Living History (72 page)

I chose to keep going and fight back, but it wasn’t pleasant to listen to what was being said about my husband. I knew that people were wondering, “How can she get up in the morning, let alone go out in public? Even if she doesn’t believe the charges, it has to be devastating just to hear them.” Well, it was. Eleanor Roosevelt’s observance that every woman in political life must “develop skin as tough as rhinoceros hide” had become a mantra for me as I faced one crisis after another. No doubt my armor had thickened over the years. That may have made things endurable, but it didn’t make them easy. You don’t just wake up one day and say, “Well, I’m not going to let anything bother me, no matter how vicious or meanspirited.” It was, for me, an isolating and lonely experience.

I also worried that the armor I had acquired might distance me from my true emotions, that I might turn into the brittle caricature some critics accused me of being. I had to be open to my feelings so that I could act on them and determine what was right for me, no matter what anyone else thought or said. It’s hard enough to maintain one’s sense of self in the public eye, but it was twice as difficult now. I constantly examined myself for traces of denial or hardening of emotional arteries.

I made my speech at Goucher’s winter convocation, then returned to the Baltimore train station, where a mob of reporters and camera crews was waiting for me. I hadn’t been so swarmed in years. The journalists were yelling questions, and someone shouted above the rest, “Do you think the charges are false?” I stopped and turned to the microphones.

“Certainly I believe they are false―absolutely,” I said. “It’s difficult and painful any time someone you care about, you love, you admire, is attacked and is subjected to such relentless accusations as my husband has been.”

Why is Bill Clinton being attacked?

“There has been a concerted effort to undermine his legitimacy as President, to undo much of what he has been able to accomplish, to attack him personally when he could not be defeated politically.”

It was not the first time I had said this, nor would it be the last. With any luck, people might start to understand what I was saying. In my view, the prosecutors were undermining the office of the Presidency by using and abusing their authority in an effort to win back the political power they had lost at the ballot box. At that point their actions became everyone’s concern. I felt as if I had the dual responsibility of defending my husband and my country. They couldn’t beat his positions or the successes of his policies, and they couldn’t undermine his popularity. So they vilified him―and, by extension, me. The stakes were as high as they could get.

Like me, Bill did not back out of any prior commitments. He went ahead with previously scheduled interviews for National Public Radio, Roll Call and PBS television. He discussed foreign policy and the up coming State of the Union Address scheduled for Tuesday, January 27. Then he patiently responded to each question about his personal life with essentially the same answer: The allegations weren’t true. He didn’t ask anybody to lie. He would cooperate with the investigation, but it would be inappropriate to say more at this time.

Our old friend Harry Thomason flew in to offer help and moral support. Ever the television producer, Harry thought that Bill’s public statements were coming off as too tentative and legalistic and urged Bill to show how outraged he felt about the allegations. And so he did. At a January 26 press event designed to focus on funding children’s afterschool care, as Al Gore and Education Secretary Richard Riley and I stood by his side, the President issued a forceful denial that he’d had sexual relations with Lewinsky. I thought his show of anger was justified under the circumstances, as I understood them.

Washington was obsessed with the scandal to the point of hysteria. New facts were emerging daily about the mechanics of what was essentially a sting operation to entrap the President, including secret, illegal tape recordings. The Administration made a pitiful yet valiant attempt to preview initiatives in the upcoming State of the Union address, but the airwaves were saturated with speculation and predictions about Bill’s ability to remain in office.

The next day was the State of the Union address, and I kept a long-scheduled commitment to go to New York to appear on the Today show that morning. I would rather have had a root canal, but a cancellation would have created its own avalanche of speculation.

So off I went, confident that I knew the truth but dreading the prospect of discussing such matters on national television. Bill’s advisers and mine weighed in with advice.

Some worried that I would antagonize Starr if I talked about the partisan nature of his investigation.

David Kendall felt no need for such constraints.

Matt Lauer was hosting the show that morning without Katie Couric, whose husband, Jay Monahan, had tragically lost his battle with colon cancer three days earlier. Everyone was in a somber mood on the set in New York’s Rockefeller Center. I took a seat across from Matt, and immediately following the seven o’clock news, he began the interview.

“There has been one question on the minds of people in this country, Mrs. Clinton, lately. And that is, what is the exact nature of the relationship between your husband and Monica Lewinsky? Has he described the relationship in detail to you?”

I answered: “Well, we’ve talked at great length. And I think as this matter unfolds, the entire country will have more information. But we’re right in the middle of a rather vigorous feeding frenzy right now, and people are saying all kinds of things and putting out rumor and innuendo. And I have learned over the last many years being involved in politics, and especially since my husband first started running for President, that the best thing to do in these cases is just to be patient, take a deep breath and the truth will come out.”

Lauer mentioned how our friend James Carville had described the situation as a war between the President and Kenneth Starr. “You have said, I understand, to some close friends, that this is the last great battle. And that one side or the other is going down here.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’ve been that dramatic,” I said. “That would sound like a good line from a movie. But I do believe that this is a battle. I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this. They have popped up in other settings. This is―the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast rightwing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for President. A few journalists have kind of caught on to it and explained it. But it has not yet been fully revealed to the American public. And, actually, you know, in a bizarre sort of way, this may do it.”

Later, when David Kendall called to discuss my appearance, I told him I had thought about him as I was going in to the interview.

“I heard your words of wisdom ringing in my ear,” I said.

“And which words of incredible wisdom were you hearing?” said David, going for the bait.

“Screw’em!” I laughed.

David, who was raised as a Quaker, chuckled and said sheepishly, “It’s an old Quaker expression.”

“Oh, like ‘Screw thee’?”

We were both laughing hard now, letting off steam.

Sure enough, the “vast conspiracy” line got Starr’s attention. He took the unusual step of firing off a statement complaining that I had cast aspersions on his motives. He called the notion of a conspiracy “nonsense.” As they say in Arkansas, “It’s the hit dog that howls.” My comment seemed to have touched a nerve.

Looking back, I see that I might have phrased my point more artfully, but I stand by the characterization of Starr’s investigation. At that point, I didn’t know the truth about the charges against Bill, but I knew about Starr and his connection to my husband’s political opponents. I do believe there was, and still is, an interlocking network of groups and individuals who want to turn the clock back on many of the advances our country has made, from civil rights and women’s rights to consumer and environmental regulation, and they use all the tools at their disposal―money, power, influence, media and politics―

to achieve their ends. In recent years, they have also mastered the politics of personal destruction. Fueled by extremists who have been fighting progressive politicians and ideas for decades, they are funded by corporations, foundations and individuals like Richard Mellon Scaife. Many of their names were already in the public record for any enterprising journalist who went looking for them. A few in the media began searching.

Meanwhile, there was speculation in the news about the State of the Union address that night. Would the President mention the scandal? (He would not.) Would members of Congress boycott the speech? (Only a few did, although some Republicans sat on their hands all night.) Would the First Lady show up to support her husband? You bet I did.

Of course, we were all nervous about Bill’s reception, but I knew it would be all right as soon as I walked in to take my seat in the House Gallery. 1 was greeted by a cascade of sympathetic applause and the whoops of more than a few women in the audience. Bill looked relaxed and confident as he strode in to an even louder ovation. I thought his speech was electrifying, truly one of the best of his career. He recapped the progress the country had made in the past five years and outlined the steps he would take to solidify the gains made during his Presidency. To the surprise of some in our own party and to the consternation of the opposition, he promised to submit a balanced federal budget, three years ahead of schedule, and to “save Social Security first” to prepare for the impending tidal wave of baby boomer retirements. The economy was booming, and he proposed an increase in the minimum wage. He also advocated substantial increases in education, health and child care programs. “We have moved past the sterile debate between those who say government is the enemy and those who say government is the answer,” he said.

“We have found a third way. We have the smallest government in thirty-five years, but a more progressive one. We have a smaller government, but a stronger nation.”

Months earlier I had accepted an invitation to speak at the annual World Economic Forum that takes place most years in Davos, Switzerland, a beautiful little ski village in the Alps. Every February about two thousand business moguls, politicians, civic leaders and intellectuals from all over the world assemble to talk about global affairs and forge new alliances or cement old ones. It was the first time I would attend the forum, and again, canceling was out of the question.

I was relieved that some of the American attendees at Davos were old friends, including Vernon Jordan and Mayor Richard Daley. Elie and Marion Wiesel were particularly kind. His experience as a Holocaust survivor has given Elie a kind of genius for empathy.

He never flinches from anyone else’s suffering, and his heart is big enough to absorb a friend’s pain without a second thought. He greeted me with a long hug and asked, “What is wrong with America? Why are they doing this?”

“I don’t know, Elie,” I said.

“Well, I just want you to know that Marion and I are your friends, and we want to help you.” Their understanding was the greatest gift they could give.

None of the other people I knew at Davos mentioned the uproar in Washington, although they did go out of their way to be supportive. “Please come to dinner with us,”

they offered. Or: “Oh, come sit by me. How are you doing?”

I was always doing just fine. There was nothing more I could say.

My speech went well, despite the less-than-scintillating title the conference organizers suggested: “Individual and Collective Priorities for the 21st Century” I described the three essential components of any modern society: an effective functioning government, a free market economy and a vibrant civil society. It is in this third area, outside the marketplace and the government, where everything exists that makes life worth living: family, faith, voluntary association, art, culture. And I spoke about the expectations and realities of the human experience, “There isn’t any perfect human institution,” I said. “There is no perfect market except in the abstract theories of economists. There is no perfect government except in the dreams of political leaders. And there is no perfect society. We have to work with human beings as we find them.” A lesson I was learning every day.

The morning after my speech, I seized the chance to hit the nearby slopes. I have never been a good skier, but I love the sport. It was wonderful to lose myself in sheer physical sensation-the cold, clear air rushing by as I glided down the mountain, wishing I could ski for hours. Even with my Secret Service detail trailing behind me, for a few moments I was delivered from gravity.

Political foes sometimes show up in unexpected places. As the temporary keepers of the White House, Bill and I opened its doors for holiday gatherings and important celebrations-and we didn’t blacklist anyone who disagreed with our politics. This made for the occasional awkward moment on the receiving line. On January 21, 1998, just after the Lewinsky story broke, Bill and I were hosting a black-tie dinner to celebrate the completion of fundraising for the White House Endowment Fund, a nonprofit organization that raises private money to pay for restoration projects at the White House. The fund, initiated by Rosalynn Carter and continued by Barbara Bush, set a fundraising goal of $25

million. About half that amount had been raised when I became First Lady, and I was pleased that we were able to meet and then exceed the original goal. This for me was a labor of love for the White House, and the dinner was an opportunity to thank all the donors who had contributed.

Bill and I were greeting our guests in the Blue Room when a moonfaced man reached out to shake hands. As the military aide announced his name and a White House photographer prepared to snap his picture, I realized it was Richard Mellon Scaife, the reactionary billionaire who had bankrolled the long-term campaign to destroy Bill’s Presidency. I had never met Scaife, but I greeted him as I would any guest in a receiving line. The moment passed unnoticed, but later, when the guest list was released, some journalists were shocked to learn that I had approved him. When asked why he had been invited, I said that Scaife had every right to attend the event because of his financial contribution to White House preservation during the Bush Administration. But I was astonished that he chose to stand in line to meet the enemy.