their soil the Tamil voter punished the DMK, a party seen as hand in glove and sympathetic to the murderous separatist organization LTTE that had carried out the cold blooded assassination.

I remember Prannoy Roy's election day special vividly. The announcement flashed "DMK decimated. Karunanidhi trailing". Karunanidhi had never lost an election personally ever. He had contested from the Harbor constituency. Speaking at Kalimuthu's election rally, who was contesting from Kadaladi, Karunanidhi punned on their respective constituencies "கடலாடி வா. துரைமுகத்தில் காத்திருக்கிறேன்". Kalimuthu lost and Karunanidhi limped to victory with a lead of just under 1000 votes. For the next 5 years, as Jayalalitha had done earlier after being assaulted, Karunanidhi never stepped into the Tamil Nadu assembly.

Unlike MGR and Karunanidhi Jayalalitha lacked any political grooming and was catapulted by turn of events into ruling 40 million people. Her first reign 1991-96 was absolute disaster marked by tyranny and corruption. Taj Coromandel was ransacked just because T.N. Seshan, the former election commissioner and one who had said something critical of her, had stayed there. ADMK women's wing staged strip teases in court complexes to intimidate Subramanian Swamy who had launched a legal crusade against Jayalalitha after his associate was subject to a acid attack. Irked by her penchant to travel with a cavalcade of 1000 cars her own supporters Cho Ramasamy quipped "அவர் ஐயங்கார் இல்லை ஆயிரம் கார்". Celebrating an auspicious occasion Jayalalitha and her confidant Sasikala bathed in the holy waters of a Kumbakonam temple when nearly 200 devotees died in a stampede due to security arrangements. Consumer advocate K.M. Vijayan who was en-route to the airport to go to Delhi for arguing against Tamil Nadu's oppressive 69% quota system of reservation was attacked and maimed for life. DK's Veeramani later celebrated Jayalalitha as the protector of social justice.

Subramanian Swamy sought the governor's permission to prosecute her for buying government land, in violation of rules, on behalf of a company that she was a partner of. The governor refused to oblige. Later Jayalalitha would malign the governor, on the floor of the assembly, as having tried to sexually assault her.

The Tamil Nadu assembly became an ugly spectacle of ministers prostrating at her feet and singing her praises without fail whenever they got up to speak. In a shocking episode the newly elected speaker, Sedapatti Muthiah, prostrated at Jayalalitha's feet right inside the assembly. In another shocking episode, during a function, Jayalalitha sat on the speaker's chair while her confidante Sasikala, not even an elected member of the body, sat on the deputy speaker's chair.

The nadir of Jayalalitha's first tenure was the ostentatious Rs 100 crore marriage that she conducted for an 'adopted son', a relative of Sasikala. The bride was veteran thespian and yesteryear film colleague Sivaji Ganesan's grand daughter. Jayalalitha and Sasikala appeared bedecked in jewelry from head to toe. Photos of their grandeur was splashed in TV channels and news papers including international press. The marriage spectacle angered many who lived in grinding poverty. That too seeing Sasikala who had no constitutionally guaranteed political power in such corruption funded finery angered many. Sasikala and her family had gained notoriety, for land grabbing, as the 'Mannargudi Mafia'. A disenchanted electorate delivered a stinging verdict including a humiliating defeat of her own candidacy at Bargur. An unknown candidate from DMK was the giant killer.

Flush with victory and euphoria the DMK foisted several cases on her in addition to the ones that Swamy had launched. When Jayalalitha was arrested in a case her party men went on a rampage. In Dharmapuri a bus carrying school girls was way laid and torched resulting in the death of 4 students.

Jayalalitha bounced back in the 1998 parliamentary elections when she aligned with the BJP. India's prime minsters who often owe their power to the cow belt of North India were prone to ignore South India. Jayalalitha changed that in 1999 when she withdrew her party's support to Vajpayee. Standing in the Rashtrapathi Bhavan grounds she declared, in Hindi, that she was no longer supporting the government. No valid reason was given. Jayalalitha had arrived on the national scene, albeit, in an uncomplimentary manner. Vajpayee lost the trust vote by one vote, thanks to Mayavati who switched her votes at the last minute.

In a case of rank political opportunism, as is his tradition, Karunanidhi immediately aligned with BJP, a party he had ridiculed for stoking religious tensions and being inimical to minority communities, his vote bank.

Karunanidhi who sought to pass on the mantle to his son M.K. Stalin presided over a decent administration that time. However, in the run up to the 2001 elections he failed to stitch together a decent alliance and Jayalalitha romped to power. She sought to return the favor of foisting cases by filing a case against Karunanidhi for supposedly taking bribes in constructing the many 'flyovers' that marked his attempt to stem the unmanageable traffic of Chennai. The arrest episode and the drama enacted by Karunanidhi, not apparent in the first few days but only later as more evidence appeared, was a bad start to her second term.

Battling legal cases Jayalalitha unleashed a despicable tactic of silencing her critics or terrorizing those she considered inimical, including a member of the judiciary and her own erstwhile adopted son, by foisting 'ganja' cases wherein contraband was planted by the police and later claimed to be found on the accused.

Jayalalitha shocked the Hindu community and her fellow Brahmins when the much revered pontiff of Kanchi mutt Jayendra Saraswati was arrested, on Diwali day no less, on murder charges. A critic of Kanchi mutt was murdered right in the sanctum sanctorum of a temple. Jayalalitha's government alleged that the murder was carried out on the orders of the pontiff who was irked by the critic. Her ardent supporter Cho Ramasamy reasoned that Jayalalitha would not have dared to do such an almost sacrilegious thing without adequate proof. But when the junior pontiff too was arrested on the day the senior was released on bail it became plain that there was more to this than just the desire to get justice for a slain man.

A welcome relief was the hunting and killing of forest brigand Veerappan, the largest manhunt in history, by a team headed by IPS officer Vijayakumar. The operation was everything that a previous operation headed by Devaram in her first tenure was not. That she is tough on law and order unlike her opponent Karunanidhi, who had buckled to a ransom event by Veerappan earlier, was established again.

The highlight of Jayalalitha's second term was the constitutional crisis she precipitated. As she was yet to clear herself of the TANSI land deal conviction she could not contest in the 2001 elections. She nevertheless filed petitions for candidacy in 4 constituencies and was reject in all 4 because the limit for filing was 2 constituencies. She blamed the DMK government and garnered some sympathy, unfairly, on that count. An irritated Karunanidhi retorted unedifyingly "நானா கொழுப்பெடுத்துப்போய் இரண்டு இடத்தில் மனு சமர்ப்பிக்கச்சொன்னேன்". Unexpectedly Jayalalitha's ADMK swept to power. Using the loop holes of the constitution she ascended the chief ministership since anybody can be elected by the largest seat holding party to be their leader provided they contest an MLA election within 6 months to become an MLA. Jayalalitha's issue was that she had been prohibited from contesting in the first place not that she did not contest. A case was duly filed in the Supreme Court which declared her move unconstitutional and unseated her as chief minister. A placeholder, O.Panneerselvam, was selected to keep the seat warm while she tried to clear herself of the TANSI land deal conviction.

Jayalalitha took the TANSI land deal conviction to the Supreme Court. In a verdict that stunned the nation and the judiciary the Supreme Court judge while accepting that she acted illegally released her saying that she can answer to her conscience. The judgment remains the butt of many jokes even today. Promptly Jayalalitha took the reins back.

Despite all the shenanigans that she did, her opposition DMK was still struggling to gain back the voters trust. The 2006 election saw the advent of shameless promotion of supposedly welfare schemes like free color TVs for all by the DMK. It'd be fair to say that without that kind of a salacious promise the DMK may very well have lost the 2006 election. Even though the ADMK lost the DMK won just barely and lost half the seats in its bastion Chennai.

Karunanidhi's tenure in 2006-2011 was marked by rampant corruption, of an unprecedented scale, land grabbing, also of unprecedented scale, sycophancy that made Jayalalitha look modest, tyranny, especially of the lucrative and much attention gathering filmdom and above all a crippling electricity shortage that plagued the state with multi-hour power cuts. The DMK was trounced in the 2011 elections paving the way for a third term for Jayalalitha.

Jayalalitha started off her third term, as usual, with a string of rash decisions that mostly were designed to undo, irrespective of merits, everything her predecessor did. That the two parties have been alternating shows the lack of choice for Tamil Nadu voter.

Maturing as a savvy politician Jayalalitha, in her third term, outsmarted Karunanidhi on every issue that he had once used, with great effect, as a political wedge to differentiate himself to gullible voters. Whether it is supporting the convicts in Rajiv Gandhi's murder or getting water from Karnataka or the Mullaperiyar dam issue Jayalalitha played her cards well.

 In the recently concluded 2013 parliamentary elections ditching all other alliance partners she undertook a whirlwind tour of the state as the sole indefatigable campaigner of her party. Her helicopter hopping, ministers waiting with bowed heads at the helipad and her speeches were fodder for internet humor. But she had the last laugh. Jayalalitha romped home with 37 MPs. A feat that not even the legendary charisma of MGR could achieve. DMK was stunningly routed. Even as Modi mania swept all of India Jayalalitha denied him the satisfaction of a complete victory. Jayalalitha the politician had arrived with a bang.

 Every once in 5 years the voter simply throws out, often by a huge margin, the incumbent and gifts power to the then opposition party with sickening regularity for the past 23 years since 1991. The DMK, trounced in 2011 and the parliamentary elections of 2013, is still reeling from factionalism and a string of defeats. It was widely expected that Jayalalitha's ADMK could be re-elected in 2016 thus beginning the end of DMK. Now, all bets are off.

Jayalalitha lacked the natural political instincts of MGR and the savviness of Karunanidhi. A politician by accident and compulsion she was just maturing into a better leader when this conviction derailed her. Her titular and whimsical manner of government is legendary. Yet, many who meet her in person have often felt that she is an intelligent and pragmatic person one could do business with. Just as the person thinks they had been misinformed Jayalalitha will prove that they were gullible. Never having had a normal relationship with males she came to see her male opponents as nothing short of mortal enemies. She rarely, if at all it happened, showed grace toward anybody. Without people she could call friends or family all she had around her opportunists and opponents.

It is also true that Jayalalitha never got her due even when she deserved it simply because she happened to be a woman and a former actress catapulted to a position of power in a state that fawns over actors. Karunanidhi, an astute and savvy political operator, has always been held in awe, thanks to flashy rhetoric, by the literate as an ideologue, though in reality he has neither the intelligence to craft an idea nor the sincerity to adhere to an idea.

Let us also not forget that everything that Jayalalitha can be blamed for was actually seeded by Karunanidhi. Justice Sarkaria who headed his eponymous commission,  formed to probe the scandalous Veeranam scheme of Karunanidhi, wrote that Karunanidhi had perpetrated  bribery with 'scientific' methods. The finger of suspicion points to Azhagiri on the Tha. Krishnan murder. That case was ignominiously closed during Karunanidhi's tenure when witnesses became hostile. A case relating to burning a newspaper office resulting in the death of two employees, instigated by Azhagiri, was also let to die. In a corruption case relating to Stalin one of the witnesses, a friend, conveniently committed suicide along with his entire family including a toddler. DMK general secretary and Karunanidhi's perpetual sidekick Anbazhagan today croaks that his suit to transfer Jayalalitha's case out of Tamil Nadu was not out of political vendetta and that he was just following his party's resolution in that regard.

Every politician of Tamil Nadu is an opportunist scumbag. PMK founder and sudden millionaire Ramadoss once declared that if he ever aligned with Jayalalitha it will be as disgusting as having slept with his own mother. And then he aligned with Jayalalitha. Out of a sense of decency I will not ask any further questions of Ramadoss. When the BJP government moved the POTA bill with sweeping provisions to arrest people suspected of even voicing support for a banned organization Vaiko, who supports LTTE, a banned organization, voted for it. Promptly Jayalalitha used the bill to arrest him. Later for the sake of a few seats Vaiko aligned, fruitlessly, with Jayalalitha for the 2006 elections. G.K. Moopanar who broke away from Congress to form TMC solely because Congress high command in Delhi decided to align with Jayalalitha in 1996, much against the wishes of many congressmen, later went back to align with her. Thirumavalavan aligned with Jayalalitha and ridiculed Karunanidhi before switching parties in the next election. Subramanian Swamy, the cause of all her misery today, after filing all lawsuits went and aligned with Jayalalitha only to get elected to the parliament with her support. R.M.Veerappan and Kalimuthu, who had heaped scorn on Jayalalitha, later meekly sought her blessing. S.D. Somasundaram, a senior menmber of MGR's cabinet, who had quit the cabinet protesting the undue attention given to Jayalalitha, later gained notoriety for hanging onto her van's side and dangling. Several of Jayalalitha's former ministers who faced lawsuits for corruption under the DMK regime are now in the DMK camp. So much for the new found clamor for probity in public life.

I am all for prosecuting and punishing corruption in public life. If Jayalalitha had been convicted in 1997 I may have had lesser sympathy for her. Its not that she redeemed herself completely its just that I see others who have committed murders, instigated murders, even a rumored rape of a TV anchor, been corrupt on a grander scale have all escaped punishment and are acting with smug righteousness when all they should be doing is sticking their head several feet into the sand and dreading their own day of retribution.

Karunanidhi is trying not to be seen as gloating at his beet-noire's moment of downfall only because he is well aware that his daughter, from his second wife, is facing jail herself. It may very well come to pass that his first wife too may end up in jail. The Neera Radia tapes established how ministries were bartered and sold for a song to placate giant egos of his two wives who wanted their respective children to be cabinet ministers.

This month saw the conviction and sentencing of Virginia's popular ex-Governor and his wife for bribery, involving an amount of approximately Rs 1 crore. The governor was once thought to be a possible presidential candidate. Now he is facing many years in jail. Illinois governor was hauled out of his bed and handcuffed in a case where he was about to commit a crime. A sitting congressman, scion of a civil rights leader, and his wife are languishing in jail for misusing campaign funds. In each of those cases though the punishments are fully warranted I felt sorry that they had to face jail. Failures and downfalls, however well deserved, always bring about a sense of sadness because of what the punished have to face.

Jayalalitha fully deserves this punishment and even more. Think of K.M. Vijayan and Chandralekha, both are impaired for their remaining lives. The inability to say "she deserved it, lets move on" stems from memories of the arc of her life. If only her mom had not dragged into movies, if only Shoban Babu had not left, if only MGR had not dragged her to politics, if only she had realized what damage Sasikala was wrecking, if only she had had a wee bit of normal life and the ifs accumulate. A life filled with tragedy, disappointments, treachery, betrayals and sexism has now neared a cataclysmic climax. She may very well outsmart and bounce back and that would be a tragedy too for then justice would have died.

From a rank holding teenager in a premium convent, brought up in the lap of luxury, today Jayalalitha lives behind bars eating a ball of ragi rice. What a fall. In the movie 'Nixon' Henry Kissinger would muse to a colleague, when Nixon resigns, "can you imagine what he could have been if only he had been loved". The same is true of Jayalalitha Jayaram.

The climax scene of Jayalalitha's first movie 'Vennira Aadai' concludes with her donning the garb of a widow, a white saree. She would say that as a child she hated white color but is now destined to wear only that color because she was married and now widowed though her marriage last just two hours. Today, at the Central jail in Bangalore where she is lodged she dons a white saree.

After all that has happened and after all that we know of her life Jayalalitha Jayaram will remain a puzzle. We do not yet know what makes her tick, we may never know who the real Jayalalitha is. She is, with apologies to Churchill, a riddle wrapped in an enigma.

Jayalalithaa: A modern Cleopatra

The passing away of Liz Taylor has rekindled interest in her blockbuster “Cleopatra”. I’ve watched it many times and recently I was struck by how much Jaya and Cleo have in common.

Mark Antony comes to Cleo to negotiate a treaty. Cleo asks Antony to kneel. Antony is livid and reminds her that he is pro consul of the Roman empire. Seething with rage Cleo retorts, “I asked it of Caesar, I demand it of you”. Ministers prostrating at Jaya’s feet (a practice started by MGR) reached such levels that they became staple jokes. Once she was to chair a meeting of IAS officers. The officers all waited for her to enter the room, standing. No one dared to sit even in her absence. The worst incident was when Sedappatti Muthiah, now with DMK, prostrating to her in the Assembly after he got elected as speaker.In an interview after losing power in 1996 Jaya claimed that she did not like it and told her party men not to do it. I guess she was vying to make her name synonymous with 'self deluded'.

Cleopatra’s love of the extravagance is well known. Jaya, in her first stint, astounded TN with flagrant display of extravaganza. 1000 car retinues followed her. Cho Ramasamy memorably said "அவர் ஐய்யங்கார் இல்லை ஆயிரம் கார்" . Her royal highness need a/c's on stage. Cleopatra and Jaya were obsessed with astrology. If Cleopatra's dinners were legendary so were Jaya's. Jaya's meeting with Narendra Modi was known more for the lavish spread of lunch than for any policy discussion. How Jaya received her guests, at door or not, was itself news.

Both were thrust into the world of men at a very young age. Jaya had just finished her 10th exams when her mother pushed her into movies. Jaya's first movie was rated as "A" because she appeared in sleeveless tops, being less than 18 she could not see her first movie in the theaters. Cleopatra had her Caesar. Jaya had MGR. Both lived down their lives as "the other woman". Cleopatra was not a native Egyptian. Jaya's lineage is not clearly known. Cleopatra, modern historians assert, was a very shrewd and intelligent person who used her seductive skills to protect her fledgling kingdom. Jayalalitha has impressed many with her shrewdness and decisiveness. Both are equally impulsive thus undoing what they achieved. Both were avid lovers of books. The movie shows Cleopatra being anguished seeing the famed library of Alexandria burn. Jaya is supposed to be a voracious reader.

When Cleopatra first meets Caesar, in the movie, she jeers that Rome needs Egypt for money and grains. She clearly understood who needed whom and why. She needed Caesar to overcome her brother. Caesar needed her riches. Knowing the power equation she tried to use it to her best interest. When Mark Antony tries to summon her very cleverly Cleopatra makes him understand that Amtony needs her more than she needs him. She had the money. She could choose to deal with Antony or if she wishes Octavian. 

For decades Congress had taken Tamil Nadu for granted. When Indira drubbed in North after Emergency only the south provided her succor. Though MP's from Tamil Nadu occasionally wielded some ministries never where TN MP's respected as a power bloc. All that changed one summer when an imperious Jayalalitha pulled the rug from under Vajpayee. North India was dumbstruck seeing a woman from South address the press from the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, in Hindi, saying she had withdrawn her support to the BJP government. Her misadventure cost India Rs 5000 crores, she lost her clout as BJP returned back to power aided by her bete noire DMK. But TN was never taken lightly after that.

Both shared a love for pearls. The best known photo of Jaya in her younger days showed her wearing a single strand of pearl necklace. The foster son marriage (now disowned) showcased that she could easily outdo Cleopatra in shameless display of wealth. World press billed it as Rs 100 crore marriage.

Cleopatra was ruthless to anyone she deemed a threat. Thugs in autos became a sad joke about Jaya's first regime. Subramaniam Swamy, Chidambaram, Seshan, advocate Vijayan all bore the brunt of her anger. 

Above all Jaya and Cleo share a fatal trait, the unseemly desire to self-destruct themselves. Mark Antony commanded a good army but Cleopatra compels him to fight Octavian at sea, a task that his army is highly unsuited for. The Battle of Actium is a disaster.The movie depicts how Cleopatra deserts Antony. Antony then deserts his army chasing her. When it appeared that Jaya's comeback has very good chances she went and ruined it by her sheer arrogant treatment of Vaiko. Tamil Nadu was just astounded to see Vaiko being humiliated and wondered if she would ever learn. 

Cleopatra and Jayalalitha are shrouded in mystery. Jaya, even in this modern age, is a puzzle that nobody has understood or found a clue to. She is not an approachable person, she has written a thinly veiled auto-biographical fiction yet much remains unknown about her. Just like Cleopatra we know Jayalalithaa only through men whether its her opponents or the media. Only in 2010 did Cleopatra get a female biographer. 

Manmohan Singh: Disgracefully shameless

India is seeking a permanent seat at the United Nations and constantly boasts about its readiness to join the 'big boys' club yet here is its Prime Minister talking like a besieged potentate of a banana republic. Shame. Utter disgrace. When I read the excerpts I simply could not believe myself that this was a man loved by many and looked upon by many as a man of integrity. Manmohan Singh has no integrity.

When we hear outlandish stories of corruption by Laloo, Mulayam, Jaya, MK we do get outraged but in the same breath we just roll our eyes and sigh "what do you expect". To hear Manmohan feebly protest how his cabinet was practically foisted on him by allies, while an open secret, is plain unconstitutional. Here is the PM saying on live telecast that his cabinet was not formed by him. A sheer mockery of the constitution. Maybe we should thank him for saying on camera what is an open secret. The worse part is when he claimed that he did not know what Raja did. Utterly irresponsible statement that reflects badly on his lack of control as the head of the government. Again, should we rather thank him for his guts to say that his ministers do not in fact report him but to their own party bosses and special interests.

What was he thinking when he had to say "I am not such a big culprit"? Did he think he was delivering some sort of Nixonian "checkers speech" or a Nixonian denial "there shall be no whitewash in the white house". What do we do with a statement like this "I had no reason to feel that anything seriously wrong had been done or that I had the authority to object to Raja's induction. Complaints were coming from all sides -- from companies, which had not benefited. I was not in a position to make up my mind if anything was seriously wrong". The PM of a country that is boasting of becoming an economic powerhouse on par with the most developed countries, is stating that he had no "authority to object to Raja's induction". There are complaints from all and sundry and the Oxford economist says "I was not in a position to make up my mind if anything was seriously wrong". What more should have gone wrong for him to think 'anything was seriously wrong'.


Not satisfied with expressing his utter helplessness and figure head nature he rubs salt with a Marie Antoinette like remark equating food and fuel subsidies with notional loss in 2G scam. Did this guy really come out of Oxford or did he just saunter around Oxford? Do we call this chutzpah or brazenness or chicanery or plain pig headed logic.


When Manmohan Singh (defeated in 2004 Lok Sabha election) was foisted on India by Sonia Gandhi through a backdoor Rajya Sabha seat (Assam, where he had not resided) the intelligentsia actually rejoiced despite the chicanery involved. It was seen as necessary evil in a country where a man like Singh can never get elected in the rumble tumble of politics. The re-election of Congress in 2009 was in large part due to Manmohan's clean image and of course the alliances. The second time Manmohan became PM on his own right. After a brief moment in the sun his image took beating thanks to a dour corrupt politician from South,  M.Karunanidhi, who wanted cabinet ministries for his children (from two wives) and patently corrupt figure heads. 


Indira Gandhi haughtily declared "corruption is a global phenomenon". Asked whether he should have called out the army earlier to stem the anti-sikh pogrom, Rajiv Gandhi imperiously declared "when a large tree falls the earth is bound to shake". Karunanidhi's bedrock principle of public service is his motto, "he who take honey from the honey comb is sure to lick his hand". Laloo, Mayawati and Jaya set new standards in looting the state. By all that standard Manmohan is indeed a incorruptible saint. It is very probable that Manmohan did not make a penny out of all these scams. If that is the standard to judge leaders then he is surely exemplary. The only reason that he was loved by the intelligentsia was his incorruptible nature and India sure invested high hopes in him. 


Integrity is not only being personally honest its much beyond that. Manmohan is now seen not as somebody who is trying to do good within the conflicting demands of a fractious democracy rather he is seen as somebody who has sold his soul to cling to power. He is now Dr.Faust pure and simple. I don't buy the trope that he is helpless. If he had fired Raja much earlier and read the riot act to DMK he would have called out their bluff. Today CBI is contemplating questioning Kanimozhi and there is no whimper of protest from DMK. Manmohan could have called the shots at several stages, pleading compulsions of alliance is whining. I guess he is fit only to be a beaurocrat not a leader. He is an insult to any concept of 'leadership'. 


To quote Oliver Cromwell, "you have stayed far too long for any good you might have done, in the name of God, GO".

Indian Leaks: Bofors, Thakkar Commission, Devi Lal etc.

I thought I shall write this after a day but could not resist it. The release of the Thakkar Commission report by Indian Express ranks right along there with wikileaks. Indian Express and the Rajiv Gandhi government were at each other's throat. Thakkar commission was established to probe the conspiracy angle in Indira Gandhi's assassination. The report was sealed as "secret" even from the then President Giani Zail Singh. One fine morning Indian Express readers woke up to see on the front page a column titled "The needle of suspicion points to R.K. Dhawan". Dhawan was Gandhi's secretary. Thakkar commission had said his conduct was suspicious. By now Dhawan was an MP. Needless to say the Parliament was rocked. The country was in a state of shock. A senior member of Indira Gandhi's administration and a close confidant had been pointed with a "needle of suspicion". Then questions swirled around M.L.Fotedar too. Both Fotedar and Dhawan were only steps behind Mrs Gandhi but were not hit by the spray of bullets that felled the Iron Lady. Of course the Express was hauled to the courts.

The creme-de-la-creme was the Bofors controversy. For months Rajiv Gandhi had claimed nothing had happened. Rajiv had come to Avadi for a national Congress party meeting reminiscent of the one held by Nehru. The day the meeting opened India's most venerated newspaper Hindu (referred as the prim lady by Nehru in his autobiography) splashed on its front pages documents indicating kickbacks. Hinduja's and Quattrochi became household names. Chitra Subramaniam reporting from Geneva was the key investigation journalist, Ram was her counterpart in India writing the articles. The collaboration ended messily. Later then editor of Hindu, Kasturi, put a stop to the expose. N.Ram huffed and puffed and took his exposes to rival Express. Goenka, publisher of Express, and Arun Shourie, editor of Express, were too glad to provide space to N.Ram. Arun Shourie had cut his teeth in investigative journalism during his earlier stint at Express by taking on Maharashtra strongman A.R.Antulay.

Congress then decided to meet expose with expose. V.P.Singh was riding high as the Jan Morcha leader. I am not sure of the chronology here a bit but I think the St.Kitt's scandal happened after the Allahabad by election when Singh trounced the Congress candidate. Papers friendly to congress published documents alleging offshore accounts  in St.Kitts island as belonging to V.P.Singh's son Ajeya Singh. This was targeted to hit Singh's Mr Clean image. Within days Arun Shourie and others proved that the documents were forged. P.V.Narasimha Rao then External Affairs minister got embroiled in that forgery case in later years.

Once V.P.Singh got elected it was a case of tamasha everyday trying to keep "Tau" Devi Lal happy. Om Prakash Chautala, Devi Lal's son, caused utter mayhem in the Meham by election to get elected as MLA (and become Haryana CM). Tau, convinced that the newspaper elites were against him picked up the phone to Arun Shourie. Devi Lal then launched into a tirade filled with obscene expletives. Arun Shourie then released the entire transcript the very next day on the front pages titled 'This is the Deputy Prime Minister speaking".

The Nellie massacre was brought to light only due to journalists. Indira Gandhi was advised by intelligence agencies not to hold elections in Assam where the students were agitating against influx of foreigners, mostly Muslims from Bangladesh. Indira, for political gains, as always, went ahead and Nellie, a village mostly of Muslims, saw a massacre that was brazen and shocking. The official commission's report is still classified a secret. Around 2000+ muslims died.

Of course these exposes started taking an ugly turn even back then. Ram Jethmalani who ran his famous "10 questions a day" to Rajiv published photos of Ajitabh Bachchan's private home in Switzerland (or Sweden?). The tuition fee details of Bachchhan children were divulged in the front pages as proof of ill-begotten money. Amitabh was innocent.

Now we have the sting operation era. Tehelka tapes exposed corruption in BJP alliance and in the most serious expose the judges of lower courts were exposed in a "cash for warrants" sting. The Supreme Court chief justice was miffed at Tehelka for the expose than with the corrupt judges themselves.

The Radia tapes has a sweet irony to it. In 1981 a temple functionary at the famous Tiruchendur temple was murdered and a diamond necklace was stolen. The then MGR government prompt announced a commission headed by C.J.R.Paul. The needle of suspicion pointed towards R.M.Veerappan a key confidante of MGR. Karunanidhi undertook a walk to Tiruchendur "Needhi Kettu Nediya Payanam". The Paul commission report was classified secret by MGR. MK got a copy through his contacts and promptly released it, of course in the interest of truth. Then as always happens in politics R.M.Veerappan became friends with MK and RMV's party man is cabinet minister who recently held a lavish function to celebrate MK (though no one knows what was celebrated).

Today Radia tapes are a huge embarrassment to MK and he is tilting at every imaginary windmill much like Don Quixote trying to find fault with every one in sight except his kith and kin.

In a colorful democracy like that of India there is no shortage of drama (and national shame) I just rambled a few.