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The Clintons' partnership has inspired unending speculation ever since they peeled back the bedclothes a bit on 60 Minutes to respond to charges of his adultery. Even friends who have known them for many years have trouble explaining the dynamic between them; but Whitewater confirms some eternal verities about why they are so different, and so dependent on each other.
There is an old saying that Methodists are always looking for a mission, while Baptists think they are the mission. Bill the Baptist was single-minded in his pursuit of power; Hillary the Methodist made his success into her preoccupation. Their friends observe that he needs her brains, her logic, her focus; she needs his charisma, his humor, his ability to strike the deal that gets things done. "There's a poll saying that 40% of the American people think Hillary's smarter than I am," Bill likes to observe. "What I don't understand," he then deadpans, "is how the other 60% missed it."
But there is the twist: in Whitewater the smart one goofed -- or presumably did. The other one didn't. Like something out of Faulkner, the saint may have sinned. Two years ago, Hillary stood steadfastly by her husband through allegations, and considerable evidence, of adultery, draft dodging and drug use. Together they went through the grinder again at Christmas with new charges, by Arkansas state troopers, of philandering. Now, for once, it is he who must stand by his woman if he is to keep his presidency afloat. He is returning her favor, in many ways, though it might be fair to suggest that he more than owes her.
Maybe it is because he grew up poor and she did not that Hillary came to be worried about their financial security. Bill had already known poverty, so it held no terror for him; he used to say he didn't "care a lick" about money. Hillary did not have that luxury. She had turned her back on the lure of gold- plated Washington law firms in order to follow Bill to Arkansas and help steer him to the Governor's mansion, where he earned $23,000 a year. It fell to Hillary to make ends meet, which made investments like Whitewater all the more beguiling. Friends in Little Rock acknowledge that "money was a real issue." In 1983 she and her law partners Vince Foster and Webb Hubbell opened a joint stock-trading company called Midlife Investors. "She would call me all the time to see how her stocks were doing," recalls broker Roy Drew. "Some investors I never hear from. Some call every day, even when nothing has changed. She was closer to the latter."
The Clintons' Whitewater partner, James McDougal, claims that when Bill Clinton told him they were having money troubles, McDougal decided that his Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan would put Hillary on a $2,000 monthly retainer. MacDougal, who in Arkansas' incestuous politics was also a Clinton fund raiser, got his money's worth in 1985 when Hillary argued before the state on behalf of measures to keep Madison afloat. The thrift finally went under in 1989 at a cost to taxpayers of $47 million. Whitewater special prosecutor Robert Fiske has also subpoenaed documents of a second failed real estate deal financed by Whitewater, this one the 810-acre Lorance Heights project outside Little Rock, which ended with lawsuits by angry landowners, foreclosure and a $510,000 judgment against Whitewater.