Bill Clinton: I Misled People

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Not everyone bought it--not even the people inside. Some top aides in the White House could not fathom the possibility that Hillary did not know much more than the story line of the weekend allowed. "That doesn't seem real to me," said one. "They have no secrets," argued another. "They know each other. They know each other backward and forward." She had to profess ignorance, in this view, because the alternative to being a trusting sucker was being a cold-blooded liar. A longtime Democratic official, who has never been in Clinton's camp, watched the mopping-up operation and marveled at the way the Clintons had used their own misery, if that's what it was, to grow new arms and legs. "Do I think she may have been hurt? That it was potentially a much more graphic thing than she ever expected? That it questioned the validity of their marriage? Sure. But they are working hard to cast it not as a presidential issue but as a personal one. His numbers will stay high as long as they isolate it to a sexual family matter," he said. "That's what they are trying to do."

But since the damage clearly went beyond just the President's immediate family, the circle of victims had to be widened; at least that way Clinton could be seen as paying a price. By Monday, White House reporters were being fed tales of the President's other painful conversations. The word for the weekend was "betrayal"; the scene was of the President taking his loyal aides aside one by one and apologizing to them for what he had put them through. This was essential, since his willful abuse of the people around him was becoming a matter of public record. There were career civil servants, secretaries, Secret Service officers who do not have rich consulting fees in their futures, just high legal bills, courtesy of their visits to the grand jury.

Then there were Clinton's political aides, the ones who talked while he did not, who became household names thanks to Larry King and Charlie Rose, defending the President, insisting that he was not being cute with language when he denied the affair, insisting that this was taking so long because Starr was asking questions he shouldn't, not because Clinton was simply refusing to answer them. By telling the truth now, the President was about to make liars out of them.

The story of betrayed aides' being treated to one-on-one apologies continued to circulate through the weekend and all day Monday. But within the White House there was a strange echo chamber. The more the TV reporters spoke of his private contrition to colleagues, the more bemused aides were rankled about being out of the apology loop--until they called around and found that there was no loop. It was hard to find anyone who had talked to Clinton for more than about 30 seconds, and that time was usually used, pre-emptively, to say, "Mr. President, we don't have to have this conversation now."