A Flawed Feminist Test?

Maureen Dowd argued in yesterday's NY Times Op/Ed that Hillary cannot be a gender Rorschach test because it's impossible to separate Hillary the Candidate from Bill, her history, and the prior PR beatings dished out by the media.

I agree with this to an extent (there is a long and storied Clinton history), but no woman exists in a vacuum--especially no woman who is a presidental contender. Every man and woman who runs for president has a past political history, so it seems like the kind of female candidate Dowd thinks would be a good test doesn't exist. But seeing a woman as human being with all of the same flaws and attributes as a man is what feminism is all about? Is Dowd calling for a test tube female candidate?

And isn't this "image problem" Hillary has mainly due to a sexist media and misogynist culture? That sounds like some circular reasoning to me: "Hillary's bad image is problem in the media because the media gives her a bad image." (So if she weighs the same as a duck...then she's a witch!)

If that's the case, Hillary is the perfect "feminist" test!

Besides the premise of her argument, there are a few sentences that really made me cringe:

"While Obama aims to transcend race, Hillary often aims to use gender to her advantage, or to excuse mistakes. "

"As a senator, she was not a leading voice on important issues, and her Iraq vote was about her political viability. "

Well, Obama can aim to "transcend race" because the media plays that card for him. Dowd's tone suggests that Hillary's use her gender (to her advantage? really?) is somehow dirty. Does Obama NOT want to use his race to his advantage? No--for both candidates the attributes that set them apart from the usual suspects (white, male) are going to work to their advantage when voters share that same attribute (or cause conflict, like for some black women).

And I have NEVER heard Hillary use her gender to "excuse mistakes." That would be political assasination right there.

And I do take exception to Dowd's claim that "she was not a leading voice on important issues." Is she kidding? Immigration, health care anyone? anyone? Bueller? And the Iraq vote--yes, in retrospect the wrong way to go. But why is that vote any m0re about her political viability than any of other 25 democrats (including Senators Edwards and Kerry) who also voted "Yea"?

Thoughts?