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Felsenthal, a friend of mine, is coming out with a new book, Clinton in Exile: A President Out of the White House. Even in 2001, when he moved out on his own terms because his presidency was over, she says, it was a pretty miserable leavetaking. He was in semidisgrace, thanks to the Marc Rich pardon and stories (way overblown, according to Felsenthal) of his staff trashing Air Force One and the West Wing. TV comics “made him into a ridiculous, pitiful figure.” To top it off, he had nowhere to go. The Clintons had bought a place in Chappaqua so she could run for senator in New York, but now that she’d been elected she was never there and it meant nothing to him. “He was stranded with his dog Buddy and his butler and the Secret Service in the garage,” with Maureen Dowd hiding out front in the evergreens waiting to pounce, she says.
Clinton showed up onstage with Hillary and Chelsea Tuesday night to bask in the Pennsylvania victory, but he hasn’t been seen much since the night of the Iowa defeat. His staying away has been tactical, Felsenthal says, not a sign that the couple’s on the outs. They seldom see each other, but they talk all the time, and despite how odd the marriage is it’s a strong one, she believes. If Hillary’s president she’ll be the boss, but he’ll be her top consultant, “and that’s why the vice presidency in a Hillary Clinton administration would be a bucket of warm piss.” In other words, a return to normalcy. That’s what John Nance Garner called the vice presidency when he served under FDR, long before the office was taken over by Rasputin, I mean Dick Cheney.
