So, what you're saying pretty much is that being that these two women didn't have picture perfect marriages with saintly husbands, their legacy is inherently scarred?

Are you kidding?

When I think of the Kings, I think of marches, stong Black people, and the brilliance of the people that fought so that I could go to a snooty private school and not get lynched; I certianly don't think, "Oh, well, there's that utter failure of a wife! OMG!". When I think of Hillary (and I happen to think that it's a sign of power that she doesn't even NEED that last name), I think of someone brilliant, and a possible new (but flawed) leader of the Dems; I don't think of her as the chick who didn't service her husband enough.

Those sort of thoughts, actually, belong to the very people that are trying to kill thier achievements in the first place. The only people that discount those women for being castrating, uppity harpies are chauvanists and other close-minded types. More people are stuck in awe of these women's successes...or are trying to bring them down by really flimsy means.

So, yeah, I'd better catch me a saintly man, because I don't want his screw-ups to bring me down!!!

Yah know its about women so its gotta be shunted off somewhere "special" and its got that whole boardsheet meme going - Noble unappreciated women whose problems are caused by the lazy piggish men in their lives.

Back in reality - trash can this article - its shallow apologistic c***p.

Salon reader mmeetoilenoir, in her letter, spoke the reality of these women, with far fewer words and better and more accurately as well.

While I can appreciate the insightful parallels one can draw from the lives of Coretta and Hillary, I find the comparison more than a little ridiculous. As a historian and political activist, I hold the utmost respect for MLK and Coretta. It is certainly appropriate and necessary to acknowledge the human frailties and hypocrisies of people who helped precipitate progress and served as models of action for later generations to emulate. We do not want to unrealistically paint caricatures of great men like King and dupe students of history into believing they were perfect and transcended their circumstances; rather, such figures are all the more compelling because they were so limited by the very real imperfections and character flaws all human beings possess. And Coretta Scott King was obviously a martyr herself to an extent in enduring the infidelities of her husband in order to show solidarity at key times in an amazingly difficult struggle for civil rights and racial equality. However, what did Hillary support Bill for other than her own career ambitions? The notion that Bill and Hillary were or are idealists rather than the career politicians they always have been demonstrates the limits of the analogy and further caters to the delusionary fantasy in which American liberals have been mired for over two decades. Coretta Scott King supported a husband who did not actively seek a leadership position for his own ends, but rather she stood by a man who was asked to represent his people in a cause that would be dangerous to himself and promised no certain reward aside from the satisfaction of knowing that what he was doing was both moral and necessary. What did Bill Clinton achieve aside from steering the Democratic party to the right by co-opting Republican initiatives such as welfare "reform" and NAFTA to make himself more popular with an insulated and self-indulgent middle-class of professional consumers? I wonder what Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King would have thought about such a legacy?

"So, what you're saying pretty much is that being that these two women didn't have picture perfect marriages with saintly husbands, their legacy is inherently scarred?

Are you kidding?"

Thank you. Coretta Scott King's HOUSE was bombed, her children and her life threatened on countless ocassion, her finances sacrifices. King donated ALL $250,000 of his Nobel Prize money to SCLC.

Some fools believe the personal is ALWAYS political. They are wrong. The frailty of marriage is well known to us in it. The problems of the 60s double standard (which McWhorter conveniently and ahistorically glosses over) mean that Coretta Scott King made a decision that was not unusual, and is still considered praiseworthy, to many people. Divorce was unthinkable and stigmatized in 1968. To have divorced him at this time would have hurt the movement, and moreso, hurt her and the children. We have to remember that it was a different time, and that just because McWhorter would have divorced this husband, not every woman would have. What is feminism if not the ability to make choices?

McWhorter's worst sin is to act as if Coretta Scott King was responsible for King's frailty, a frailty dubbed normal and even to some men, admirable or proof of manhood. McWhorter has no understanding of the dynamics of marriage in the black community in the South. Perhaps she should read, or maybe talk to some of her relatives, before she makes these sweeping and ignorant charges.

I am disappointed in Salon. Instead of a woman with NO history credentials, perhaps you could have called on Taylor Branch, or MLK III, or Julian Bond, or many of the people who KNEW Coretta Scott King, to write this. Coretta Scott King fought tirelessly for racial equality and harmony, gay rights, peace, and a better world. I would have appreciated an article discussing her accomplishments, rather than this navel gazing tripe. Oh, yeah, I'm black. And older than McWhorter. Let me give her a clue: your article was about you, not King. It reflected your fears more than Coretta Scott King's legacy. That you, Ms. McWhorter, neither know nor understand her legacy is a painful indictment of your education.

How many male politicians do you know whose failures are blamed upon their misbehaving wives? Men throughout history appear to act just fine regardless of who their spouses are. Even Taft, whose wife basically forced him into the white house, is not quite remembered as the guy whose wife ruined his historical legacy. So... why should women be any different? Nobody is completely to blame for their failures (nor can they take sole credit for their successes), but if you want freedom and equality, then let the shortcomings of King and Clinton be the shortcomings of King and Clinton, not their husbands. After all, they are strong women who are not defined by the men they married. Claiming otherwise works against the "freedom and equality" that feminists crave.