The Once And Future Hillary

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Every generation modifies its expectations of the First Lady to reflect its own cultural values. What was admired in Jackie did not work for Nancy Reagan. Criticized in public for her extravagance, Mrs. Reagan was a huge power inside her husband's Administration, a far greater influence on presidential policy than anyone since Mrs. Wilson. It was not until years later, when Ronald Reagan's Alzheimer's condition was disclosed, that the nation began to take Nancy Reagan to its heart. Lady Bird Johnson (still a beloved national figure), Rosalynn Carter and Barbara Bush all managed to balance the external and internal functions of First Lady. They were good performers, good wives and good political partners. All of them promoted important causes--but none was an independent political figure. Nor was Betty Ford, an ordinary political housewife catapulted into an extraordinary role. To her credit, Mrs. Ford spoke with therapeutic candor to a nation looking for relief from Vietnam and Watergate, showing that the First Family was, well, just like any other American family, with secrets and troubles of its own, from her children's experimenting with marijuana to her dependency on prescription drugs. Her exuberant nature--she once danced on the polished Cabinet table--helped chase away the Watergate blues. In fact, today Betty Ford's image--and the famed center for substance-abuse treatment that bears her name--is more sharply etched in our memory than her husband's.

Dutiful Pat Nixon is the pre-eminent example of the First Lady as victim. We remember her not for all her good works for children and the elderly, but as a lonely woman standing near her husband on his last day in office as he rambled on about his sainted mother, oblivious to his wife. Even her official White House portrait is sad.

Watching Pat Nixon made us feel bad. Not so with Hillary Clinton. Nor can we imagine Mrs. Clinton saying of her husband, as Eleanor Roosevelt did--with typical self-effacement and not entirely accurately--"I was one of those who served his purposes." Part of Mrs. Clinton's achievement last year was the way she reclaimed a measure of privacy for herself after her husband's public admission of infidelity--not by pulling back like Mamie Eisenhower but by refusing to play by the prevailing rules of the confessional age. Affirming her right to privacy, she focused on the issues, found her own voice and set her own boundaries. The nation seems willing to abide by them, a reaction without precedent in American history.

When Eleanor Roosevelt left the White House, she told the press, "The story is over." That prediction turned out to be far off the mark. No one would think it about Hillary Rodham Clinton. The next act will be, I suspect, even more fascinating for the woman who continues to change the rules and the role of the First Lady.

Kati Marton, an author, is working on a book about presidential marriages