Childrens future and our fight to restore the nations economy. Solving our Nations Health care crisis. There is nog] . Dn prescriptio role model or cookbook for being first lady. A future is created every day. The future is not something that is out there waiting to happen to us. The future is something that we make. And i have said and i believe that there is a good possibility that sometime in the next 20 years we will have a woman president. Hillary clinton logged many firsts in her role as first lady. Since law school, the clinton impeachment of president n 5in b clinton and as she considered another bid for the white house, beingfs good evening and welcome to cspan year long series first ladies, influence and image. Tonight we tell you the story of the spouse of our 42nd president Hillary Clinton. Here to tell us the story are two journalists who know the clintons well by covering them for many years. Gail sheehy from vanity fair, a b biographer and her book in 2000 was called hillarys choicecc and David Maraniss has a book include the 1995 biography bill clinton first in his class. And mr. We start, i want to play a video from 1992. It is one of those and there is probably five or six Hillary Clinton clips that become emblematic of her and this is one of them. This is during the campaign when she talked about how she might approach the role of first lady and how involved she was going to be. Lets listen. Those of us who tried to have a career and make a difference and certainlyn come pined that with public involvement, primarily children and other issues, ive done the best i can to lead my life and i to that kind of and i dont know what else to say other than that is sad. You know, i suppose i could have and had tea but i decided to do my profession this which i entered before my husband was in public life. So as they campaigned in 1992, they were promoting two for one, she would be an involved first lady. How did that work out for her . Well they made a lot of mistakes in the beginning. The public was not prepared for the two for one presidency. I dont know if1urj they ever w be. But i think that it was stunning tovq6 suddenly see this intelligent, outspoken totally confident woman who had been given the role of copresident. If we had a copresidency, kunn might be a really cool thing because partners in mauer apowe more and hor happening. But at that time hillaryp fb ha gone from the 50s to the 70s in the four years of wellesley and suddenly plunged into a new Womens Movement period. She actually it took hillary to raise a president. She did have to keep him in the channel because he was brilliant but all over the place and reckless. So, to swallow all of that was really quite a overkill for the american public. And it took her, i think, almost six years to really figure out how to do it. I had an occasion to meet her at ren auns weekend once in the ladys room and she said, this is 94, i dont know what to do any more. Nothing i do works. I understand that im really threatening to men, that the velocity of change between men and women and the way the country is going and from one generation to the 0 boomers is overwhelming, especially to men. I dont know what to do about it. So david, maraniss, so since were looking at first lady, was she a transitional figure or oneofakind. I was say she was almost oneofakind. The role model that she modelled herself after was eleanor difference between the two which is bill clinton and Hillary Clinton from the very beginning saw they could get places together that they couldnt apart. So whereasselor was ak÷dq as a first lady, she was on her own track, separate from president roosevelt. Whereas bill clinton relied on hillary for much of his policy going back to arkansas. For the two nor one comment, which he made, it wasnt the press saying that, was a reality to them. And throughout his presidency, it helped and hurt at various we said at hooutset that Hillary Clinton was a first. Shes the first first lady to have a graduate degree, a law degree, the first to have an office in the west wing. The first to testify before a grand jury as the investigations were ramping up. The first to be elected and serve as United States senator, the first to run for president herself and the first to serve as secretary of state. Were going to talk about all of that and more with our two guests, gail sheehy and David Maraniss. First Hillary Clinton was born in chicago. As hillary dian rodham, to parents hugh and dorothy rodham. Tell me about her childhood and it . The most significant thing5n think was the way she saw herself, was from the age of 8 or 10, a star. And her fantasy was and she wrote about this, she what get out of her lawn and dance in the sun and spin under the sun and imagine that god was beaming the sundown on her, only her, and that heavenly cameras were filming her every move. She made that a reality. For many years now, maybe not heavenly, maybe satanical cameras but cameras nonetheless are following her every move. Bnq she made it happen. Her father was born in scranton, pennsylvania and worked in the factories or a mine as a youth and made her way to a chicago and her mother was a traditional housewife. Where did this come from . I wouldnt call her mother a traditional housewife, she was strong and independent and infused that to hillary. Her father was a republican. It was in the sort of deep heart of the midwest middle class. It was very sheltered in that sense. The children were the chosen ones and hillary thought hersel of the chosen of the chosen ones. So she had her fathers politics, but the politics were incidental to who she thought she was. She was very mkljn a methodist throughout her life. Teenage years and her youth minister don jones was a very progressive person who was challenging hillary in many of the other kids to sort of think of the world outside of park ridge. So that was going on in her mind before she blossomed or changed her politics. You told the story in your book about the minister who would take white suburban kids in their sheltered life and take them though chicago to see how other people lived. Right. and migrant workers. She was influenced by that. She knew park ridge was a bubble and she wanted to know more about how the real. T8t world wo. But her mother told me a significant story about her childhood. When they moved, the 4yearolds didnt admit her and a little girl named susie used to beat cowards and you go back out there and knock that girl over pins and that is what hillary did and the boys were watching and hillary came back home and said now i can play with the ever since. She has. She was also a preteen if i had the anyone right reading Barry Goldwater as conscience of the conservative and she has a she was a teenager. But still young to be reading those books as a teenager. But she also had a High School Teacher who was conservative and influencing her the other direction. Do you know about the role he played in her life . She did have some conservative teachers in that period so did all of us. I dont think that teacher had a profound influence no more so than her father but enough to have her thinking in those directions politically. But not internally. So i would not say that any teachers at main Township High School had more influence on her than the youth minister of the Methodist Church or her mother. I think those were the two key influences and it transcended politics. And her mother had an wanted her to have even walib ra um and she used it as a visual to say keeppv the bubble in the middle. Her, never get divorced. abandoned her and it blighted her life so Hillary Clinton never agreed to give bill clinton a divorce even though he wanted it. But the other amazing thing about hillary was when she met Martin Luther king, introduced by don jones, she was really taken. Theh÷amethodist minister. Uxp there weres< no black people that she saw in her class or in park ridge and she read up on it and she realized that, the emancipation proclamation hasnt been carried out and she wanted to do something and the ahamoment was the moment that Martin Luther king was shot and shecxc came i screaming and y y 0l sobbing ag this cannot go on and that is when she turned off from being a little goldwater girl to being a real progressive marcher, a real liberal. That was 1968. And she would graduate the next year. I think that was a moment where she turned into an activist. But you could see her politics changing as soon as she got to wellesley, really. As did nuhundreds of thousands kids of that generation whether they got to college. Vqt as the war was going on a civil unrest. And civil rights and all of that. How did she get to wellesley. This mid western girl. She was a very smart student. She was the president of her high school class. And was an allgirls school in suburban boston. And her parents drove her out in the cadillac. But it made her father furious when he realized that it was snobby Eastern Liberal girls school and never visited her until her graduation. But it was fascinating a High School Friend which he gave me. Crisis. She thought she had to select her identity and laid them out like a snog as board and said should i have a pseudo hippie, because she didnt care about her appearance but a moral the rye and hated it. But said i dont like peoplebgt very much and maybe im a miss an tloep. And she. i and she finally came to a decision, she chose her identity which was shervg might as well she couldnt stand introspection and her fatherwd a had told hert any expression of emotionality was a sense of weakness. So she decided she would help other people leave their best lives and helped to save the world. She became president of the student body at wellesley, is that correct. She did. And she was selected to give a speech at wellesley that thurst her in the National Spotlight for the first time. What was that all about. iw she had a speech written it was because herjvjvl generat was did not want to hear from a moderate republican, even though he was a black man, about entering the workforce and going on to be competitive and she got up and said we dont believe in just materialism and competitiveness, were looking for ecstatic experiences. Well, her student body just got up and gave an uproar of applause that the faculty was mortified and hugh rodham. C go out of town as fast as he could. But it got her into life star. And i asked, what was the most ecstatic experience of your 20s and she said falling in love with bilk. Fe . Gq and i said what attracted you to him and she attracted to him. This iskcg2 the essence of hillarys speech, were all exploring a world that none of us understands an attempting to create within that uncertainty, there are some things we feel, feelings that are prevailing a competitive corporate life including tragically universities is not the way of life for us, were researching for more immediate eck staftic and pen trading modes of history and that is the speech mr. Rodham didnt want to hear. What makes this Program Different and interesting are them. . i0f well put the number on your screen and mix in your calls and you can post a comment on thex2ng cspanprf db page and there is a. R lively discussion oz]qw Facebook Page you could tweet us and question by twitter as were in viewer wanted to know whether or not hillary wanted to drop out part of her biography, did she want to drop out of college. She did go through a year of depression. She felt that she there were a lot of high born Society Girls atzep wellesley and that wasnr bag at all. And she wasnt sure that she was smart enough at the beginning. So she was depressed. Vr i think it was in her sophomore year sozxcl she may have consid it. I think it was more like taking a year off than draping out for good. How did she get to Yale Law School . What was the decision to become to study law . Well, t]x that is what someb who wanted to have an active life effecting change would do⌞ in that period. Bill clinton did. And took a fiveyear program to get through Yale Law School. But i think she did it not so much that she wanted she wanted to be a lawyer more than he ever didhdl but they both st as a way to thei . ,p life that affecting social change. Our next sorry, was a very socially active place during that period. The classes were the opposite of harvard law. It wasnt like everything was rigid. It was very qqavloose. She considered harvard as well and chose yale. She did. And what was the environment for women studying at Yale Law School when she arrived. School where werent very many. There were Something Like five in her class. So she was unique there, as a has been in every venue. And i dont know if she she didnt speak an awful lot about sexism or prejudice. She was just too darn smart. And when she and bill decided to Barristers Union in presenting a case before a live jury, it is she who did the work and all of the writing and bill did theoan and he was brilliant at presenting but he goofed off was hillary who made a real impression on one of the judges, john doar, who later hired her for the impeachment committeeupz richard nixon. You know, their working today in that prize trial sort of captured everything that was to come in away. Where one of the fellow law students described them as bill clinton was all to kill30 . W r kill a lawyer. And we have a clip when Hillary Clinton talks about how she and bill clinton met. He was standing out in the he was standing out in the hallway and i just fux moments just sort of click and i was sitting there and i just started staring at him. And i just began to look at him and i thought, you know, i really like the way he looks. I need to get to know him. And then he caught my eye and began staring back at me so here i am in the library, not reading, here 2a he is surroun by talking at him not talking back. So finallr p lr pun i thought t ridiculous. Im in this class with this person andzhs so i put my book down and i went up and i said, if youre going to keep looking at me and im going to keep looking at you we sought to at least know each others names, ill Hillary Rodham and i said you. He said he couldnt remember his name. But he did stumble out bill clinton. But then you want me to go on about this . I mean this is and then it was the last day ofvny< class, class that we hardly ever went to but occasio2;wwn saw each other in and we both showed up for the last day and so i was walking out of the door and he kind of got to the door at the same time and he said where are you going and i said im going to register for my classes next that and we talked together and stood in this registrar endless a and i finally got up to the gloria mccue, said what are you going to take and i started to fill it out. u4b here . Registered yesterday. Always want to know and you both have explored this, what is at the heart of this relationship . What was it that attracted peas two people so strongly to one another. They seem so different in many ways . I think in the case of hillary, she had not been popular with boys and in a boy girl sense. And she likednnng big handsome s and here was this big handsome guy with elvis side burns and rough around the edges and c cbs fya q n charm and following her like a love sick lap dog panting behind her and it made her feel like a woman and that was a new but, then she realized how brilliant he was and how they do something with this guy. uks she could reallyb bring him u. And when she left the0oii Water Committee yeah, the watergate impea to little rock, arkansas, fayetteville, sher best friend would say, youre crazy, what are you doing here . Your leaving this i i ,j career inw . Zwashington, where youre in line to be in political life, and she said, bill clinton is going to be and im going to marryaf7p him. And the friend said does he know that and she saido not yet. David . Well from bill clintonstof perspective, obviously there were a lot of women interested in him and he inksjx them but hillary was different. During that period his roommates at yale would say that he would prepare and prep them for times when hillary was coming over becauses7io he wanted to imprer so much. And the reason was that she was she wouldnt put up with what she called his arkansas palaber. She had the guts to say oh, come off it, bill. And beyond that they understood that they actually did have a lot of in common. They were completely different person amounts b personalities but they have the same ambitions and they had the that they couldnt get apart and they shared movies ab books and intellectual things and i think heels for him and bill saw her as someone different4u4x and soe who could help him and be a partner. How long did it take from the first meeting to marriage and how did the relationship progress . Im not exactly sure, i think it was several years. But what happened in between was quite fascinating. When bill was running for his first congressional race and his campaign was chaotic and he was losing and hillary dropped everything and flew out there and came into the Little Campaign area and they shoed the college girl that he was having a on. This is a mess. And she took over. And the night before they vote they knew they were going to lose, she and the Campaign Manager and his wife all got locked in a room together to find out what was really going wrong here and hillary was and the wife said well i havent had to take bill clintons girlfriend as my babysitter to get her out of theksnn and she turned on the Campaign Manager and said you got bill clinton a girl while i was away and you and she started swearing and cursing and the next thing a it was a mailay and with the passivity of a buddha, bill clinton and that said the mold for the way she dealt with all of the eruptions. It was never his fault. It was always somebody elses fought. They net in 1970 and they married in