Matt Zeitlin

Michael Crowley provides some steamin’ heap of it

Today’s NYT on Chelsea Clinton’s career path:

Friends say financial independence is important to Ms. Clinton.

Okay, but why? Her parents are multimillionaires and she is more or less American royalty. Chelsea has all the freedom in the world to follow her heart and so she chooses… a hedge fund?

First off, the idea that anyone is discussing Chelsea Clinton’s career choices strikes me as sorta bizarre, but we deal with the media we have, not the media we wished we have.  So on to the substance of the snark – it makes perfect sense of Chelsea Clinton to work at a hedge fund.  Not only is it fairly common for management consultants (she worked at McKinsey for three years after getting a masters from Oxford) to move on to hedge funds, it seems like for someone who’s made a point of staying out of the spotlight and maintaining a fairly “regular” profile, working at a hedge fund seems to be exactly what a “regular” person in her situation would do.

Instead of snarking at her career choice, I think Chelsea should be commended for being determined to make her own way in the world (as much as she can) and have a substantial independent source of income.  She could easily be wasting away becoming a lame socialite, content to be name checked on Gawker every other week, but no, she’s actually doing difficult, intense, real work.  I feel this also reflects well on the Clintons as parents.  And while we’re talking about presidential daughters, at least she didn’t participate in maybe the most embarrassing convention speech in living memory.