Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine

by Daniel Halper

  “I know they’re coming after you,” Bush told the embattled congressman. “I want you to know something: I’m going to be there for you. I’m going to be there campaigning with you. I’m going to be there helping you raise money.”

  Rogan was taken aback. “You know, here’s this presidential candidate, or he’s about to become one, who’s taking the time to actually research my district to know that I’m in trouble,” he says. “I said something like, ‘I’m really impressed.’ ”

  In response Bush offered a “steely” look. Grabbing the congressman and pulling him in close, he whispered, “You avenged my father.”

  Equating a vote for the impeachment of Bill Clinton with avenging George H. W. Bush’s political defeat “never dawned on me,” Rogan says. “I never connected any dots until Bush said it to me and then I thought, ‘Oh, yeah, okay, sure, well, that’s why he knows about my district. I mean something to him. He was watching these guys taking cannon fire, stand up in a very unpopular process to the guy that beat his dad.’ ” In the end, Bush wouldn’t actually be there for Rogan. During a swing before the November election, Bush’s campaign would view impeachment too warily to allow him to stand next to Rogan. Days later the incumbent congressman would be defeated by Democrat Adam Schiff.

  By the time the Bushes returned to the White House, they felt a greater generosity of spirit toward those who’d vanquished them, and the relationship between the two famously feuding families found new contours. It was a relationship that Bill Clinton seemed determined to improve. The outgoing president—at the time a hated figure to Republicans and a source of exhaustion to many on the left—sensed the bonanza such a pairing offered.

  The thaw began slowly, but immediately, in December 2000, only days after the U.S. Supreme Court ended a recount in Florida and in effect handed the presidential election to Bush. Heading to Washington to meet with his transition team, President-elect Bush paid a “courtesy call” visit to Clinton as well as the man he’d just so narrowly defeated.

  “Al Gore was terrible to him,” a senior Bush aide recalls, as the Bushes arrived at the vice president’s residence on Massachusetts Avenue. For the Gores, the residence on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory was a mere two and a half miles—and Florida’s twenty-five electoral votes—away from the White House. It had also, until a day or two earlier, been the site of round-the-clock protests by Bush supporters, who wore “Sore-Loserman” T-shirts (a play on the Gore-Lieberman ticket) and chanted through the gates and into the Gores’ bedroom, “Get out of Cheney’s house!”

  This was the first presidential motorcade for the incoming Bush administration. One of the new members of Bush’s detail opened the door for Bush and watched the president-elect and his wife, Laura, exit the car and walk up the steps, across the covered white porch, and into the Gores’ residence. Soon—much sooner than Bush’s aides expected—Bush reemerged from the mansion, grim-faced and irritated.

  “Okay, let’s go,” he said.

  “They’d only been in there for like thirty seconds,” an aide reflects with amazement. (The awkward meeting, which Karl Rove later described as “tense and cold,” was actually closer to fifteen minutes.)16

  “Gore’s a prick,” a senior Bush press aide says. “He’s not the kind of person that has the ability to lead at that level, I believe, because he’s a jerk.”

  Due to the unique circumstances, the Bush-Gore meeting was all but fated to be tense and perfunctory. But in any event it stood in sharp contrast to the reception the Bushes received minutes later at the White House from Bill and Hillary Clinton.

  “They were just warmly welcomed,” a Bush aide later reflects. A “relaxed, even funny” Clinton, as described by Karl Rove, treated Bush to a steak while Hillary showed Laura the family quarters. Clinton oozed with ingratiation, even complimenting the tie worn by one of Bush’s aides. The current and future president dined together for ninety minutes, while Clinton held forth on the economy, advised on North Korea, and, at Bush’s request, offered his successor pointers on giving speeches. (The key, he said, was timing.)

  That Gore and Clinton by that point all but hated each other probably made Clinton’s overture even more palatable. As a former senator puts it, “You get the feeling that Clinton acts like he likes Bush a lot better than he ever liked Al Gore.” The not-so-secret truth was that the Clintons weren’t heartbroken by Gore’s loss. Not only did Gore not quite fit the mold of a president in their eyes: A Republican in the White House also offered Hillary the chance for a potential run for the White House in 2004.

  By the time Hillary made clear she would not challenge the Bushes, the Clinton-Bush relationship had really begun to flower.

  Perhaps the first recorded defrost in the Clinton-Bush relationship occurred, of all places, at the White House itself. It was June 14, 2004, and hundreds were gathered at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the ceremonial unveiling of the official portrait of President Clinton.

  It was an election year. Bush would be squaring off against John Kerry later that year in November, and Democrats had turned against Bush on myriad issues, especially the Iraq War. Indeed, it could’ve been either a quick, ceremonial, and formal affair, or worse: It could’ve been nasty. Bush could’ve brought up President Clinton’s impeachment. Clinton, ever the politician, could’ve turned the knife and embarrassed the somewhat unpopular Bush.

  Lanny Davis, a longtime friend of Hillary Clinton, has explained.17 “So it’s the spring of 2004 and the hatred—H-word, horrible word—toward George W. Bush for going into Iraq, for his tax cuts, and for a lot of other policies that offended liberal Democrats, policies that I did not agree with, was in such a fever that it reminded me of the worst days of the hate machine against Bill Clinton, except this time it was my side against George Bush.” In fact, neither of those things happened. What the aides, families of Presidents Bush and Clinton, and friends witnessed was something else entirely. “President Clinton and Senator Clinton, welcome home,” Bush began, exuding genuine warmth as he pointed his remarks directly at the guests of honor.18 Clinton appeared touched as he mouthed thanks and lowered his head with a slight nod.

  Bush would thank the appropriate parties for attending and then, in essence, welcome Clinton to his family—the Bush family and the family of ex-presidents. “As you might know, my father and I have decided to call each other by numbers,” Bush said. “He’s Forty-One, I’m Forty-Three. . . . It’s a great pleasure to honor number Forty-Two. We’re glad you’re here, Forty-Two.”

  The compliments in the East Room would continue to be exchanged. “Over eight years it was clear that Bill Clinton loved the job of the presidency. He filled this house with energy and joy. He’s a man of enthusiasm and warmth, who could make a compelling case and effectively advance the causes that drew him to public service.”

  It was perhaps an understated gesture, but a meaningful one. “Bill Clinton was moved. I could see him right in front of me. And the entire audience, when President Bush was done, stood up and gave President Bush a standing ovation,” says Davis, who served in the Clinton White House and considers George W. Bush a close friend, too.

  “Oh my God,” Davis thought as he watched the scene unfold. “George Bush has proven what I’ve always known about him and maybe about politics: that when you transcend the hate and the polarization, there’s humanity there that people were recognizing, the graciousness of President Bush.”19

  Bill Clinton would return the favor when he took the stage after unveiling the massive painting. The portrait is on canvas, about forty-six by fifty-eight inches, and captures former president Clinton “standing in the Oval Office, behind his desk,” according to the painter, Simmie Knox, the first African American to get the privilege and honor of creating a presidential portrait. “He’s a wonderful man,” Knox told National Public Radio.20 It captures, as the artist explained, eye-to-eye contact between the painted president and the viewer—a telling trait, perhaps the charisma and ability to co
nnect with just about anyone that Clinton has shown throughout the course of his lifetime.

  “Mr. President, I had mixed feelings coming here today, and they were only confirmed by all those kind and generous things you said. Made me feel like I was a pickle stepping into history,” Forty-Two said to Forty-Three.21

  Clinton’s next big opportunity to cement the public image of a Bush-Clinton alliance arose after a category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds crashed into the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. George W. Bush asked his father and Clinton to do for New Orleans and the Gulf what they’d done for South Asia.

  No natural disaster in seven decades had killed more Americans than Hurricane Katrina. To be in the Gulf region was to lose, in many instances, all of the little you owned. To be in parts of New Orleans, especially the Superdome, was to be subject to disgusting conditions and estranged from many of the trappings of civilization. And to be in the rest of the country was to be inundated with images of our fellow Americans looting abandoned shops, waiting for rescue on the rooftops of flooded homes, or pleading for water from reporters who had found a convention center of refugees that the Federal Emergency Management Agency apparently couldn’t.

  Katrina was the costliest natural disaster in American history, and it was the beginning of the end of George W. Bush’s presidency. After a start that was slow—glacierlike would be more precise—Bush vowed to spend whatever it took to rebuild New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf. And one of the first things he did was ask his two predecessors to tour the region, raise money, and spend it wisely.

  Clinton and the elder Bush taped public service announcements, sat for joint interviews, and started calling donors. Checks were sent—by everyone from Girl Scouts to billionaires—to Bush’s and Clinton’s offices in Houston and Harlem. Most were addressed to the nonprofit foundation the ex-presidents had set up for Katrina relief, but some of the checks were simply addressed to them personally. The two presidents whose two most famous quotes were untrue—“Read my lips” and “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”—were now so trusted that Americans who wanted to help hurricane victims were simply sending Bush and Clinton cash. They raised $130 million.

  Bill Clinton’s new best friend also worked his own family hard on his successor’s behalf. By all accounts, the highest reverence within the Bush family is reserved for their aging patriarch. That Clinton seemed to be genuinely interested in the Old Man counted for a lot. The effect on the Bush family was in keeping with the old man’s status as patriarch, hero, and idol.

  Clinton’s charm offensive extended not only to the Bushes, but to key aides as well. In his memoir, Karl Rove recalls Clinton going out of his way to profusely praise the phrase “compassionate conservative”—an indirect way of praising Rove himself. And when Rove was under fire for masterminding the loss of Congress to the Democrats in 2006, Rove remembered Clinton telling him, “no one’s ever going to give you credit, but it was sheer genius what you and [RNC chairman Ken] Mehlman did with the seventy-two-hour task force. We should have won twice as many seats, but we didn’t because of what you all did to get out your vote.”22

  “He’s very engaging, very personable, wants to know the latest gossip, has lots of interesting insights and opinions,” Rove tells me in an interview. The Bush strategist then lapses into an uncanny imitation of Clinton: “ ‘You just ran an incredible campaign. It was just, what you did to John Kerry it was unbelievable. You’re a genius. I just tell you, you’re remarkable. It’s really something what you did.’ ”

  The controversial Bush defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld wasn’t off-limits, either. After the Iraq War and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal plagued the Bush administration, Bill Clinton went so far as to offer words of support to Rumsfeld, the Democrats’ top target. In his memoir, Rumsfeld tells of a visit to the World War II memorial in Washington on May 29, 2004, when he encountered Bill Clinton. “Mr. Secretary,” the former president said. “No one with an ounce of sense thinks you had any way in the world to know about the abuse taking place that night in Iraq.” Rumsfeld was touched by the gesture, even though Senator Clinton, the administration’s Democratic opponents, and probably Bill Clinton himself were advancing an entirely different narrative to the press.

  Deputy assistant to President Bush Pete Wehner says, “My sense is that there was an admiration” of W. by Clinton, which mattered in a White House that placed a high priority on loyalty to the president. It’s hard for many critics of the Bush administration to believe that Bill Clinton actually admired George W. Bush, but what really matters is that the Bushes—and the president—thought he did.

  By the end of Bush’s presidency, Bill Clinton was a frequent lunch guest in the White House, trading war stories, gossip, and grievances. It was never disclosed on the public schedules, but when Clinton came to Washington, D.C., to visit Hillary, for business, or to give a speech, the world’s most famous Democrat made time for the world’s most famous Republican. It was far more often than has previously been reported, and indeed so few people know of the frequent lunches between Bush and Clinton that getting an exact number is hard to do.

  One former top press aide tells me, “They got along really well and liked to share ideas and talk things through.”

  They also shared a mutual frustration with the press, which Bush believed was hostile to him and which Clinton believed was biased toward Obama and against Hillary. “That cat isn’t remotely qualified,” Bush raged at one point.

  “President Bush really thought that the media gave Hillary Clinton a raw deal during the campaign,” one senior aide says, “and certainly the Clinton campaign thought that as well. So I think [Clinton] would call him just to talk about politics. They shared a frustration with the media.”

  Today, the former rival families appear to be as thick as thieves. They pose for photos together, deliver speeches with each other, and offer each other bountiful praise. A few years ago, when a Bush family picture was taken at the Kennedy Center after ceremonies celebrating the life of the forty-first president, there were twenty-seven Bushes in the photograph—and Bill Clinton. (There again was Clinton, without much of an extended family of his own, inserting himself into another family’s photo.)

  To many close Bill Clinton observers, the elder Bush was the replacement father he never had. (Clinton’s biological father, William Blythe Sr., died in a car accident shortly before his son was born. His stepfather, Roger Clinton Sr., was an abusive alcoholic.)

  Clinton is a “little bit vulnerable,” says a former Bush administration press aide who has observed the Bush-Clinton interaction up close. “Like he might sit down across the table from you and just say, ‘God, am I a flawed character.’ . . . I do think that if you’re looking into this relationship, one thing that’s worth considering is how the Bush family tends to pick up orphans along the way, meaning that because it’s such a big and strong, vibrant family, and a lot of us don’t have that in our life, but we long for it.”

  There are signs, however, that the Bush-Clinton love affair is a rather shallow one behind the scenes. George H. W. Bush’s affection for Clinton is said by almost all accounts to be genuine, but no one is sure that holds true for Clinton, or for the other Bushes. Many suggest this is more PR than reality.

  Consider John McCain, long acquainted with the Bush family, as among the skeptics. “I’m not sure that they’re close,” he opines, as he reflects on the relationship in his Washington office in 2013.

  “The relationship’s been overstated a lot, which I always find interesting,” says a source close to Bill Clinton. “I mean, they see each other and they talk to each other, you know, maybe three times a year kind of thing. It’s not like they’re hanging out all the time, but yeah, I think it’s certainly been hugely beneficial to them both. No doubt about that.”

  Of course, the real source of power in the Bush household is not the gentlemanly George H. W. Bush, but his wife, Barbara. The toughest and perhaps shrewdest member o
f the family, Barbara Bush is a hardened New Englander born to wealth, a woman of strong opinions and sharp edges. A notorious grudge holder, she famously despised Nancy Reagan for “snubbing” the Bushes during the Reagan administration, and when she became First Lady went out of her way to mock Mrs. Reagan’s designer clothes before an approving press corps. In 2001, still steaming over her husband’s loss to a “lesser man,” Barbara threw Monica Lewinsky in the former president’s face. “Clinton lied,” she told a reporter with her usual, blunt style. “A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.”23

  For public consumption, at least, Mrs. Bush is on board with the Clinton-Bush lovefest. She’s told interviewers that she likes Clinton and humors his claim that he is the Bush family’s “adopted son.” Sitting for an interview with Parade in 2012, Barbara Bush offered what the New York Daily News called a gushing review of Mr. Clinton. “He’s very nice,” Mrs. Bush said. “Thoughtful . . . a good fellow.”24

  “I was surprised by the fact that I liked him, truthfully,” Barbara Bush added. “And I do like him a lot.”

  Privately, others have heard a different view. “I expect she didn’t fall for him for one second,” a Bush family observer says. According to sources, a former Clinton aide and a person with high-level connections to the Bush family, Barbara Bush not only dislikes Bill Clinton, she despises him. “What’s Clinton call Barbara Bush?” a source asks. “His second mother? It’s so crazy. The funny thing is she hates him.”

  Mrs. Bush was overheard telling a close friend in Washington of her firmly held belief that Clinton was simply beneath them. “She still thinks of him as not of the same class.”

  But Bill and Hillary often seemed to be operating at cross-purposes, perhaps as part of a sort of clever good cop/bad cop strategy. Because while Bill was working so hard to appease the Bushes, his wife, over in the Senate, was operating in a totally different fashion. Throughout her Senate tenure, she demonstrated a penchant for criticizing the Bush administration in strident, even hyperbolic, terms. “There has never been an administration,” she declared in a typical critique, “more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda.” She said in her speeches that the administration has “no shame,” “[has] never been acquainted with the truth,” and “play[s] politics with national security.”25 Her constant attacks led a fuming George W. Bush to bark to aides in 2008, “Wait till she gets her fat ass in that chair.”