(5 of 7)
It is no single charge, but the steady accumulation of them, that has the White House reeling. Most damaging of all is the atmosphere of lawyerly evasion that suffuses an Administration so plump with law degrees. The Whitewater "screw-ups," for all the efforts to spin them as one-time blunders, arose directly out of a White House power structure unlike any in history. Never before has the White House contained two such powerful figures, with rival staffs, interlocking loyalties and a wall of protection surrounding the whole enterprise.
Hillary functions in the White House rather like the queen on a chessboard. Her power comes from her unrestricted movement; but the risk of capture is great, and a player without a queen is at a fatal disadvantage. Clinton's presidency would be severely disabled by a direct hit to his wife. So, as the Whitewater story has wound tighter around her, opponents, supporters and observers of the Clinton Administration alike have been faced with the simultaneously giddy and unnerving prospect of seeing the capture of such a powerful figure.
Though her public profile has waxed and waned, Hillary's access within the privacy of the White House is virtually unlimited. Staffers refer to the Clintons with a sort of revolutionary equality as "the principals" and chart her moods and interests with as much care as his. Few were hired without an audience with her; when the President has a question about almost any sensitive issue that arises, the refrain is the same: "Run this past Hillary."
The First Lady and her chief of staff Williams have walk-in rights to most White House meetings, from the Oval Office on down to the war rooms and tiny impromptu gatherings. Williams' official title is assistant to the President, which means she reports to the President's chief of staff, Mack McLarty. But early on, Williams told friends that she considered herself McLarty's counterpart, and she bristled when she was not included in many of the same meetings he attended. "She told people that they had equal rank," said an Administration insider. "The only person who could have given her that impression was Hillary herself."
Washington conventional wisdom holds that Hillary Clinton, her staff and $ their mostly female allies constitute one camp in the White House, while "the white boys" around the President lead another camp. Many blamed the poor handling of Whitewater on a split between the two teams. But the Clinton White House is a far more complicated place than that, a hive of many camps, linked by bridges that make easy divisions not only impossible but misleading. There are age camps, ideological camps, long-standing friendships and clusters around key officials that defy simple categories.
The best breakdown isn't spousal but historical: there is a "campaign camp" and a "governing camp." The first, inhabited by Stephanopoulos, Harold Ickes, Paul Begala, Mandy Grunwald, James Carville and the swarm of communications minions, tend to be fighters, counterpunchers and by habit unconciliatory. The governing camp, by and large, came on board later, and is led by Gore, McLarty, Gergen and others who, to some extent by accident, are more moderate, more Washington, have closer ties to business, and have never associated with insurgent party politics.