Yet another of Clinton's claims of experience down the drain...
Seriously though, a bigger story supposedly "uncovered" in the First Lady papers is that Hillary never held or attended any meetings on the Family Medical Leave Act, which was the first piece of legislation President Bill Clinton signed, 10 days after entering office. Having just written a piece about the FMLA for the upcoming print issue of the Prospect, I can tell you that anyone familiar with the law should have already realized Hillary's very limited involvement. The non-profit organization the National Partnership for Women and Families originally drafted the bill, which was then championed in the House by former Colorado Congresswoman Pat Schroeder and in the Senate by Chris Dodd and Ted Kennedy. These three were at work trying to pass the FMLA from the late-1980s on, while the Clintons were in Arkansas and running a national campaign. So while Hillary did indeed have a history of involvement with work-family issues, she couldn't have possibly been a big player in the original Beltway push to pass the FMLA.
As Matt Y points out, its actually worse than that. The law Hillary is trying to take credit for actually passed before her husband was elected president.
The bill reached its final form in 1991, passing both houses of Congress only to be vetoed by Bush, who said the bill would tie the hands of businesses. An attempt to override the veto failed, but Congress re-introduced and passed the bin without any major changes in 1992, at the height of the presidential campaign, knowing Bush would veto the bill again and leave himself open to charges that he was "anti-family."
Unlike Andrew Sullivan, I don't think Hillary makes these sorts of mistakes because she is an evil wonk robot intent on ruling the policy world. Rather, I think that when she and Bill arrived in the White House she fully expected to work as his co-president, and although this never happened she has never quite let go of the dream. Over time, this has allowed her to unconsciously reshape her own memories, playing down the time she spent sipping tea with other First Ladies and playing up the importance of her proximity to the real work her husband was doing governing the nation. She signed on to do important work, and what she was left with seemed to her to be anything but. That's got to be psychologically painful, so it makes perfect sense that over time she'd minimize the pain by blocking it out. That's just basic human nature.
That's not to say, however, that we should simply let it pass. Her claims of extensive experience are for the most part false. She may believe them, but we should not. Having failed rather spectacularly at managing the process of health care reform, she was forced to retreat to a much more traditional role of First Lady. That may be a painful fact for her to admit, but it is true. Yes, she wen to Bosnia, but she went with Sinbad. Yes, she went to Russia, but while there she spent nearly all of her time with her Russian counterpart sitting in on birthing classes and touring cathedrals. It wasn't the life she wanted, but it was the life she led. Whether or not Clinton wants to admit this, we as voters need to be honest about that.
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