Fifteen Hillary Factoids

A “factoid” is a brief or trivial item of news or information.

The following are some interesting factoids about Hillary Rodham and Hillary Clinton that some readers may not know. We thank the Random Facts website for compiling a list of fifty factoids from which these fifteen were taken:

1. As a young adult, Hillary was an active Republican and even campaigned for Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater in 1964. The Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement in America, Wellesley influences, and her view that the Richard Nixon campaign against Nelson Rockefeller included “veiled racism” prompted Hillary to leave the Republican party.
2. When asked what attracted Hillary to Bill, she replied, “He wasn’t afraid of me.”
3. Though Hillary had appeared on Vogue in 1998, she apparently backed out at the last minute for a 2007 shoot, claiming she didn’t want to look too “feminine.“
4. Some scholars speculate that President Obama has given voice to the rising possibility of women with his more feminine, inclusive approach to problem-solving. They suggest that Hillary, on the other hand, is still trying to emulate a male model which requires combat and demonizing enemies.
5. In one of Hillary’s first trials before a jury, she represented a canning company that had been sued by someone who claimed they found the rear end of a rat in a can. Though she won the case, she became the butt of her husband’s jokes for years over what he called her “rat’s ass” case.
6. Hillary’s friendship as First Lady with former mentor Jean Houston ended after Bob Woodward revealed in a 1996 book that Houston helped Clinton hold imaginary conversations with her hero Eleanor Roosevelt. One of the conversations was taped and her critics called it “Wackygate.”
7. After Bill’s mother spoke disparagingly of Hillary’s looks, he told his mother, “I have to have somebody to talk to. Don’t you understand that?” His extramarital activities, however, nearly ruptured his marriage several times.
8. As a senior at Wellesley, Hillary wrote her thesis on Chicago’s radical community organizer Saul Alinsky under the direction of Professor Schechter. Her thesis was supposedly suppressed years later while she was at the White House.
9. When she was a teenager, Hillary organized a baby-sitting group to look after the children of migrant Mexican workers in rural Illinois.
10. Hillary has been dogged by rumors that she was a lesbian based on her assertive manner, lack of interest in her appearance during adolescence, and her entourage of women staffers who called themselves “HERC and the girls” (playing on her initials, HRC).
11. In the early 1990s, when Bill Clinton was making $35,000 as governor of Arkansas, Hillary was making $100,000 a year from her law firm salary and corporate board fees. A portion of her salary was from Lafarge, a U.S. cement maker which was later fined for pollution violations at its Alabama plant.
12. Hillary Clinton was the only First Lady to be subpoenaed, for her involvement with the Whitewater controversy in 1996, and to repeatedly be deposed as part of ongoing criminal and civil investigations, including Travelgate and Filegate. Bill and Hillary were the only First Couple to be fingerprinted by the FBI.
13. When Hillary kissed Yasser Arafat’s wife, Suha, during a visit to the West Bank on November 11, 1999, the photo made front-page news and Hillary spent considerable time explaining the kiss was a social grace required of a first lady.
14. When Hillary Clinton encouraged White House chef Pierre Chambrin to resign in 1994, he was given $37,026 in exchange for his agreement not to discuss the Clintons or the circumstances of his dismissal. This severance bonus was unprecedented and was questioned by Congress.
15. When Hillary first heard that Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, she attributed it to a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” The phrase has since been used many times in popular culture. Rush Limbaugh, for example, refers to himself as Mr. Big of his fan base, “The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.” A number of entrepreneurs sell VRWC (Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy) merchandise.

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