Hillary’s Schedule Shows Lack of Experience

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

Now that Hillary’s schedule as first lady has been released to the media, her near-total lack of serious involvement in the real inner workings of the government is bluntly apparent. There are few if any meetings with Cabinet members or congressional leaders or the National Security Council or the National Economic Council or with leaders in the Irish peace process or with players in the Bosnian crisis or with representatives from Rwanda. All of her so-called experience is absent from her daily schedule. What is there, for us all to see, is one soft event after another, a schedule far more typical of first ladies like Mamie Eisenhower or Lady Bird Johnson than of a future presidential candidate.

For example, in the first week of Jan., 1995 — a week chosen at random — here’s what she did:

Jan. 2 Visit to Little Rock, Ark., with Bill, motorcade. Introduces president at four events

Jan. 4 Speak at William Jefferson Clinton Elementary Magnet School; meetings with staff

Jan. 5 Scheduling meeting with staff
Jan. 9 Radcliffe Reception and Lunch
Jan. 10 Democratic Women’s Reception
Jan. 11 Interview for People magazine

And in the first week in April 1997 — another random choice — this was her schedule:

April 1 Attend an evening of Okinawan Dance
April 3 Event with the Chicago Bulls
Society for Research in Child Development
Event with Ron Brown Family
Record Videos for Third International Nursing Conference
Video Conference for National Service Summit

April 4 Women’s Economic Leadership Summit (drop-by)
Arkansas Committee of the National Museum for Women in the Arts (drop-by)
Meet and greet Walpole Society members
Interview with National Public Radio

This near-total paucity of participation in policymaking dovetails with my own recollection of her White House role. In 1995 and 1996, she largely toured the country speaking at ceremonial events, wrote a book — It Takes A Village — and toured the world. On her international travels, there was no serious diplomacy, just a virtually endless round of meetings with women, visiting arts and crafts centers, watching native industries and pausing for photo opportunities for the local media.

Bill’s memoirs reflect this absence of substance. They contain only a handful of mentions of Hillary that are not related to their joint travel, her healthcare reform program or her ceremonial duties. The Hillary Clinton she now claims to be was nowhere in evidence in the book.

The fact is that Hillary was deeply involved in the inner workings of the White House, in all of its aspects, from the time of Bill’s election through his defeat in the congressional elections of 1994. She played a key role in choosing the Cabinet and staff, in crafting the healthcare reform legislation, and in relations with the Democratic Congress. But Bill Clinton saw his loss of Congress as due to Hillary’s policies and ideas. He felt that his presidency had been captured by a liberal phalanx that included the first lady and such staffers as George Stephanopoulos and Harold Ickes. He realized the need to move to the center and exiled Hillary from the White House, asking her to mix the largely ceremonial duties of her “job” with writing, speaking and policy advocacy. But her key role in the White House was a thing of the past and remained so through all of 1995, 1996, and 1997.

It was only in January of 1998 that Hillary came back to real power — to lead the defense of the Lewinsky scandal and prevent Bill’s impeachment. And, of course, after April of 1999, she was consumed with her Senate race in New York.

So Hillary’s experience, real enough in 1993-94, led to a total disaster, the first loss of the House for Democrats in 40 years. And her experience in the 1998-99 period was focused almost exclusively on defending against impeachment, hardly relevant for the future, we trust. But her schedule reveals the vacuity of her experience in the years in between — the key years of the Clinton presidency — when the budget was balanced, the economy turned around, welfare was reformed, Bosnia transformed, and Kosovo was freed.