Sunday, July 01, 2007
Bill and Hill's excellent adventure
I am in the middle of Gerth and Van Natta's Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton
I'm quite sure those details are no longer as familiar as Dallek asserts. Not only are there millions of voters who were not voters then, but almost a decade has passed since the impeachment and memories of those years are no longer green even for those of us who were paying attention. Now, Dallek is a distinguished historian of American presidents, and from his perspective it may be that neither book offers much that is useful. Fair enough. But nobody thinks that Gerth, Van Natta and Bernstein are historians. They are journalists, and but for the professional conceit that journalists write "the first draft of history" -- a self-interested claim of that occupation that I have long thought is absurd -- nobody would hold their work to the standards of historians. Gerth and Van Natta's book, at least, offers a thoroughly-documented and -- as I said -- reasonably sympathetic review of that period, a nice summary for those millions of American voters who want to know all about the "vast right-wing conspiracy" and other iconic moments of those years.
(A Sunday-morning discussion question for those among our readers who do remember the Clinton controversies: Would they have turned out differently if the political blogosphere had come into its own in 1992 rather than 2002? Would righty blogs have pushed the various scandals more emphatically into the mainstream media and, perhaps, generated faster analysis of the evidence against the Clintons, or would the lefty sphere have discredited the "vast right-wing conspiracy" before it managed to blow the impeachment?)
In any case, one of the heavily promoted assertions in Her Way is the claim that even before they were married Bill and Hillary put together a long-term plan to win the White House. I had always assumed that this was true -- there is a studied ambition to that couple that is impossible to conceal -- but Gerth and Van Natta back it up with interviews of people who claim to have seen the founding document. The passage about the "pact" begins on page 53, when Hillary has joined Bill for his failed campaign for Congress in 1974:
Though still unwed, Hillary and Bill had already made a secret pact of ambition, one whose contours and importance to the two of them has remained their secret across all these years. They agreed to embark on a political partnership with two staggering goals: revolutionize the Democratic Party and, at the same time, capture the presidency for Bill. They called it their "twenty-year project," an auspicious timetable for two young people in their midtwenties. [I would have written "audacious" rather than "auspicious," but who am I to say? - ed.] And they agreed that the only way they would be able to achieve these goals was to do whatever it took to win elections and defeat their opponents. Bill would be the project's public face, of course. And Hillary would serve as the enterprise's behind-the-scenes manager and enforcer. [The footnote sources this paragraph to "author interviews of Leon Panetta" and another undisclosed Clinton administration official. - ed.]
In a personal letter she wrote to Bill sometime before she arrived in Arkansas for good, Hillary laid out some of the details. One of Bill's ex-girlfriends, Marla Crider, accidentally stumbled upon Hillary's letter sitting atop Bill's desk in his house in Fayetteville. As Marla Crider scanned the words, she was stunned by what she was reading. This was hardly the usual love letter. It was all about their mutual ambition, a game plan for reaching their shared calling.
"The note talked about all of their future plans... political plans; that's the best way to put it," Crider said. The letter "had everything to do with their careers," and Crider found it "so unusual that there was no talk of a home, family and marriage." [As I'm sure it would have been to an Arkansan girl in 1974. - ed.] Having glimpsed the missive, Crider had not been at all surprised to see Hillary running Bill's first campaign for Congress. Others might have raised an eyebrow at how comprehensive her role was. Hillary did everything. She wrote Bill's speech for the state party convention that September. She helped him hone his message, and she encouraged him to attack [his opponent] Hammerschmidt's morals and his judgment. She even sold sandwiches to help raise money for the campaign. But her domineering presence proved unsettling to a number of the men, including a local political operative who was used to being in charge.
In the campaign's final weeks, the operative was contacted by a lawyer connected to the dairy industry. He was willing to give $15,000 to be used in Sebastian County, which would "ensure that you are able to win the election." The unspoken message was that in some parts of northwest Arkansas, such funds could be used to buy votes. And if Bill won, the dairy interests would expect political payback. At a light-night meeting, the operative explained the proposed deal to Bill and Hillary. The money was already waiting for them at the lawyer's office. Hillary listened to his pitch in silence, then shouted at Bill, "No! You don't want to be a party to this!"
The operative asked Bill, "Look, you want to win or you want to lose?"
Before Bill could respond, Hillary answered for him. "Well, I don't want to win this way," she said. "If we can't earn it, we can't go [to Washington]."
And that was that. On election night, November 5, 1974, Hammerschmidt won by just six thousand votes. "It was the goddamn money!" the operative shouted late that night.
That passage, which is heavily footnoted but mostly sourced to anonymous interviews, strikes me as credible. I'm not at all sure it reflects poorly on them, though, unless you are one of those voters who are attracted to presidential candidates that seem to come into their ambition late in life. If so, you won't be voting for Rudy Giuliani or Barack Obama, either.
And, yes, the new passion among Democrats for the return of the "fairness doctrine" probably requires me to post some of the subsequent evidence that Hillary shed some of the scruples that supposedly cost Bill the 1974 Congressional election. Maybe I'll get around to it later in the week.
Read the whole thing
3 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Jul 01, 09:16:00 AM:
The Clinton "fairness doctrine" and her recent comments about the "clean sweep" is merely code language in my view for how many get shot in favor of the cronyism and returns on favors that might put her into the White House.
If any of this bums me out, it's the reminder that after watching all candidates for the GOP and Dem nomination leave me hungry for a candidate I actually believe is honest and committed to an agenda that's good for this country, and not just they as the candidate.
By , at
Sun Jul 01, 01:44:00 PM:
I think this overlooks Bill's almost animal like charisma. He has "it" and Hillary has/had the bug.
For what its worth, I am NOT a Clinton fan, but I will admit their abilities - I just with they used their powers for good.
andrewdb
By 
Assistant Village Idiot, at
Sun Jul 01, 11:47:00 PM:
I agree the scene seems plausible, though we can hardly regard it as proven. A weak morality gradually consumed by strong ambition is more like the human nature we encounter every day (including in ourselves) than the cartoon Bill & Hill that sees them as complete sociopaths. People who never had any conscience seldom fool us for long. Their appearance of morality is not an imitation but a residual of something that was once real. They still believe in causes and want to do right, even now, at times - it's just when those causes become inconvenient that they are shed.
It is intriguing to wonder whether they would have retained more moral fiber if they had won that first election in a fair manner. Yes, they would likely have remained over-ambitious and willing to sacrifice principle too easily. But the descent might have started later, and gone more slowly.
For those interested, there are many echoes of CS Lewis's The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce in this scene. Or to reference another Inkling, once can see the same thing happening in Boromir, in Saruman, and Denethor.
