The Truth About Hillary (27 page)

“. . . And the . . . no, wait a minute, I’m getting a flash from the screening room here,” Lehrer told his listening audience.

His producer, Nuala McGovern, was talking in his earphone. “You’re not going to believe this,” McGovern said into

Lehrer’s earphone, “but Hillary Clinton is on the phone.”

228 THE TRUTH ABOUT HILLARY

In his fifteen years on the air, this had never happened to Lehrer. Neither Senator Pat Moynihan nor Senator Alfonse D’Amato nor Senator Chuck Schumer had ever called into his show in response to something that someone had said about them.

“Guess what?” Lehrer told his listeners once he had recov- ered from his shock. “After a half hour of talking about Senator Hillary Clinton, she’s calling in. So let’s welcome her. Senator Clinton, are you there?”

“I am there, Brian,” said Hillary. “How are you?

“Okay, thank you for calling,” Lehrer said. “Were you listening?”

“I always listen whenever I can,” Hillary replied, “and I was listening, and I want to say ‘Hello’ to Jodie Allen as well as you, and I also wanted a chance to respond to the gentleman who called in and said, Oh, he wished someone had asked me that question about some alleged policy in the beginning of the Clin- ton Administration. So I thought I would take him up on his of- fer and call in and respond to the charges that he made.”

“All right now,” Lehrer said, “we’re coming to a break. We have to take sixty seconds. But why don’t you go ahead and start, and then we’ll finish after the break? Did you ban uniforms on people from the military in the White House?”

“Of course not,” Hillary said. “Now I know that there were some stories that circulated early in the administration that some young staffer had said something critical to someone in uniform. We tried to chase that down. I never could, to my satisfaction, determine who had done it, if it had indeed been done. And I also think part of it was, as you recall, my husband’s efforts, very early on in the administration, to lift the ban on gay military ser- vice people. . . .”

“Senator,” Lehrer interrupted, “hold it right there. We have to take that break. And we’ll finish up with you after that.”
8

Hillar y from Chappaqua
229

* * *

“I was surprised that she was calling in to take issue with the caller,” Lehrer recalled in an interview for this book. “I thought it was a relatively small-bore thing that she was calling about. . . . And I thought that one of the things that she was try- ing to do in that phone call was to set herself up as the ecumeni- cal Democrat, who was above the fray in that political year, because she had her eye on 2008.

“She was trying to walk the line of distancing herself from Howard Dean’s position on the war, while still calling him a pa- triot,” Lehrer continued. “And not endorsing anybody else, or any other wing of the party. And I thought that was consistent with Bill Clinton’s approach—what helped to make Bill Clinton successful, which was that he was able to unite the various fac- tions in the party behind him. . . . She was going for the same thing as Bill Clinton—the triangulated common interest.”
9

“Well, Brian,” Hillary said after the show returned to the air, “I have been always trying to figure out where that [story about banning military uniforms in the White House] got started. And, again, I can’t speak for the hundreds and hundreds of people who worked in the White House, and perhaps some- one, in a moment of what I would consider a terrible lapse of judgment, said something or did something that then became a wild fire of rumor and innuendo . . . but I certainly had nothing to do with it, and I know my husband didn’t.”

“At the risk of being accused of lobbing you a soft ball,” Lehrer said, “. . . how do you deal with that constant, constant harassment?”

“Well, Brian,” Hillary said, segueing into her vast right-wing conspiracy mode, “you know, I have obviously thought a lot about it, because literally I have been accused of everything from murder on down. And it is hurtful and personally distressing

230 THE TRUTH ABOUT HILLARY

when it first happens. But when it continues to, you know, come from the radio talk-show people and, you know . . . untrue books about us, on and on, you know, I’ve concluded that there is some other purpose at work here.”
10

Despite Hillary’s reputation for shading the truth, Brian Lehrer believed her explanation. And no wonder. After all, it seemed incredible that a First Lady would attempt to ban the wearing of military uniforms in the White House.

And yet, that is exactly what Hillary had tried to do in the spring of 1996. At that time, all military personnel serving in the White House wore business suits, except for the one day a week on which they were required to don their uniforms. There were only two exceptions to this rule: junior officers who served at White House social events wore dress uniforms; and military aides who carried the nuclear “football” containing the top- secret codes the President needed in case of nuclear war wore their service uniforms.

“Hillary tried to change the tradition where military aides wore their uniforms when accompanying the President with the nuclear football,” said air force lieutenant colonel Robert “Buzz” Patterson, who served as President Clinton’s senior military aide. “There were five military aides—from the air force, army, navy, marines, and coast guard—and she wanted us to wear busi- ness suits when we were carrying the football.

“The directive came down from Hillary through the Presi- dent’s chief of staff, Leon Panetta,” Patterson continued. “Secret Service agents opposed her plan, because they wanted us to be easily identifiable by our uniforms in the event that something critical went down. We military aides were not just responsible for the nuclear codes, but also for evacuating the President and accompanying him to safe houses.

Hillar y from Chappaqua
231

“Eventually, Hillary relented. My opinion is she was trying to downplay the military in and around her husband. It’s ridicu- lous for her to claim that the story was the result of some young staffer who, in a lapse of judgment, said something critical to someone in uniform. It was all Hillary’s doing from beginning to end.”
11

C
H A P T E R F O R T Y - O N E
‌

Shut Out?

CHARLES GIBSON,

co-host of
Good Morning America
l

(Off Camera) We’re going to turn now to the woman who is helping kick off the Democratic convention tonight [Monday, July 26, 2004] by introducing her hus- band, Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton first came to national attention as a political wife, but she is now one of the undisputed stars of the Democratic Party. So here’s a look at Hillary Clinton at center stage at conventions over the years.

SENATOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

(film clip of Hillary Clinton) You know, I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had tea, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life. . . .

232

Shut Out?
233

SENATOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

(second film clip of Hillary Clinton) I am overwhelmed. In October, Bill and I will celebrate our 21st wedding an- niversary. Thank you for supporting my husband. What an eight years it has been.

CHARLES GIBSON

(Off Camera) And joining us from [Boston’s FleetCen- ter] convention hall is Senator Hillary Clinton. Back at the Democratic convention. Senator, good to have you with us.

SENATOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

Thank you, Charlie. I’m glad to be back.

CHARLES GIBSON

Let me ask you about your role in this convention. Be- cause a lot has been made, as you know, in the political pages about the fact that you were not on the original speaking schedule for the convention. Was that an over- sight, or do you think it was [a] deliberate [snub] by the [ John] Kerry people?

SENATOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

Oh, you know, I have no reason to think either. I think that a convention is an evolving kind of event. And I’m just delighted to be part of supporting John Kerry and John Edwards. . . .

CHARLES GIBSON

(Off Camera) There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you about ever since I had a chance to talk to your husband when [his memoir,
My Life
] came out. You have been

234 THE TRUTH ABOUT HILLARY

very circumspect about your own presidential ambitions, and I asked President Clinton about it in our interview. And I just want to play the clip.

PRESIDENT WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON

(film clip of Bill Clinton) She’s now where I was in 1988. When I didn’t run [for president] in 1988, I thought I’d never get another chance to run, because I really thought the Democrats were going to win. . . .

CHARLES GIBSON

(Off Camera) Now, that was his comparison. And I thought it was really interesting. We know he thought about running in 1988. Decided against it. And acknowl- edges that if [Michael] Dukakis had won, he’d have been shut out for some period of time. He made the compari- son. Do you, this time, if John Kerry wins, are you shut out for some period of time?

SENATOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

You know, I don’t know, and I really don’t care. . . .

C
H A P T E R F O R T Y - T W O
‌

Hedging Her Bets

“D

oes she really think we’re stupid enough to believe she doesn’t care about the presidency?” said a Democratic political analyst who had fol-

lowed Hillary’s career closely. “Listen, we’re talking about a woman who says she doesn’t know what her next move is going to be, but she’s known her next move since the eighth grade.”
1

Hillary’s words could never be taken at face value; whenever she was questioned about her political ambitions, she avoided giving a direct and honest answer. She reserved her true feel- ings for a small group of people who comprised her kitchen cabinet: Bill Clinton (whom she trusted when it came to poli- tics, if not to personal matters); Don Jones (personal matters, not politics); Harold Ickes (her bag man); Susan Thomases (her staffing dominatrix); Ann Lewis (her Democratic Party commis- sar); and Patti Solis Doyle (her top fund-raiser and, some said, closest confidant).

Many of the members of her kitchen cabinet, including Bill Clinton, had wanted her to run in 2004. And for a period of

235

236 THE TRUTH ABOUT HILLARY

about six weeks in the spring of 2003, they thought they had converted her to their way of thinking. But she hemmed and hawed, dropped a few encouraging hints, and then backtracked.
2
It didn’t help when Bill reminded her of what she already knew—that in politics, timing was all-important, and that she might not get another chance at the White House. After she let the nomination slip from her grasp (and it was hers practically for the asking in 2004), Bill could hardly disguise his disappoint-

ment. As far as he was concerned, she had blown it.

Not everyone agreed.

One who didn’t was Bernard Nussbaum, an attorney who had served with Hillary on the Nixon impeachment inquiry and who, eighteen years later, had been appointed as White House counsel. After Vincent Foster’s suicide, Nussbaum had denied the FBI and other law enforcement agencies access to Foster’s office for nearly two days, while he allegedly supervised the removal of potentially incriminating files. For his role in that cover-up, he became Bill Clinton’s scapegoat, and was fired by the President from his job.
3

Nussbaum was still on good terms with Hillary, however, and continued to speak with her quite often. He believed that the terrorist attacks on 9/11 had turned George W. Bush instantly into a wartime president, making him virtually unbeatable.
4
*

Bernie Nussbaum advised Hillary to save her best shot for 2008. She was doing the right thing by building a strong record in the Senate.

This was exactly what Hillary wanted to hear. As a perfec- tionist and control freak, she was deathly afraid of making a mis-

*Hillary agreed with Nussbaum’s assessment. After the election, she told Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren: “We’ve never unseated an in- cumbent president during wartime. That’s just a given.”
5

Hedging Her Bets
237

step. Her meteoric rise to a position of leadership in the Senate had been remarkably error-free. Her popularity among the party faithful was unmatched by any other Democrat. Still, she knew that she had a long way to go before she could hope to overcome the visceral hatred she provoked in large swaths of the country.

Searching for any excuse
not
to run until 2008, Hillary pointed to a poll that was conducted at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. The delegates were asked whom they would choose in 2008 if John Kerry lost. Twenty-six percent of them said Hillary Clinton. The runner-up was John Edwards, with only 17 percent.
6