While media outlets like Essence magazine, CBS, and others assist the Clintons in remaking the image of their marriage in order to whisk them back into the White House in January 2009, almost no one has had the nerve to peel back the curtain and expose the truth about the former first couple's real relationship.
This all changed Wednesday when WOR radio's Steve Malzberg interviewed best-selling author Sally Bedell Smith about her recent book on the Clintons appropriately titled "For Love of Politics."
Malzberg not only asked questions of Smith that virtually no mainstream media representative would ever dare, but also his guest quite surprisingly was extremely candid with her answers.
For instance, when Malzberg asked, "What was the true, in-house reaction of Hillary to the whole Monica Lewinsky, did she ever doubt the authenticity of the charges from the beginning?" Smith responded (17 minute audio available here):
I talked to one of her closest friends who really talked to her a lot, and her initial reaction, at least until a lot of the evidence came tumbling out, was that he couldn't be that insane, and that this person said, "Look, if she heard that he sort of gone out and had a fling on the road, she could have believed that in a heartbeat." But it was the fact that it was in the Oval Office, you know, adjacent to the Oval Office that it lasted for, as it turned out, eighteen months, which is an astonishing length of time. People have amnesia about the Clinton years because of 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Actually, Sally, I'd say the media have a lot to do with this amnesia. But, I'm interrupting her delicious answer:
But, the same person told me, because I did ask, "Why, why did she stay with him after, particularly after August of 1998 when he went on television and?...After he'd appeared before the Grand Jury...But, he did admit that he had lied to the American public for seven months. And, at that moment, it was worldwide humiliation. And, I asked this person who had known the Clintons for many years, and was privy to their thoughts, and, and this person said, "Look, she was not about to divorce him for doing something that he had been doing for their whole married life, the only difference being the magnitude." Take that however you would like, but that is what a good friend said.
The other part of it was that it was far more to Hillary Clinton's advantage to stay with Bill Clinton because she was already thinking about her own political ambitions. One of her top advisors told me that one of the reasons, if not the reason, that she fought the impeachment so hard and was such a chief strategist during that whole period is that she quote saw her own presidential ambitions go down the drain. She had been thinking about the presidency for a long time. I found an interview that Bill Clinton did back in 1992 when he was running for office, when he was musing, "Well, eight years of Hillary Clinton, that's not a bad idea."
So, and there were plenty of people around them who were talking about that. Betsy Wright, who was his chief-of-staff back in Arkansas, said back in 1994 that it was sort of part of the game plan, and that she would follow him. One of their close friends, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason was known for going around and saying, "Look, when both Clintons are dead and gone, one of them's going to be, each of them's going to be buried beside a President of the United States." So, this is something that has been very much in their minds for a long time. And, if they'd gotten a divorce then, she wouldn't have had a, really, a chance in the Senate.
Not the loving couple the media are currently depicting, wouldn't you agree? Can you imagine the women of "The View," or any other mainstream media television program, getting anyone to make such statements while the tape was rolling and actually airing it?
While you ponder, Smith had more to say:
It was interesting that one of their friends said that whenever he misbehaved, her first reaction was, not "You've been a bad boy," but "How can we get out of this?" And, this was somebody that had known them for a really long time. And, she would take her energy, her emotional energy, which was by and large anger, and direct it at finding a solution. And that is kind of consistent with what went on all the way through. And, it's just a different approach to a marriage.
Yes, and certainly not what media are currently portraying. Not by a long shot.
Moving forward, Malzberg asked what the sexual relationship is between the Clintons. Smith replied:
Let me put it this way: since the year 2000, they've pretty much lived in separate places. She has her house in Washington, and he has his house in Chappaqua, and one of their good friends said, "This is a marriage that drives on distance." So, you can interpret that however you like. And, another said that "They, you know, they are happiest when they're off pursuing their own interests, and that there, and when they're not pinned down together."
Finally, Malzberg asked a question that no major media representative would ever dare to ask about Hillary:
We know about Bill Clinton's dalliances, and his affairs. We know nothing about Hillary. We've heard rumors of, rumors of, of course Vince Foster, even Web Hubbell. Yet, Advocate magazine, a gay magazine, asked a question of her recently in an interview, "Are you gay?" And she said, "No." And, there was no follow-up. And my follow-up would have been, if I'm working for a gay magazine, and I'm gonna ask that question, and she says, "No," I would have said, "Well, are you, you know, bisexual or something?" What, what, what's Mrs. Clinton do while Bill's out traveling the world having women all over the place, and has been for years? What, what's Mrs. Clinton's love life like?
Smith's answer might surprise you. But, to get it, you'll have to listen to the audio available here.
As you listen, just imagine any mainstream media outlet not only asking the questions that Malzberg did, but also airing Smith's answers.
Any questions why liberals want to get rid of conservative talk radio, and why the Clintons have assisted in the creation of organizations like Media Matters for America and the Center for American Progress?
