Whatever ambivalence Bill may have over Hilary’s election to the Presidency, and despite any gaffes he may have committed, his political relationship with his wife has little similarity to the relationship between Denis Thatcher and his wife, the Prime Minister.
Bill Clinton has already been President. However much experience Hilary claims from her years in the White House, her husband has more. He also remains the more naturally gifted and deft politician of the pair. In any real crisis, as long as her husband is in the room, the eyes of all Hilary’s subordinates will drift toward him. And when they speak to him, they will not be calling him “Mr. Clinton,” but “Mr. President,” because that is how you address a former President. It’s a small point, but a meaningful one. I don’t think Hilary would have been able to stand sitting through Bill’s third term.
Luckily, we will in all likelihood never know. Hilary will likely sink into insignificance as a lifelong U.S. Senator. Lucky for Bill, too, because I think that had he and Mrs. Clinton found their way back to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the honeymoon would have been short. We all would have awakened one day to find that Bill’s body had turned up stone cold dead in some national park and that the park rangers, who had somehow acquired jurisdiction over the investigation, had attributed his demise to natural causes. At his funeral, President Rodham would have been distraught, in some subtle, dignified and heroic way.
