When Margaret Richardson, a good friend of Hillary Rodham Clinton, ponders how much the first lady might be in the know about the Monica Lewinsky mess, her conclusion is not surprising.
“I don’t really know. I suspect they (the Clintons) share (knowledge of) everything, but I don’t really know,” said Richardson, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service from 1993 until 1997 and now a partner at Ernst & Young.
How much does Hillary know and what is her role now? It is a curiosity not just to outsiders but to friends of recent vintage such as Richardson, older chums, current and former high-level aides to both Clintons and longtime Clinton watchers.
David Maraniss, a Washington Post reporter and author of the best Clinton biography, “First in His Class,” which takes one through the Arkansas years, contends that the Clinton pattern in such sensitive matters is to withhold information from a wife who doesn’t really want to know a whole lot about possible infidelities.
Only one Hillary Clinton confidant with whom I spoke (and who declined to be identified) flatly disagreed with that assessment, maintaining that even if it were belated, Bill has by now spilled the beans to his wife.
The prevailing view is different.
“She doesn’t want to know many specifics,” Maraniss said. “She has built a certain wall around her.”
At the same time, Maraniss is convinced that few big decisions about the Lewinsky matter get made without Mrs. Clinton’s approval. For example, when it comes to any sort of public apology, the reporter said, “It’s up to Hillary.”
George Stephanopoulos, the brainy presidential aide-turned-TV analyst, demurs. “I think she is less directly involved in the legal strategy than people think,” said Stephanopoulos, who burned some bridges at the White House with criticisms he leveled in his new role.
“In the end, this must be a painful human issue for their family, and it is hard to imagine that they can just strategize about it in a clinical way,” he said.
Dick Morris, the gabby and notorious former Clinton consultant with his own famous extramarital problems, has known the Clintons since 1980. He helped revive Clinton after the boy governor of Arkansas became the boy ex-governor when citizens furious over a tax increase voted him out of office.
“If you forced me to guess, I would say he hasn’t” told her all the facts of a relationship with Lewinsky, said Morris.
“I don’t know what involvement she likely has in all these (Lewinsky) strategies,” said Abner Mikva, the former Chicago congressman, judge and White House counsel. But he does know that she’s “as smart as you have heard and he is very dependent on her.”
It’s why one can safely assume her intimate involvement in the legal tussle with Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. Whether or not the president has been open about any relationship with Lewinsky to either his outside attorney, David Kendall, or to Mrs. Clinton, she is likely an aggressive aide-de-camp.
It may seem a tad weird, namely the chance of again being humiliated by the spouse you seek to defend. But it is clearly a complicated liaison between two people who do see themselves as forever threatened by nefarious right-wing forces.
As she helps wage Clinton’s biggest battle, she offers an upbeat public image. For example, several in attendance said she looked radiant and happy while playing host at a recent baby shower for political consultant Mandy Grunwald, one attended by chums such as Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer (the media-wary first lady insisted the gathering be deemed “off the record.”).
Certain amateur shrinks find it no coincidence that as her husband dangles, she thrives. Maraniss, the journalist, and Morris, the consultant, discern a pattern in the Clinton marriage: When one is down, the other is conspicuously up.
“He cruises along, he hits a bump, and she jumps in to save him,” Morris said. “Generally she does, and her power in the relationship is increased. Then, her rigidity and stubbornness–her take-no-prisoners tactics–tend to undermine his popularity and create a situation in which her power is counterproductive, prompting her to take a back seat.”
In a historical sense, Mrs. Clinton would appear to be a transitional first lady, namely a mother and professional woman who has been her own worst enemy. At times, she has appeared to act like a deflective, minimizing, coy attorney who has also suggested a mix of self-righteousness, insecurity and a sense of victimization.
But she also has endured a lot in recent years. Her father died. Her close friend Vincent Foster killed himself. Her friend and former law partner went to jail. She was ensnared in Whitewater, especially when questions arose about the mysterious reappearance of long-sought law firm billing records at the White House.
She turned 50 last year and probably has reason to be pretty pleased, at least until late. After all, many smart people here had declared the Clinton presidency dead as a door nail after the ample disarray of 1994 and 1995, which included the stunning Republican election victories and their takeover of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years.
But her husband rebounded. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has seemed simultaneously to diminish in stature. The high approval ratings of Bill Clinton are quite astonishing, if frustrating for opponents who firmly believe the Lewinsky mess can finally and unalterably undo him.
In light of the apparently unseemly essence of the corrosive soap opera of the Lewinsky mess, it may confound some to hear Neel Lattimore, Mrs. Clinton’s former spokesman and a senior managing director at BSMG Worldwide.
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“When I’d do foreign trips with her, whatever time zone it was, she would call him at about the time he’d be going to bed or getting up,” he said. “Their connection and kinship was very strong. It was not a conscious attempt. It was natural.
“And I have been with them in times in which clearly I was uncomfortable to be alone with them in the same room” because of the affection they were showing one another.
Perhaps history will show we needed Sigmund Freud, not Kenneth Starr.
Something ought to freeze over
Forget all the punditry. You’ll know that Clinton is in trouble if:
– CNBC hires Linda Tripp to co-host “Rivera Live.”
– Bob Dole announces his complete and total support.
– Newsweek political reporter Howard Fineman and languid pundit David Gergen declare that Starr has “nothing, zilch, nada.”
– Lanny Davis, the former Clinton legal aide on television more often than any three Weather Channel anchors, renounces his citizenship and accepts an immediate teaching position at the University of Prague. “Sex, Scandal and Spin” will be limited to 30 non-English speaking students who must sign a confidentiality agreement, pledging to not even acknowledge meeting Davis.
– Dee Dee Myers joins the Rutherford Institute as a spokesman.
– An increasingly isolated president goes to Camp David with Rev. Al Sharpton.
– FBI Director Louis Freeh, flanked by the bureau’s top lab technicians, announces plans to run for president.
– James Carville joins Metropolitan Life as a claims adjuster.
– The Hispanic Caucus exits an Oval Office meeting with Clinton on the investigation, reiterates support for Puerto Rican statehood and declines to answer any other questions.
– Larry King anchors the CNN special “The Temple of Justice: Ken Starr, An American Patriot.”
– Chelsea Clinton takes a late-summer internship with Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.).