To Weekly Standard's Bottum, Clinton remark about washing hands recalled Lady Macbeth

Summary: Echoing other media figures who have made comparisons of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to fictional characters, The Weekly Standard's Joseph Bottum wrote that recent comments by Clinton recalled Lady Macbeth, who in William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth orchestrates the murder of the King of Scotland so that her husband can become king.

In a February 11 post on The Weekly Standard blog the Campaign Standard, books and arts editor Joseph Bottum wrote that recent comments by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY) recalled Lady Macbeth, a character from William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth. In the play, Lady Macbeth orchestrates the murder of the King of Scotland so that her husband can become king. After the murder, she is overwrought with guilt and eventually kills herself.

Following is the full text of Bottum's February 11 post, titled "Lady Clinton":

In Sunday's 60 Minutes interview with the inestimable Katie Couric, Hillary Clinton explained one of the keys to staying healthy on the campaign trail: "Wash your hands all the time." It's probably not bad advice, but still, you'd think the echos [sic] would have stopped her saying it: Out, damned spot! out, I say! ... What, will these hands ne'er be clean? ... Here's the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!

In a 60 Minutes interview broadcast February 10 by CBS, Clinton said, "My two secrets to staying healthy: wash your hands all the time. And, if you can't, use Purell or one of the sanitizers." Clinton continued, "And the other is hot peppers. I eat a lot of hot peppers. I for some reason started doing that in 1992, and I swear by it."

Media figures have also made comparisons of Clinton to other fictional characters, including Nurse Mildred Ratched and Madame Defarge.

—B.R.F.