Columns

Curtain up on Clintons' Act 2

By PHILIP GAILEY, Times Columnist
Published June 3, 2007

Get ready for an off-Broadway revival of The Clinton Years, not the Hellzapoppin' extravaganza of the '90s but a low-key summer version coming to a bookstore near you. We should have known the soap-opera lives of Bill and Hillary Clinton would figure into the 2008 presidential campaign, especially with the former first lady now the Democratic front-runner.

Two books on Hillary, both by reputable journalists, are hitting book stores this month, and while they contain no new bombshells, according to the news accounts I have read, they do remind us that there was more to the Clinton presidency than good economic times. There were also the sex scandals, the impeachment trial, the grand juries, the questionable business dealings and the sleazy associations with just about anyone who could help the Clintons advance their political ambitions. They are a high-maintennance power couple who spent much of their time in the White House in a defensive crouch consulting with their defense lawyers as a special prosecutor and Republican congressional committees nipped at their heels, victims of what Hillary Clinton once called "a vast right-wing conspiracy."

Hillary's "war room" already is in full swing in an effort to discredit the unflattering books. Old news, Clinton aides yawn, and they may be right. However, the books do refresh our memory of why many Americans were ready to see the Clintons leave the White House after eight years of troubles.

A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Carl Bernstein, the former Washington Post reporter of Watergate fame, quotes former Clinton aides who have some harsh words to say about the former first lady, according to a recent story in the Post.

Bob Boorstein, who worked with Clinton on her plan to overhaul health care, told Bernstein: "I find her to be among the most self-righteous people I've ever known in my life. And it's her great flaw, it's what killed health care."

Mark Fabiani, who as White House counsel was kept busy defending the Clintons on one thing or another, told Bernstein she was "so tortured by the way she's been treated that she would do anything to get out of the situation. ... And if that involved not being fully forthcoming, she herself would say, 'I have a reason for not being forthcoming.' " Her logic, he added, was: "If we do this, they're going to do this to me. If we say this, then they're going to say this. You know, (expletive) 'em, let's just not do that."

At one point, Fabiani told Bernstein, Hillary was worried that special prosecutor Kenneth Starr was preparing to indict her for perjury or obstruction of justice for statements she made under oath in the Whitewater investigation. "When I say there was a serious fear she would be indicted, I can't overstate that," Fabiani is quoted as saying.

The other book, Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Atta Jr., reports that Hillary did more than just stand by her man. She tried to destroy his accusers. During Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, a team supervised by Hillary hired a private investigator to go after Gennifer Flowers "until she is destroyed." Flowers' claim that she had sex with Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas almost derailed his first presidential bid. According to the authors, both former New York Times reporters, Flowers was seen as a threat to the couple's "secret pact of ambition" to each serve two terms as president.

By the time George W. Bush became president, the nation was suffering from "Clinton fatigue." However, it was nothing compared to the Bush fatigue that has many Americans longing for a president who makes love and not war. So I doubt that these books are going to change many votes one way or the other.

With the Clintons, you have to wonder if the past will ever be past. They apparently still haven't learned that the company they keep matters. Worse than anything revealed in the latest books about the Clintons was a recent story on the front page of the New York Times. Since leaving the White House, the Clintons have cozied up to Vinod Gupta, who has paid the former president more than $2-million in consulting fees and spent more than $900,000 flying Bill Clinton around the world and Hillary Clinton to campaign events on his company's private jet. Those expenses are cited in a lawsuit filed against Gupta's company, infoUSA, by angry shareholders.

The company came under investigation in Iowa a few years ago for selling consumer data to suspected criminals who used it to steal money from elderly Americans. It advertised its data lists with titles such as "Suffering Seniors" and "Elderly Opportunity Seekers." It also offered lists of people suffering from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. The company said the targeting of vulnerable seniors was an aberration and promised not to let it happen again.

It makes you wonder -- will Gupta have first dibs on the Lincoln bedroom in a Hillary Clinton White House?

[Last modified June 2, 2007, 21:11:57]