How long have you known Hillary Clinton, and what have you learned from talking to her over the years?
i met hillary in 1991 when her husband was starting to run for president. I’ve studied it near and far ever since.
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She’s a very different person one on one than she is in a crowd or as a candidate. one might assume that bill clinton is a warm and attractive guy, because that’s how she appears in public. while Hillary, in public, seems more industrious and less colourful. in fact, she is the warmer of the two. she is also incredibly smart and a lawyer. I remember, when I met her, she used a legal term in a casual context, which I had to look up.
dip into your books. first, “a triumph of political biography,” according to the chicago sun-times. It’s a book about the first Clinton to become president, Bill. you wrote it tell us about the first of the kind of him.
It was an effort to write about the first member of my generation, the postwar baby boomer generation, to make it to the white house. It’s a biography of Bill Clinton, but you can’t write about him without writing about Hillary. Ever since they met at Yale Law School in 1971, they’ve seen that together they could go places they couldn’t go apart. she has been an essential part of his rise, and vice versa.
“There’s always that tension between family and career.”
When people talk about the Clintons, they sometimes suggest that there is something inherently corrupt about the commitments they’ve made as a couple and the way they’ve helped each other along the way. As someone who knows them and has studied them, what is your perspective?
For all politicians, as for all human beings, there is a tension between ambition and idealism. The Clintons are kind of an exaggeration of that tension. Hillary has built an embedded defensiveness during her forty-plus years with Bill Clinton, largely in defense of him and their rise together, and largely because of his own personal vulnerabilities. Over the course of that period, in defense of him and in defense of his association, she has been less than transparent due to the belief that her ends justify his means.
is universally regarded as the most gifted politician. What do you think he has taught him?
He’s a talented politician and he’s also a great campaign strategist, but none of his skills seem transferable to her. she doesn’t have her fluency or her ability to make everyone listening think she’s talking to them. on the contrary, she has said many things that have not helped her. it is a curious thing. In part, her political career is possible because he became president. and yet since then, I don’t know how much help she’s been.
Moving to a title familiar to all, the feminist mystique of Betty Friedan. tell us about him and the resonance of him for our theme.
hillary clinton belongs to a generation that was at the heart of the feminist movement. Books by Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir, and others had a profound influence on Hillary and millions of other women of her generation. In Hillary’s case, many people who knew her thought that she would be the one to lead the movement. However, in 1974, when she was twenty years old, she decided to move to Arkansas and link her career to that of Bill Clinton.
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There’s always that tension between family and career. Hillary’s life represents that. Betty Friedan’s book explains it.
In 1994, Friedan wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times about what she saw as an organized effort to ridicule Hillary during the first Clinton administration, an effort Hillary once called “a grand right-wing conspiracy.” how good or bad were friedan and clinton? And how much do her efforts against her have to do with sexism?
It’s always more complicated than that, but it’s certainly a factor in the hostility towards hillary. the chant “lock her up” is such an evocation of the way women have been demonized throughout history that there is an undeniable aspect to the ridicule of hillary as a strong woman. but that is on a larger scale and you also have to weigh her behavior and characteristics, as you would with any politician or human being.
“I have no reason to be suspicious or cynical about the role of faith in your life.”
hillary clinton has cited beryl markham’s west with the night as one of her favorite books. tell us.
When she was a child, Hillary wanted to be an astronaut. she has always been drawn to flying and space, she grew up near o’hare airport. she has always been attracted to strong women and she has always been attracted to daring people, although she is not the most daring person herself. her mother named it after sir edmund hillary, the great mountaineer. Her attraction to adventurers is evident throughout her life.
to what extent does hillary clinton identify with a feminist icon like markham? Is breaking the glass ceiling something that has driven her?
more than he likes to show off in public. just like barack obama couldn’t show his identification as black too much, because as president, you are everyone’s president, hillary has been cautious. but internally, and increasingly externally, she identifies as a trailblazer. and I think that will affect her and much of the country if she is elected.
the following is a joan didion novel from 1970, play it as is. tell us.
When Hillary was the young wife of the Governor of Arkansas, she would read books together and discuss them with her best friend, Diane Blair, a professor at the University of Arkansas. she and diane read that book and loved it and talked a lot about it.
I read it a long time ago. the book has a somber aspect, in terms of marital relations.
This novel seems populated by corrupt and psychologically crippled characters. she has spoken about how she attributed some of her husband’s failings to her family history of psychologically tortured her. Is that part of why this novel resonates?
I think so. she definitely understood that her husband suffered from some addictions, you could say. again, those are things that are very difficult to talk about in public, when you are a politician. that’s another part of hillary’s inner side.
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Finally, at a televised town hall during the 2016 primary season, Hillary Clinton cited this book as a spiritual touchstone. please tell us about the return of the prodigal son by a dutch theologian, henry nouwen.
once when i interviewed hillary, she kept talking about this book and the discipline of gratitude. he mentioned it because he was trying to emphasize the role that his faith, as a Methodist, has played in his ability to move forward. she cited that book as one she would return to again and again, having a profound influence on her ability to keep going no matter what.
“none of those books impressed me in the least. they were typical political books that didn’t really add much to the equation.”
To what extent does faith shape your world view? Is the tent hers, as she suggests?
has a very complex character. it is difficult to say that a thing is the tent pole. but I have no reason to be suspicious or cynical about the role of faith in his life.
hillary clinton also called this book “a call for forgiveness”. What role do you think forgiveness plays in his character and career?
Well, you’ve had to forgive your husband a million times. I don’t know if she will be able to forgive all of her opponents for everything she’s been through. people are complicated you can have forgiveness in you and a little anger in you at the same time. but I have no doubt that fighting for gratitude and forgiveness is one of the things that keeps her going.
you haven’t quoted the living history and the hard choices, the two autobiographies of hillary rodham clinton. Does your omission of him say anything about the trustworthiness of clinton’s portrayals of himself?
none of those books impressed me in the least. they were typical political books that didn’t really add much to the equation.
Last question: Predict how Hillary’s presidency would differ from her husband’s two terms.
In a sense, there will be a little déjà vu, because from the beginning, perhaps even more intensely than under Bill, her Republican opposition will be targeting her to try to delegitimize her presidency.
She is much better organized than her husband. perhaps we can expect less chaos on the White House staff from her.
The political climate has changed. her husband was a survivor and was surviving in a climate that was divisive but more conservative. she will be a little to the left of her husband, if she can be.
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In her years as a senator, she was able to compromise and get along with Republicans in the Senate. I think her ability to work across the aisle might surprise people, if work across the aisle is allowed to happen, which is becoming increasingly doubtful.