Tom and Daisy Buchanan

Tom and Daisy Buchanan were characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.  Fitzgerald called them the “careless people” who wasted the lives of others. The author notes very aptly that the rich are different than you and I.  Some live recklessly and are able to recover because their money bails them out.  Turning into an alcoholic?  Just check yourself into a tony rehab center.  Affairs?  Pay the women off.  They are immune to the behavior that would ruin ordinary people because they could retreat to the security of their money.  That is what governed the cynical morals of Tom and Daisy.  Add fame to this narrative and it gets  nervously close to the lifestyles of Hollywood and powerful politicians. It is no surprise that Hollywood keeps trying to remake Gatsby as a love story or about hope and change, rather than the ruined-lives tragedy of the book. 

            If ever there were a model of the rich, influencial, Tom and Daisy of politics it is Bill and Hillary.  Bill wasted the lives of ordinary women, at least 8 of them at last count.  But he retreated to his popularity and power, where an army of defenders show up to tell the rest of us that private lives should stay utterly private.  Hill has no skill at politics but she has his name.  She uses it in some sense to get back at him and show him she can do what he does, just like Daisy had an affair with Gatsby to show Tom up.  I remember what really made me understand Hillary.  In 1995 the R’s had taken over Congress and were intent on pursuing scandals such as Hillary’s dubious finances and benefits from Arkansas days.  Hillary’s secretary was called to testify and she tearfully admitted she had spent her life savings of over $100,000 on lawyers to defend herself against this political onslaught.  I thought, what boss would allow this to happen?  Wouldn’t a decent boss get mad and show up in Congress to say, “Hey, stop attacking her!  It’s my skin you want so ask me the questions!”  Hillary did no such thing.  I saw an interview of the secretary a year later.  She had taken another job in another field.  Maybe Hillary will donate one of her $225,000 speech fees to this woman some day.

            In the end, Gatsby gets falsely identified and murdered by the jealous husband of Tom Buchanan’s mistress, killed when Daisy was driving Gatsby’s car. The Buchanan’s quietly shut up and retreat behind their wealth and sly influence of the authorities.  Reminds me of Ted Kennedy who drove his car off Chappaquidick Bridge into shallow, foot-deep low tide water and got his passenger trapped inside the wreck.  Vowing to go for help, he was drunk as a skunk and went back to the house, fell asleep 6 hours as the tide rose and drowned the hapless girl.  But the Kennedy’s are like gods in Mass. and have a close relationship with the authorities.  Anyone else would have been charged with manslaughter 1, at the least.  Ted got a political legacy instead. 

            Sorry if I missed the love story.