In the summer of 1995, Hillary Clinton became the author of her own syndicated column.
Called "a pure political tool, a wonderful reach into women's voters," by a political aide, the column was entitled "Talking It Over." (When the column launched, Congress was investigating the Clintons for real estate investments in the "Whitewater" scandal.) It appeared in papers from The Los Angeles Times to the New York Daily News and ran from summer 1995 to 2000. That amounted to over 220,000 words and almost 300 columns. BuzzFeed News read all of them.
Here are the highlights:
1. Clinton wrote that she sent a letter to NASA as a teenager asking about her chances of becoming an astronaut and was told that "women weren't allowed."
2. Bill proposed to Hillary more than once. She only said "yes" after he bought a house she liked.
3. Clinton said that, when she was growing up, girls were told that sports would "damage their reproductive organs."
4. When Bill first tried to feed Chelsea, Hillary "watched him like a hawk."
5. While surfing channels in the middle of the day, Clinton cringed. Then, found refuge in Big Bird.
6. Chelsea was a "Sesame Street kid."
7. Clinton said she cried every time she dropped Chelsea off for her first day at school.
8. Clinton invoked R. Kelly to inspire Chelsea and her classmates when they graduated from high school.
9. "Experiences that millions of Americans take for granted have become extraordinary for me," Clinton wrote, describing what it was like to be First Lady in her debut column.
10. Clinton first met Mother Teresa after the missionary gave an anti-abortion speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994. Mother Teresa described her homes for orphaned children in India, one of which Clinton visited a year later.
11. Clinton said these Calvin Klein ads were "disturbing because they feed on the innocence and vulnerability of children." Though a Justice Department investigation concluded that they were not child porn, the company eventually pulled them anyway.
12. Clinton said that commercial marketing made society like "a highway full of car wrecks. Only worse."
13. Clinton contended that "permissive laws and attitudes" had made divorce "too easy."
14. Clinton complained about movie characters smoking cigarettes--"and worse, marijuana."
"Our children can't even watch their favorite sporting events without seeing the logo of a cigarette brand on a stadium wall or in the background of the television screen. Movies today are filled with characters reaching for a cigarette — or worse, marijuana, the next step for some kids who get hooked on tobacco. Last fall, for example, I was shocked when my mother and I watched two 'family' movies in which the heroines casually smoked marijuana.
"What is clear is that commercial interests — and corporate greed — are working against our children."