less than three months after she arrived at the white house, hillary s father, hugh rodham, died. it was, you know, just a terrible loss. he was very demanding of his kids. i think hillary gets a lot of her tenacity and her determination from her father. tenacity and determination she d need five months later for her marathon health care testimony before five subcommittees on the hill. first of all, there is no free lunch in this health care plan. it is not going to be free. everybody s going to be paying something, even people who are on medicaid now will be paying something if they work, unlike today. we think that is a big step forward for responsibility. the detractors were surprised. it was a tour de force. it was incredibly substantive, direct.
when she was 3 years old, the family moved to the suburb of park ridge. hillary s father had a small business and they had a comfortable life but they were decidedly middle class. hugh rodham was a tough minded republican and devout methodist. dorothy was a former secretary who dreamt of a brilliant career for her first born. when hillary was 5 years old, she went out to the schoolyard and she was playing with a little girl who called her names. and she went back to her mother, and her mother said, you go right back out there and give her what for. and she went back out and punched the girl in the nose. they started pushing me around, and i pushed back. it was a particularly good lesson, i think, for a girl in those days to be told you cannot let life do this to you. her mother, dorothy s, experience being essentially abandoned by her family, enduring real hardship in her childhood. and she was very close to her mother, and i think it taught her a lot of grit.
my father had a massive stroke, and i immediately flew to little rock and was by his bedside. less than three months after she arrived at the white house, hillary s father, hugh rodham, died. it was, you know, just a terrible loss. he was very demanding of his kids. i think hillary gets a lot of her tenacity and her determination from her father. tenacity and determination she d need five months later for her marathon health care testimony before five subcommittees on the hill. first of all, there is no free lunch in this health care plan. it is not going to be free. everybody s going to be paying something, even people who are on medicaid now will be paying something if they work, unlike today. we think that is a big step forward for responsibility. the detractors were
all-white chicago suburb is where hugh and dorothy rodham would raise all three of their children. ernie richt was a neighborhood friend. on this corner we would play baseball and the manhole covers were the bases. in addition to baseball, her friends said hillary loved a good debate. he loved nothing better than to throw out a topic that he knew we would go, no way! and i think we all learned to debate by sitting around their table. but according to a biographer, hugh rodham turned debates into something much less palatable. he would go around the table and call on her brothers and and call on hillary and then her mother would try to express herself and he d say what the hell do you know, miss fancy pants? it was disdainful. how tough was he?
when she was 3 years old, the family moved to the suburb of park ridge. hillary s father had a small business and they had a comfortable life but they were decidedly middle class. hugh rodham was a tough minded republican and devout methodist. dorothy was a former secretary who dreamt of a brilliant career for her first born. when hillary was 5 years old, she went out to the schoolyard and she was playing with a little girl who called her names. and she went back to her mother, and her mother said, you go right back out there and give her what for. and she went back out and punched the girl in the nose. they started pushing me around, and i pushed back. it was a particularly good lesson, i think, for a girl in those days to be told you cannot let life do this to you. her mother, dorothy s, experience being essentially abandoned by her family, enduring real hardship in her childhood. and she was very close to her mother, and i think it taught her a lot of grit.