God and Hillary Clinton (19 page)

Nonetheless, said her friends, she turned “inward, to her spiritual side.”
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Her press secretary, Marsha Berry, stated, “Clearly, this is not the best day in Mrs. Clinton's life…. This is a time that she relies on her strong religious faith.”
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(In a June 2007 discussion of her faith, Hillary elaborated on Berry's statement, announcing unequivocally, “I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without my faith.”)

There were in fact spiritual sources that Hillary tapped at this time, taking guidance from certain ministers. One such minister was civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who invited himself to offer counseling even before Mrs. Clinton could pick up the telephone.
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Jackson dashed to the White House to offer his services—and then dashed to the cameras to tell the media all about it, generously giving an exclusive on his role to
Newsweek
in an August 31, 1998, article.
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Jackson's offer of himself was not inappropriate, as he had often called Chelsea at college to pray with her, and had apparently started doing so back in January during the night of the Super Bowl.
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Dur
ing her talks with Jackson, Hillary mentioned that she felt Chelsea needed Jackson's counsel more than she did. At eighteen, Chelsea was not much younger than Monica; Chelsea was a college freshman, while Monica was the age of a college senior. So, on this August night, Jackson called Chelsea at the White House to ask if he could help. She fought back tears. “Things are really tough for my mom and dad right now. Would you be able to come over tonight and pray with us?”
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He said he would, right after he finished defending the president that evening on CNN. A government limousine picked him up from the studio to take him to the White House. A Secret Service agent escorted him to the private quarters on the second floor. Hillary and Chelsea were wearing sweats—casual attire for a Sunday evening. They met Jackson in the Center Hall. Jackson later described them as “devastated.” With somber faces that, according to Jackson, had clearly been crying, they hugged him and then walked together to the Yellow Oval Room.
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It was 10:30
P.M
. on a Sunday night that August, just before Clinton was preparing to give his testimony to Ken Starr and his lawyers. Jackson and Hillary and Chelsea sat in the living room and talked. Bill dropped by to say hello. After a few minutes of bantering, Hillary ordered him upstairs to finish preparing for his testimony—she was not losing sight of larger political priorities. According to Jackson, Hillary told the president sternly, coldly: “When we're done talking, then we'll come up and see you.” Like a little boy listening to his mother, Bill did what he was told.
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When Bill left, Jackson cut loose. He was ready, and told Hillary and her daughter that he was reminded of “another First Family in crisis, in the very first Rose Garden,” when Adam and Eve transgressed from God's will and sinned. He talked about King David, who, he said, was like Bill Clinton—talented, gifted, but tempted by and succumbed to the forbidden fruit. All of that wisdom, and David could not control himself around Bathsheba. Likewise, Samson, with
all his strength, gave in to the temptations of the flesh when he saw Delilah.
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The civil rights leader said that God had forgiven these great men “in their weakness,” and that the Clinton family needed to do the same; they needed healing from the Lord. Surely, Jackson could relate to this because of his own well-documented marital difficulties; he, too, had been led into temptation and needed forgiveness.
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This was true, claimed Jackson, of some of the greatest leaders in American history. “This storm,” he told mother and daughter, “is not an original storm.” The key question, Jackson said, was how should they respond? They could panic and jump overboard, they could become irate and point fingers and turn on one another, or they could “apply [their] faith.” He advised the last, that they hold on to their best hopes and weather the storm together until it passed.
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He told the women that he saw this as a trial: “one's faith is only truly put to the test when you are forced to walk through the storm. And that is what this is all about: faith. Faith and unconditional love.”
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In his retelling of the incident to
Newsweek
, Jackson did not feel at liberty to relay their response, but, he said, “it was clear that Hillary and Chelsea understood.”
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He shared his observations not only on how Chelsea was coping—which Jackson said was pretty well—but also on Hillary. “With grace and strength,” said Jackson of the first lady, “she was coping with a crisis affecting her husband, her daughter and the nation—and there was almost no one she could talk to about it.”
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Reverend Jackson did not finish until midnight, when he joined Bill, still awake, in the private residence. According to accounts, Hillary followed him there. The reverend complained irreverently, “What's different here is that Ken Starr is able to play God with government funding”—a seemingly misguided analogy but one that led Hillary to let out her trademark whooping laugh. “Where did you get that line?”
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Another source says that Bill personally was not quite so amused at
the line, stating gravely that the family needed God's healing. Before breaking up the meeting, Clinton asked Jackson to stay a little longer to talk one-on-one with Chelsea. “I think she's confused by the whole situation,” the president said. “If you could just let her know that these things happen.” At that point, one of the Clintons, Hillary, finally went off to bed, leaving Jackson alone for that heart-to-heart with her daughter.
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Counseling Bill

As the drama continued to play out, Bill, too, needed some special spiritual attention. All humans are sinners, and all Christians are Christians because they acknowledge their inherent selfishness, sinfulness, and need for redemption not possible in and of themselves. Bill certainly realized this now more than ever. Consequently, he sought help.

Philip Wogaman, the Methodist minister at Foundry, became part of what would become known as the “God Squad”—the trio of ministers that began counseling Bill in this difficult time. He was joined by fellow Protestants Tony Campolo, a popular liberal evangelical from eastern Pennsylvania, and Gordon MacDonald, of Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts.
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Campolo, a kind man known for preaching forgiveness, was, like Wogaman, a liberal who agreed with Clinton's politics. MacDonald was probably the one member of the God Squad who could most relate to Clinton, as he himself had committed an extramarital affair with a member of his congregation and had been forced to leave his church. He wrote a book about his struggle, which Bill Clinton said he read twice.
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Since the role of the God Squad first became public knowledge, there has been a great deal of confusion over how these men were chosen. One source says that before they accepted the assignment, the three ministers asked if Hillary approved of the idea. According
to this source, one aide replied incredulously, “Approve? Hell, it was Hillary's idea.”
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Though multiple sources cite Hillary as the impetus behind the formation of the God Squad, Bill's memoirs credit himself: “I had asked three pastors to counsel me at least once a month for an indefinite period,” he wrote.
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In an interview for this book, Wogaman confirmed that Bill, not Hillary, was the impetus. Hillary did not approach him about counseling her husband; rather, said Wogaman, it was Bill's idea to approach him. Wogaman said the three ministers “would trade off” so that Bill could meet with one of them each week, though there were occasions when all three were present and counseled him. Wogaman said that this counseling lasted until the end of Clinton's presidency; they must have all concluded that this needed to be ongoing. Thus, Wogaman confirms, Bill, in addition to his regular church attendance, was meeting once a week with personal spiritual counselors, meaning that he was having at least two meaningful spiritual encounters a week, whether at Foundry, the White House, or during chapel services at Camp David.
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This was not necessarily stepped-up activity for Clinton. Even before the Lewinsky scandal, Campolo says that he and Clinton “would get together about once every five or six weeks for a couple of hours.” After the scandal, said Campolo in an interview for this book, “I got together with him much more often.” He adds, “I continued the relationship of intense counseling all through the rest of his presidency.”
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Clearly sensing certain political needs as well, Clinton telephoned Campolo after the Lewinsky scandal broke to ask Campolo if Clinton could publicly announce that the minister would be doing “pastoral work” for him. This was “his initiative” to make this request, said Campolo, who quickly agreed to the president's request.
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Both Campolo and Wogaman were reserved about the nature of these post-Monica discussions. Wogaman responded that “much of it was obviously off the record and personal, but we discussed how
important faith is in forming our lives.” The minister said that through these experiences, he learned that Clinton's faith was “genuine,” though Wogaman did carefully concede that “you can never entirely read into the heart of a person.” Nonetheless, Wogaman says that he formed a “great opinion of him [Clinton]. He's very quick, he reads a lot, and retains it. He's a person of deep commitment who sought to relate faith to life and didn't always succeed.”
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In his first session with the God Squad, Bill opened his Bible and read his favorite passage from Isaiah: “And I shall run and not grow weary.”
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Wogaman perceived that Clinton was “very familiar with the Bible.” He never specifically asked Clinton whether he did any sort of daily devotional practices, but he was “confident” that Clinton prayed and read the Bible on a regular basis. “He appeared to me as a deeply connected spiritual person,” says Wogaman. In their personal conversations, Wogaman said there would always be a “highlight of at least one scripture passage.”
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Through his time with the president, Campolo came to many of the same conclusions as Wogaman, and additionally came to understand more specific elements of Bill's beliefs. During their sessions, Campolo learned that Clinton holds to an evangelical theology, affirms the doctrines of the Apostles' Creed, and “believes the Bible to be an infallible message from God.” Like Wogaman, Campolo pointed to Clinton's commitment then and today to biblically inspired social justice—like Hillary: “[H]e is especially committed to living out the two thousand verses of Scripture which call upon us to respond to the needs of the poor,” says Campolo. “Both in the presidency and since leaving the presidency, the verses concerning serving the poor have guided his life.”
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According to one source, the trio was reportedly instructed not to invite Hillary to participate. “Mrs. Clinton,” said one of the three, “did not want to be part of our counseling sessions, period.”
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Hillary knew that it was Bill who had the problem.

Nonetheless, as for Reverend Wogaman, he had more than Bill to
consider at this trying time. After all, Hillary, as well as Chelsea, was a member of his church. Asked if during this period he ever spoke to Hillary and Chelsea about serious spiritual matters in relation to Bill and his extramarital activities, Wogaman said only, “That's personal.”
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Regardless of the individual roles that were played, the entire family was calling upon their faith to help them make sense of this difficult time. Whereas just three years earlier, Hillary had taken consolation in the ideas of Jean Houston, now it seemed that her faith in God was one of the only things that could support her through this ordeal.

Because this was a marriage playing out on the most public of stages, their problems would have to be resolved in front of the whole world. Whatever conclusions they came to together would not be strictly between them and God. There was a third party involved as well: the American people. For better or for worse they had been pulled into this marriage, as Bill Clinton, ever the master politician, was not about to forget.

Forgiveness

While much of Bill's prayer and meditation on sin had been happening behind closed doors, as events progressed, his need for forgiveness took him to a public stage. A week and a half after his August 17 admission, speaking at an August 28 event in Oaks Bluff, Massachusetts, marking the thirty-fifth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech, Bill spoke of the need to seek forgiveness: “it is important that we are able to forgive those we believe have wronged us, even as we ask for forgiveness from people we have wronged.” This was a step up; he was at least talking forgiveness, but it was self-centered: He wanted forgiveness from Hillary, who would be among the “people we have wronged,” and seemed to speaking of
Ken Starr when he spoke of forgiving “those we believe have wronged us.”
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He was still pointing the finger at Starr.

Yet as his speeches and his appearances continued, he began to turn inward, focusing on the role of his personal responsibility and the role of repentance. Indeed, he spoke of forgiveness constantly—in Moscow on September 2, in Dublin on September 4, in the afternoon and then the evening at separate stops in Florida on September 9. In Dublin, he had used the word “sorry.”
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Then, on September 11, 1998, Clinton gave what was much closer to a confession, inviting a large contingent of African-American religious leaders to the annual White House Prayer Breakfast for Religious Leaders for a kind of half-revival, half-Baptist-style cleansing. The assembled clung to the edge of their seats as Bill started by acknowledging that he had been on “quite a journey” over the last few weeks. He needed to “get to the end of this, to the rock-bottom truth of where I am and where we all are.” He then made a real admission: “I agree with those who have said that in my first statement after I testified, I was not contrite enough. I don't think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned.”
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