March 2010. New York.
Hillary Clinton filed for divorce yesterday in Westchester County, N.Y., her Senate office announced yesterday. The Clintons reportedly separated soon apart after her presidential campaign foundered in spring of 2008. The divorce suit was widely expected.
In a statement, Senator Clinton said, "Bill and I had a fabulous 35 years together. We climbed incredible heights together and suffered through the lows together too. We shared great joys, achievements and griefs, and we reached this decision mutually. It is now time for the two of us to walk our own pathways as friends, not husband and wife. We have incredible respect for one another and Bill and I will continue to consult one another on important matters."
There was no word on how the couple were planning to divide an estimated $120 million in assets that they have accumulated since Bill Clinton left the presidency, largely, it is said from royalties and speaking fees and commodities trading.
Close friends of the senator’s said that the move was inevitable. One said anonymously that the couple’s relations became acrimonious in the months after her failed presidential bid, when the senator said on "60 Minutes" that the main reason she lost was her husband’s negative statements about Barack Obama on the campaign trail. Mrs. Clinton was said to be deeply embarrassed after the Drudge Report released a tape of a joke that was widely thought to be racist made by Bill Clinton in southern dialect during a cell phone call to a female friend at Obama’s inauguration. "She got as much out of this marriage as she could," said one friend, speaking anonymously. "They were spending almost no time together. Once her presidential bid failed, the marriage meant very little to her and she really needed to move on."
The divorce is sure to feed theorizing among the couple’s critics that their marriage became a political partnership in the 1980s with the sole purpose of furthering one another’s careers. A good friend of Bill Clinton’s, also speaking anonymously, said this idea was "laughable–pure fiction arising from the miasma of Clinton-hatred."
This friend said that the divorce would not change Bill Clinton’s activities, including lately his effort to raise money for a "Nakba" memorial in Washington. Nakba means catastrophe in Arabic, and is the word used by Palestinians to describe their violent expulsion in 1948 from the villages and cities in the land that became Israel.
Oh sorry–made that part up!
