Hillary Clinton is referenced across multiple episodes of The Bob Zadek Show, but no episode in the excerpts treats her as its primary subject. She appears instead as a recurring example or foil in discussions of childhood independence, campaign finance regulation, foreign policy, charter cities, and election law.
Childhood play and the “village”
In a December 2014 episode, guest Lenore Skenazy described reading Free to Learn by psychologist Peter Gray, which opens by recounting different people’s play histories. One of those histories, Skenazy said, belongs to Hillary Clinton, who remembered playing outside from dawn to dusk, with several blocks’ worth of children playing capture the flag and negotiating arcane rules over long discussions. Skenazy found it interesting that Clinton’s childhood of “negotiating and playing and, you know, organizing large groups of people against other large groups of people” prefigured what she does as an adult Lenore Skenazy: World’s Worst Mom (2014).
Skenazy said the idea of a village raising a child is not a bad one, and that this was one of the things happening in the 1950s that she does not see today. She attributed part of the change to fear of tort lawyers and of other parents’ reactions, saying that fear keeps people from being the village and makes them drive their kids to school. Bob Zadek responded by recalling growing up in Queens on a block with 38 houses and enough children to field an entire football game, where everyone knew where every child was and boys and girls played together without distinction Lenore Skenazy: World’s Worst Mom (2014).
Earlier in the same episode, Zadek invoked Clinton while criticizing what he called the nanny state in California. He said the situation could be summed up by attributing to Clinton the line, “It takes a bureaucrat to raise a child” Lenore Skenazy: World’s Worst Mom (2014).
Campaign finance and Hillary: The Movie
In a January 2015 episode, guest Mike Munger discussed Citizens United and the documentary Hillary: The Movie, which he described as an hour-and-15-minute film arguing that Clinton was a bad candidate. Because it was to be shown within 60 days of the 2008 election, the Federal Election Commission said it could not be shown or advertised, citing McCain-Feingold. Munger said the FEC’s interpretation was correct under the law, which he called unconstitutional but which had been upheld in McConnell v. FEC. He noted that the film mentioned Clinton’s name and expressed advocacy Who Wants to Buy a Politician? With Mike Munger (2015).
Munger described how the case reached the Supreme Court and how he and others wanted the Court to ask what would happen if a book from a press like Cambridge University Press contained the sentence “Hillary Clinton is a good candidate” or “Hillary Clinton is a bad candidate” within 60 days of an election. The Solicitor General, Munger said, answered that such a book would be banned, and there was silence in the courtroom. The decision written by Anthony Kennedy overturned McConnell v. FEC. Munger emphasized that the phrase “corporations are people” never appears in the decision, which he said rests on freedom of association Who Wants to Buy a Politician? With Mike Munger (2015).
Foreign policy and Libya
In an October 2017 episode, guest John Glaser discussed the Obama administration’s pushback from the military, particularly the Joint Chiefs of Staff, against intervening in Libya and waging an air war against the Gaddafi regime. Glaser said the intervention was pushed by people like Hillary Clinton and Samantha Power and what he called “humanitarian interventionists,” and that they got overruled—meaning the military’s reluctance was overcome. Once engaged, he said, the military was supportive of the efforts in Libya Rethinking Pax Americana with John Glaser (2017).
Charter cities
In a June 2018 episode, guest Dr. Mark Lutter discussed charter cities in Honduras under ZEDE legislation. He mentioned that Hillary Clinton, during her presidential campaign, did not say so publicly but a leaked speech to bankers indicated she wanted open borders and free trade in the Western Hemisphere. Lutter cited this as evidence that among a reasonable percentage of people on the center-left there is a broad idea that markets work, though they value regulation more highly than he would. He argued that such people were not brought on as allies to the charter city project, which he attributed partly to a failure to position the project publicly The End of Nation-States? (2018).
Election memes
In a March 2021 episode, guest Eugene Volokh discussed “The Ballad of Ricky Vaughn,” a blog post he wrote for Tablet magazine about Douglas Mackey, who posted memes during the 2016 election under the pseudonym Ricky Vaughn. Volokh described one meme featuring a picture of a smiling Hillary Clinton, then the Democratic nominee, with text instructing people to vote for her from home by posting the word “Hillary” with a hashtag to Twitter or Facebook between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Eastern on November 8th. Volokh noted that one cannot vote by posting a hashtag, and that there was reason to think Mackey was deliberately trying to mislead a very few people into thinking they could vote that way and thus not vote the legally authorized way, potentially diminishing turnout for Clinton Criminal Memes: The Ballad of Ricky Vaughn (2021).
Across episodes
The excerpts show no development in how Hillary Clinton is treated across episodes. She is invoked in five separate episodes—as a childhood play subject and nanny-state symbol in the Skenazy episode, as the named subject of campaign finance litigation in the Munger episode, as a proponent of the Libya intervention in the Glaser episode, as a leaked-speech example in the Lutter episode, and as the image in an election meme in the Volokh episode—but no episode revisits or revises an earlier treatment, and no guest or host responds to another episode’s characterization.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state Clinton’s title, her political party affiliation beyond one reference to her as the Democratic nominee in 2016, her tenure as Secretary of State, or any policy positions she held in office. They do not describe her childhood beyond the play history Skenazy recounts, nor do they give the outcome of any election she contested. The sources do not establish what Citizens United held beyond Munger’s account of freedom of association, nor do they state which amendment the case turned on.