You Got ‘The Look’ from Hillary Clinton?
Just go home. You're done.
By Shalise Manza Young
A friendly tip: If you ever find yourself sitting across a table from Hillary Clinton and she gives you the look, just slide out of the chair to the floor and crawl out of the room. Leave your coat, leave your bag, leave whatever you had with you — the only thing you’ll be trying to save is face.
Because if she gives you the look, she has realized that you are not worth her time, not her intellectual equivalent, a grandstanding fool, or some combination of the three.
The look was initially made famous a little more than a decade ago, when Clinton was forced to interrupt her second presidential campaign after being called to Capitol Hill for a third time to answer 11 hours of questioning for the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed four Americans and happened during her tenure as secretary of State.
Clinton has long been a public figure and public servant, but the photo of her sitting at a table with a microphone in front of her, wearing a black suit jacket, right hand on her cheek and a look of exasperation on her face — eyebrows slightly raised, doubting eyes, pursed lips — might be the one that comes to mind first when you see her name.
You do not want to be on the receiving end of the look. You would think that after years of proving how unflappable and brilliant she is, Clinton’s detractors, of which there remain many in the Republican Party, would know that she cannot be made to look like Boo Boo the Fool, but she can make you look like one in a hurry.
The current MAGA members of the House Oversight Committee either never got that memo or believed they could be the exceptions.
Ell. Oh. Ell.
In late February, Republicans finally got what they were looking for, with members of the oversight committee traveling to Chappaqua, N.Y., to depose Hillary and former President Bill Clinton for their ties to the child sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
Plot twist: As she has repeatedly stated and as the Epstein files released to this point have shown, Hillary had no relationship with Epstein and only brief interactions with his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell.
But there is perhaps no woman who has been dragged through the mud for the sins of her husband and others in her orbit more than Hillary Clinton, so there she was, in a gorgeous cobalt suit, making the look at Republicans’ counsel as he read off a nearly interminable list of politicians, businesspeople, wealthy individuals, and others. He was asking whether she had spoken to any of them about Epstein and Maxwell, and, as it droned on, she finally said that not only had she not spoken to any of those people, she didn’t even know who some of them were.
She made the look at Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina when — stick with me here — she was trying to tie Clinton to a 2014 fundraiser for late Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY). A Jeffrey Epstein was invited to attend, though even Mace admitted it wasn’t clear from the email Mace had Clinton read whether the invite was for adjudicated child rapist Jeffrey Epstein or a different man with the same name. Clinton attended the event, which apparently no one named Jeffrey Epstein also attended, in support of her friend, Lowey.
Yes, it was as red-strings-on-a-cork-board conspiratorial as it reads.
She was making the look when it was revealed moments after that exchange that someone — discovered to be Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado — leaked a photo of Clinton from inside the room. Despite the Clintons repeatedly asking for their hearings to be open to the media, the Republicans declined, apparently thinking it would be better for them if their performative circus was kept behind closed doors, so Boebert sending out the photo was in violation of what her own party wanted.
That was one of the few moments Clinton lost her cool, though rightfully so.
“I’m done with this. If you guys are doing that, I’m done. You can hold me in contempt from now until the cows come home,” she said. “This is just typical behavior.”
Boebert admitted to posting one picture and said she’d take it down, but she had sent it to right-wing personality Benny Johnson for him to share with his audience.
As Clinton’s counsel demanded Republicans play by the rules, committee chair James Comer (R-KY) took the opportunity to turn things back on Hillary, chastising her for putting the deposition off for months.
As Clinton pointed out more than once during the four-plus hour session, not only had she submitted a sworn statement, as had others who actually had ties to Epstein had done, but not a single Republican was in the room earlier in February when Leslie Wexner was deposed on Capitol Hill — and Wexner’s 20-year relationship with Epstein was so close he has been named by the FBI as one of Epstein’s co-conspirators.
She made the look as Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) brought the Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea, into the discussion, asking whether Hillary and Chelsea had discussed Bill’s involvement with Epstein after Epstein’s first arrest in 2007. Hillary forcefully noted that Bill’s interactions with Epstein ended well before that arrest, which is when the public began to learn about his heinous crimes.
This is nowhere near a comprehensive list of the demented questions Republicans peppered Clinton with, and again her incredible restraint was on full display as she answered the same questions repeatedly and watched MAGA committee members turn themselves into pretzels that would impress Auntie Anne.
And again she showed why she would have been a far superior president than the man she to whom she lost in 2016, the man who attacked her from every rally stage and rode a wave of misogyny and racism to the White House.
The politicians in the room with Clinton during her deposition, who have pledged fealty to that man and his movement of hatred and greed, deserved the look from Clinton.
They deserve scorn from the rest of us, too, for their clownish efforts in trying to shame her for the sins of others.
Shalise Manza Young was most recently a columnist at Yahoo Sports, focusing on the intersection of race, gender and culture in sports. The Associated Press Sports Editors named her one of the 10 best columnists in the country in 2020. She has also written for the Boston Globe and Providence Journal. Find her on Bluesky @shalisemyoung.
Best thing I have read all day. Hillary is formidable and wonderful at the same time.
I wonder if - should they ever get around to putting Hillary on a first class postage stamp, like they've been doing with a lot of First Ladies - they'll show her giving The Look.......