If the Democrats’ most heartfelt dream comes to pass, some frosty January night in the future, President Clinton will rise before a joint session of the United States Congress to deliver the ceremonial State of the Union address. But as the leader of the American people and the free world sets out the legislative agenda for the coming year, will the dignitaries assembled in that chamber, and the millions watching on television at home, truly be listening to what the president has to say? Or will they be wondering: what is the state of her union? Do Hillary and Bill Clinton have a happy marriage?
The New York Times evidently thinks so. In a 2 000-word piece that began on Tuesday’s front page, the newspaper printed the results of a lengthy investigation into the state of the Clintons’ marriage, noting that reporters had interviewed 50 people close to the ultimate in power couples. ”When the subject of Bill and Hillary Clinton comes up for many prominent Democrats these days, topic A is the state of their marriage,” the newspaper said.
It could certainly be argued that the Clintons themselves are topic A among Democrats as well as Republicans. Although the next presidential elections are still more than two years away, the deepening trough in approval ratings for President George Bush has hastened speculation about Republican defeat in next November’s mid-term elections, as well as in 2008.
Hillary Clinton has virtually been anointed the frontrunner among prospective Democratic candidates in the 2008 elections, and last month had a staggering $20-million in her war chest. Bill Clinton, meanwhile, is enjoying one of the most active post-presidential careers in recent memory.
As a couple, they occupy a realm of celebrity close to that of Hollywood and their treatment in the media often reflects that. The Clintons may not be routinely described by their first names — as is standard practice for Hollywood celebrity — but his book advances were compared this week with Oprah Winfrey’s, and she has been asked to divulge the content of her iPod playlist. Hillary’s selections — baby-boomer standards from Aretha Franklin to The Beatles and The Eagles — were the subject of a piece in The Washington Post on Monday.
But amid this level of interest in the lives of the Clintons, The New York Times went one step further on Tuesday by intruding on the most sensitive subject for any couple — let alone for one where infidelity was elevated to a national scandal. The Times mused on the damage done by Bill’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, and then went on to list the former president’s dining companions when his wife is not in town. It presents a detailed log of how much time the Clintons have spent together during the past 18 months — about an average of 14 days a month — although in February last year they only managed to meet up on Valentine’s Day.
The newspaper also elicited a statement from the respective spokespersons for the Clintons on the state of their marriage. ”She is an active senator who, like most members of Congress, has to be in Washington for part of most weeks. He is a former president running a multimillion-dollar global foundation. But their home is in New York, and they do everything they can to be together there or at their house in DC as often as possible,” the joint statement says.
Moral issues
Democratic strategists agree that the former president’s legacy — and his undiminished star power — is a potential problem for Hillary as she tries to chart out a new identity as a politically centrist senator. The old Hillary, as a liberal first lady, had approval ratings in the 30s. She also does not need any reminders of her husband’s scandal-ridden years in the White House when she is seeking support from an electorate that is increasingly driven by moral issues such as gay marriage and abortion.
And although Hillary enjoys 65% approval ratings in New York state — and one poll late last year suggested she would have even a chance in a contest in the state against Rudy Giuliani, the former Republican mayor of New York, she does not command anywhere near the celebrity wattage of her husband. Having the couple on stage together, consultants fear, would show up Hillary’s relative lack of warmth.
But the dissection of the Clintons’ marriage went beyond political handicapping. Liberal bloggers erupted in outrage, accusing the newspaper of bowing to a Republican agenda to mire a possible presidential campaign by Hillary in scandal, and of purveying gossip. Salon.com‘s Tim Grieve wrote: ”Surely the Times will turn its gaze next to the personal lives of the other would-be contenders for their parties’ presidential nominations. After all, the mainstream media wouldn’t single out the Clintons’ personal lives for any kind of special attention, would it?” It was an uncharacteristically polite posting among the liberal responses on Tuesday.
Hillary has done little to deflect such attention — or to douse speculation about her presidential aspirations. Instead, she has been busy carving out centrist political positions on the economy, defence and other issues that make it transparent her political ambitions are bigger than the Empire State, which she represents as one of the senators from New York.
In a speech in Washington on Tuesday, Hillary took up the issue of energy, urging the US to reduce its dependence on imported oil and increase funding for alternative energy sources. She also championed the use of ethanol, a sure-fire way of winning support among corn-growing farmers in Iowa, the first stop in the primary season, which does not officially begin until January 2008.
In a measure of her growing importance, the Republicans shot back even before Hillary had finished speaking. ”Senator Clinton’s energy policy consists of a unique balancing act involving partisanship, political pandering and yesterday’s mistakes,” the Republican National Committee spokesperson, Tracey Schmitt, said. As 2008 nears, the Republicans too are watching Hillary Clinton’s every move.
Profile: Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham was born in 1947 and grew up in a Chicago suburb. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1969 and went on to Yale law school, where she met Bill. She worked for the House judiciary committee during the Watergate scandal in its investigation of the Nixon administration and married Bill in 1975.
After teaching at the University of Arkansas law school, she joined the Rose Law Firm, the third-oldest in the US, in 1976. Two years later, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the board of the Legal Services Corporation. Her daughter, Chelsea, was born in 1980.
In 12 years as Arkansas’s first lady she was active in education, family law, child welfare and health. She became first lady in 1992 and went on to lead the taskforce on health-care reform. She became a senator for New York state in 2000.
Profile: Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Blythe III was born in 1946 in Hope, Arkansas, three months after his father died in a car crash. He later took the surname of his stepfather. After Georgetown University he won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford in 1968. He studied at Yale law school and then taught law at the University of Arkansas.
He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1974, became Arkansas attorney general in 1976 and state governor in 1978. He lost a bid for re-election in 1980 but won again in 1982. After tough Democratic primaries he defeated Republican president George Bush in 1992. His re-election in 1996 made him the first two-term Democrat since FD Roosevelt. Impeached over his affair with Monica Lewinsky in 1998, he was found not guilty in the later Senate trial. He left office in 2001. — Guardian Unlimited Â