What, exactly, is the line now for those who wish to stand four-square behind Hillary Rodham Clinton, feminist superhero? Is she extraordinarily smart, or extraordinarily naive?
For the first five years of the Clinton presidency, the emphasis was certainly on smart: First in her class at Wellesley, Yale law school, author of everything from erudite law-review articles to the bestselling It Takes a Village, not to mention architect of the magnificent but tragically doomed 1994 health-care plan.
But now we're apparently supposed to believe that she is not so smart after all. Last Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that according to the first lady's spokeswoman, Marsha Berry, Hillary "learned the nature of [the president's] testimony over the weekend." Added Berry, "She was misled. The president said that, and that's true."
This was widely interpreted as not-terribly-believable flackerly: Hillary, like all her husband's supporters, had been shocked and saddened -- astonished! -- to learn of the actual nature of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. But maybe Berry's formulation was something cleverer, more in keeping with the logic-chopping "I didn't inhale" legalism of the Clinton White House. Hillary Clinton, remember, told Matt Lauer on the Today show on January 27 not that there had been no sex with Monica but rather, "That is not going to be proven true" -- a crafty and lawyerly evasion, if ever there was one.
Assuming that Hillary knew the truth in January, then Marsha Berry's statement, when you parse it -- and every White House statement must now be parsed -- means something very damaging. Until the weekend before his testimony, Hillary was counting on Bill to be able to get away with perjury. She was "misled," not about the dirty deed itself, but about his testimony. She never expected he would have to admit to even some of the truth under oath.
Okay, so maybe she really is smart -- in a certain way.