Word: painful
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Alone among the players, the one who remained unchanged and unchanging was Bill Clinton. Many people had long ago concluded that he was a rogue and a cheat and impervious to pain; this year he was himself, only more so. Even people who revile his reflexes acknowledge his charm. Ken Starr marvels at how attractive the President is, like a hunter who wants to pet the lion before he shoots...
Close associates of Hillary's presented the portrait of pain in the days leading up to the President's Aug. 17 testimony: Clinton's fear of this moment had been palpable, says a friend in whom he confided on the eve of his private confession. He had to tell Hillary not only what exactly had been going on in their own house but also admit the fact that he had handed their mortal enemy the weapons that Starr could use to kill them. The next day, the friend could sense how badly it had gone: Hillary seemed a different person...
...first time she showed a real curiosity about psychological pain was right after Foster's suicide in 1993. She picked up books about depression and started to think of the subject as a real disease. Tipper Gore, for one, helped with Hillary's education in this regard, as did some clergymen, says a friend, whom she consulted about the roots of Bill's recklessness. She hoped to convince herself that "it stems from his screwed-up childhood and his own insecurities, that this is not about...
...possible, of course, that the false choices of August--Was this pain real, or was it all being staged?--obscured what was in plain sight. For a family braced for invasion, hardened to humiliation and threatened with oblivion, what more natural course than to take a moment of pain they could no longer avoid and try at least to put it to some use? By letting people see enough of the healing process, Hillary could let their imagination do the rest. Maybe it would help. Nothing could make it hurt more than it already...
What the gods of conventional wisdom were demanding was another offering: the First Lady must undress her pain before Diane or Oprah so Americans would be convinced that she was--and they were--really capable of forgiving him. This was where Hillary drew the line. "She's tried so hard to protect her privacy and her child," says her top aide Melanne Verveer. "There was enormous pressure for her to say something, but she was adamant that whatever she did she would do in her own time...