Bernstein: Clintons Would Operate Joint Presidency

WASHINGTON — If Americans elect Senator Clinton as president next year, they will also be re-electing her husband, according to the author of a new biography of the former first lady.

Carl Bernstein, one of the reporters who broke the Watergate scandal which brought down President Nixon, told the Daily Telegraph that the couple would operate a joint presidency in which President Clinton would advise on policy and tactics as well as act as troubleshooter.

"There is no question in my mind it would be a co-presidency because he has better judgment than she does on most political matters. He would be a constant presence," Mr. Bernstein said.

On the campaign trail to win the Democrat Party's nomination, Mrs. Clinton has said she would use her husband as a global ambassador for America. But his real role would go much further, Mr. Bernstein believes.

His book "A Woman in Charge" involved 200 interviews with Clinton advisors, colleagues, and friends, many speaking for the first time. It underlines how the Clintons began Mr. Clinton's presidency in 1993 as a joint operation that only foundered when Mrs. Clinton's plans to overhaul health care collapsed.

"The first partnership in the White House failed, but this time, it would have a better chance of working because they have both learned. She would not make the same mistakes as on health care because she would compromise," Mr. Bernstein said.

As a couple, they feel the last years of his presidency were wasted by the Monica Lewinsky affair and his failed impeachment, and that they have unfinished business, particularly on health reform and restoring America's standing in the world.

"You can see this sort of thing is in their mind already," Mr. Bernstein, who has no doubt Mr. Clinton would move back into the White House, said. For all the pain caused by his infidelity, the marriage remains strong.

"It's a love affair, and my guess is that would be enhanced by her being president. They were in love when the first met, and people who know them well believe they are in love to this day. You or I might think, ‘What about all this dysfunction?' — to use the psychobabble of the day — but they have decided to weather it out," he said.

The book details how the Clintons' relationship bonded around politics and ideas only for Mrs. Clinton to put Mr. Clinton's career first, even though her friends urged her to run for office. Her own presidency would restore the balance.

The author thinks Mr. Clinton would, overall, be more of a help than a hindrance to his spouse, but if he was caught philandering again, "the great national soap opera would come back to town."

That prospect even has some Democrats hoping that Mrs. Clinton will not win, and as the campaign gathers pace, memories of the mistakes and scandals of the 1990s will be revived by Republicans.

However, Mr. Clinton's charisma is still a huge draw to most Democrats and has helped raise record sums ($26 million in this year's first quarter) for his wife's campaign.

Will she win? "She is favorite for the Democrat nomination, but then it is a crap shoot. The whole dynamic of a campaign is unpredictable. It will depend largely on who her opponent is," said Mr. Bernstein, whose book took eight years to research and write and has been praised by reviewers for its fairness and thoroughness. He can but admire how Mrs. Clinton has "restored some real dignity to their partnership" after the global exposure of his misbehavior and their failures the first time round. The couple's rehabilitation began with her election as senator for New York in 2000, his last year in office, which gave Mrs. Clinton her first taste of independence since their marriage.

"She would also have more experience and comprehension of the presidency than any new president has ever known and that will be hugely valuable," Mr. Bernstein at his Manhattan office said.

It was 35 years ago yesterday that Mr. Bernstein, now 63, and Bob Woodward were called into the news editor's office at the Washington Post to have it confirmed that they would work together on what became the story of a lifetime — the break-in at the Democrat Party headquarters at the Watergate building, and the subsequent cover-up by the Nixon administration that brought about his resignation.