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Hillary's trouble with men
With a husband and brothers like hers, who needs enemies? Ed Helmore finds
the prospect of a return to the White House vanishing in the wake of the
clemency scandal
Sunday February 25, 2001
The Observer
She looked drained even before it began. Standing on the marble floor of a
Senate corridor in Washington on Thursday, Hillary Clinton wore a hunted
look. It was time to explain.
The former First Lady had become embroiled in the presidential pardons
controversy after it emerged that her brother Hugh Rodham had received
thousands of dollars from two prominent beneficiaries of Bill Clinton's
clemency orders. Squinting into the glare of the television lights, the
junior New York senator composed herself before telling reporters she was
'saddened and disappointed' by the affair.
It was a vintage performance. Red-eyed, she said her brother's 'terrible
misjudgment' was 'a very sad matter' to her personally. 'I was heartbroken
and shocked and insisted the money had to be returned.'
Hillary Rodham Clinton must be rueing her misfortune with men. No sooner had
she embarked on her own political career than the men in her life - husband,
errant brothers and brother-in-law - let her down one by one. Or that at
least is her version of her first calamitous weeks in public service.
This was supposed to be her time of triumph: a first First Lady elected to
office on a landslide victory, with a chance for the White House in four
years time. The impeachment of her husband for lying about his betrayal of
her was in the past, and her own political blunders largely forgotten. She
had two new houses, a daughter about to turn 21, an $8 million book deal and
a husband who would be out of harm's way, building his presidential library
in Little Rock. Everything looked rosy.
But that was before the events of the last five weeks that have left the
Clintons adrift, disgraced and exposed without the defensive machinery of
the highest office in the land. To even their most ardent supporters, the
rashness of their behaviour as their White House years drew to a close has
left the bitter taste of disappointment.
The hoarding of gifts, flouting the spirit of Senate rules with the book
deal, the furniture returned and the accusations of petty vandalism at the
White House - and above all, the unmistakably self-interested use of the
presidential pardon - have all conspired to make the Clintons unwelcome.
And it's Hillary who must pay the political price. 'The Clintons are the
Sopranos,' wrote Washington Post columnist Joel Achenbach in one of the
kinder editorials. 'With each passing day we face a new rash of questions
about the knowledge and motivations of what is now the nation's most
notorious underworld family.'
Polls show public approval slipping for both Clintons in the month since
they left the White House and the revelations could derail Hillary's efforts
to find her footing in the Senate, as well as prospects of an already
longshot 2004 presidential or vice-presidential bid.
Democrat anger at the Clintons is striking, given that barely two months ago
there were high hopes that the couple would lead the party back to control
of Congress and the White House. Even Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic Party
chairman, who calls the ex-President his best friend, says Bill Clinton
should disappear for six months. And last week former President Jimmy Carter
ended his reluctance to comment on the pardons. 'In my opinion, it was
disgraceful,' he said.
Hillary's most ardent supporters are having a hard time accepting her story
that she knew nothing about the pardons. She is also now under the scrutiny
of prosecutors in New York who are to widen their probe of the pardon of
fugitive financier Marc Rich and open an investigation into whether the
sentences of four convicted swindlers were commuted in exchange for a block
of Hasidic Jewish votes during her run for the Senate. Again there was a
denial: 'I did not play any role whatsoever,' she said last month, despite
acknowledging she sat in on a meeting in December with supporters of the
clemency appeal. 'I had no opinion about it'.
The clear subtext of Senator Clinton's denials has been to pass the buck to
the men in her life, particularly her accident-prone husband. A friend of
Hillary told US News & World Report : 'I'm sure she's screaming at him. She
gets mad at him for being so stupid.'
When it was revealed that Hugh Rodham received $400,000 after successfully
lobbying the White House on behalf of Glenn Braswell, a swindler in the
anti-baldness business, and Carlos Vignali, a major cocaine dealer, Hillary
said she knew nothing of the matter. She used the word 'disappointed' 20
times.
Call it bad fortune or bad judgment, but Hillary's got man trouble. In fact,
it's an affliction she's long suffered from. It's not just her husband,
whose character fault-lines have been obvious
