Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas (21 page)

In the view of most seasoned political observers, there was only one problem with Obama’s strategy—it wouldn’t work.

“This kind of permanent campaign is not something that moves votes in Congress,” a top political adviser to Speaker Boehner predicted. “If it’s gun control legislation that Obama’s after, he needs to move red state Democrats in the Senate, where the president is unpopular. It ain’t gonna happen. He can’t campaign in those red states with any effect. If it’s immigration reform he’s after, his going to Arizona and having a rally won’t move Senator [John] McCain on that issue.”

“Obama has the view that he was elected king,” Grover Norquist, founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, said in an interview for this book. “He is under the impression
that the Republican Party is about to fall apart. But the House of Representatives is likely to remain Republican for this decade, until the next census and the next gerrymandering. And even then it may remain Republican. So the Republican Party is significantly stronger than Obama thinks.”

“I remember Katharine Graham, the publisher of the
Washington Post
, used to always say, ‘It’s hard to not like someone who says they like you,’” Bob Woodward once remarked. “You talk to senators and congressmen, as you know, and they feel Barack Obama doesn’t like them or is at least indifferent to them. And so you have all these conflicts and negotiations. . . . [But in] any negotiation you need to leave the opponent with their dignity. And the president’s going out and sticking his finger in their eye.”

“The president is acting as if compromise and concession are signs of weakness, and as if the country welcomes political conflict because through it he can bend Congress to his will,” wrote Karl Rove. “This is not how Washington works, especially in a president’s second term. If Mr. Obama persists in this approach, then his second term—like many of his predecessors’—may be difficult and contentious, only sooner than usual.”

But Obama wasn’t in a mood to listen to Karl Rove or any of his other critics. Victory at the polls had made him drunk with hubris. And nowhere was this more obvious than in the way he treated Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Ever since their golf game three months before, Clinton had been operating under the assumption that he had a commitment
from the president that he, Bill Clinton, could choose the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee—or that, at the very least, the matter was open to discussion. This would put Clinton effectively in charge of the Democratic Party apparatus, which was critical to his plans to run Hillary in 2016. And so, shortly after the election, Clinton sent Obama a handful of names for consideration as the chairman of the DNC.

But the people on his list were completely ignored. In fact, Clinton learned that none of the people he nominated were contacted or vetted in any way by the White House.

In early December 2012, Clinton picked up a newspaper and read that Obama had reappointed Debbie Wasserman Schultz as the chair of the DNC. Furious, he phoned the president to complain, but Obama refused to take his call.

After waiting twenty-four hours, Clinton finally got a call from David Axelrod. This time it was Clinton who refused to take the call.

Clinton vented his rage in front of Hillary.

“He was red in the face and breathless,” she later told friends. “I was seriously worried he was going to have a heart attack. I called a doctor, who came over to our house [in Chappaqua] and tried to give him a sedative. But Bill refused to take it.”

Finally, Obama called and the two men talked.

“Bill said that from the tone of Obama’s voice, he was certain that Obama was speaking from notes, ticking off points—one, two, three,” said a close associate who discussed the phone call with Clinton. “He sensed that the phone call was being recorded, or that others were listening in. Bill decided not to say very much.

“Obama cut right to the chase,” Clinton’s associate continued. “He said he wasn’t prepared to turn over his campaign’s digital operation, data mining, and social media juggernaut to the Clintons. Instead, he was going to fold that operation into Organizing for Action, his second-term political pressure group. Hillary would have to build her own data and analytics system. Bill listened, said, ‘Okay,’ and let it go at that.

“Then Obama said it was too early to make a decision about 2016 and who he was going to support for the Democratic Party nomination. He wasn’t prepared to back Hillary now. He was keeping his options open. He was reneging on his promise.

“Bill’s blood began to boil. He was speechless with rage.

“Then Obama mentioned Benghazi in kind of a vague, confusing way that led Bill to believe that the White House was going to dump political and legal blame for the mess on Hillary.

“At that point, Obama stopped talking and waited for Bill’s reaction. But Bill just laughed sarcastically at Obama and hung up the phone.

“Hillary said later that she found him in his office with his head cradled in his hands.”

Of course, Clinton had no way of knowing that Obama was following Valerie Jarrett’s advice. Back in August, she had told the president: “Promise Clinton the moon. You’re the president. You don’t have to give him anything after you’re elected.”

All Clinton knew was that he had been taken for a ride by Obama, who never had any intention of supporting Hillary for president.

The amateur had outsmarted the master politician.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

BILL’S PALACE

W
hen he was in a troubled state of mind, Bill Clinton fled to the place he loved the most: Little Rock. Shortly after he hung up on the president in a fit of anger, he boarded a private jet, supplied by one of his rich friends, and headed across the Appalachians to Arkansas.

Though he traveled the world and had lavish homes in Washington and Chappaqua, he was invariably drawn back to Little Rock and the monuments that had been built there to his legacy—the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, the offices of the Clinton Foundation, and the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

“You can always tell when he’s in Little Rock from the bright blue light of his penthouse on top of his presidential library,” said a Clinton friend. “It’s like a beacon advertising he is home.”

Since the building of his library, he had become an object of worship among many of Little Rock’s citizens. This was especially true of the women—young and old, married and single—who fell all over him. Now and then, he had gotten into trouble with angry husbands and fathers.

“If he were up to his shenanigans in Washington or New York, he’d be taken to the woodshed by the media,” said a Little Rock lawyer and a close Clinton friend. “But he’s protected in Little Rock. He’s considered a sacred cow.

“I wouldn’t say that Bill wants to be good, because he doesn’t,” this friend went on. “The guy feels entitled to do damn near anything he wants to do. He is the guy who, if he likes your wife, he will hit on her while you stand two feet away. I’ve seen him do it more than once. Hillary still winces, and that, in my view, is the reason she avoids being around him unless they are conducting business. It’s no coincidence that you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times Hillary has been in Little Rock with Bill.”

Hillary’s philosophy seemed to be: what she didn’t see didn’t hurt her. In fact, she worried less about Bill when he was in Little Rock than she did when he was in New York or traveling. In Little Rock, at least he was away from the toxic influence of Doug Band and Band’s dodgy friends and business partners. Hillary wanted Chelsea to take over Band’s responsibilities as Bill’s go-to person. She believed that Bill behaved when Chelsea was around, because he didn’t want to embarrass his daughter. Hillary wanted Chelsea to stick close to Bill when Hillary began campaigning in earnest for the White House.

A large part of Bill’s popularity in Little Rock stemmed from the fact that he had transformed the city. Before the construction of his $165 million presidential library, Little Rock had fallen on hard times. Bill helped revitalize the downtown, which had seen $2.5 billion in new development since the opening of the library in 2004. The five-story Clinton center was on land that had once been abandoned to empty warehouses, trash, and toxic waste. It was cleaned up and turned into beautiful wetlands and a park.

Cantilevered over the Arkansas River, the library was shaped like a bridge, an architectural nod to Clinton’s campaign promise to “build a bridge to the twenty-first century.” His penthouse was covered on three sides with azure-colored bulletproof-glass walls.

“The library dominates the city, and from the penthouse you can see for miles down the Arkansas River,” said David Leopoulos, a longtime Clinton friend. “The view is like floating on air. Bill shoots chip shots right over the roof and out into the Arkansas River.”

The apartment was filled with ethnic art that had been given to Clinton by foreign leaders. Everything was the latest high tech, including the computer-controlled lighting and heating system. There were several fifty-inch flat-screen TVs, one of which he used to hold videoconferences with people all over the world, including Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, and Tony Blair, the former prime minister of Britain.

Clinton had insisted that the building be eco-friendly. The floors were fashioned from recycled rubber tires. The roof was covered with nine inches of topsoil and ninety species of indigenous greenery, including strawberries, ferns, switchgrass,
herbs, and roses. The idea was for the soil to capture rainwater that would otherwise be lost. The herbs were used by the four-star restaurant below the library; called “Forty Two” in honor of the forty-second president, the restaurant catered Bill’s meals and parties.

“Most of the women in Little Rock considered it a special privilege to be invited to his penthouse,” said a former female intern at the library. “It’s Bill’s palace, his version of the Playboy Mansion, a lure to the women he wants. Bill has parties up there, ranging from large to intimate. He invites potential foundation donors, labor bosses, politicians, celebrities, and friends. Some of his parties are pretty rocking affairs for an aging ex-president.”

When he would leave the library, it was with four black Yukons and his Secret Service detail. As they rolled down President Clinton Avenue, a main thoroughfare, he would lower the window and wave to people, who would cheer when they saw the famous face. If he was in the mood and recognized somebody, he would ask his chauffeur to stop, and he’d hop out and shake hands with the men and kiss the women. Traffic jams and chaos often ensued, but nobody seemed to mind, and these stops gave him contact with adoring people, which he needed.

Every Sunday he went to church. Frequently, he would be asked to come up to the pulpit and say a few words. He loved doing that. He went to churches of all denominations, but he especially enjoyed going to black churches, where they showed him the most love.

He would eat out a lot. He often went to Juanita’s Mexican Café and Bar, a watering hole for reporters and political operatives.
But his favorite place was the Capital Hotel, where he liked to have a glass of red wine at the bar, munch on fried black-eyed peas, and hold court. He knew everybody by name, from the manager to the busboys. Of course he flirted with the waitresses. He had a special thing for waitresses.

Clinton’s first order of business upon arriving back in Little Rock was Benghazi. He was convinced that Obama intended to pin responsibility for Benghazi on Hillary. That conclusion became inescapable as early as October when Joe Biden, during the vice presidential debate, said that the State Department had never bothered to inform the White House that more security was needed in Benghazi. To drive home that point, David Axelrod then went on the Fox News Channel and cast all the blame for Benghazi on the State Department and, by implication, Hillary.