Hillary Rodham Clinton has been here before.
Facing pressure to talk openly about her emailing practices while secretary of State, she is planning a 2:30-ish p.m. press conference to take questions. And if her infamous 1994 “Pink Press Conference” gives any hints about what may happen, she will emerge smelling like a rose.
It happened April 22, 1994. First lady for just over one year, she faced several questions about the scandals swirling around the Clinton White House at the time including commodity investments, the Whitewater land affair, the shocking suicide of White House lawyer and former Rose Law Firm partner and friend Vince Foster, and healthcare reform.
With ease and sometimes humor, she took questions for 68 minutes. As with most press conferences that have a big buildup, the result didn’t provide fireworks. Instead, she methodically and often insightfully answered the questions from the press corps.
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In fact, the most lasting news about it was what she wore a pink St. John knit sweater.
Larry McQuillan, then a reporter for Reuters, recalled not having much time to prepare for questions, something today’s reporters have.
“The first news conference was sprung on us without advance notice. I was covering an event on the South Lawn when staffers told us Hillary was about to have a news conference. I went straight from the South Lawn to the White House for the event. Obviously there was little time to prepare for the news conference, but we all had a lot of unanswered questions about Whitewater and stock investments that had been building up. Reporters were respectful in asking questions, but the questions went to the heart of the controversy she was dealing with. Reporters will take the same approach this time, but with more time to prepare,” he told Secrets.
At the event, Clinton was even deferential to the press. “She remained calm and expressed regret that she had failed to be ‘more accessible to you,’ ” wrote Sally Bedell Smith in the authoritative biography For Love Of Politics: Inside the Clinton White House.
The New York Times said that Clinton came out of her “zone of privacy” to address the media.
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“I do feel like I’ve always been a fairly private person leading a public life,” wrote the Times. “I’ve always believed in a zone of privacy. And I told a friend the other day that I feel, after resisting for a long time, I’ve been rezoned,” she added.
“Clinton skillfully deflected the reporters’ questions, using a breadth of details that reminded every viewer of her lawyerly past. But the next day’s headlines focused largely on the cosmetic details: the Barbie Doll top, the black skirt bottom, the flattened bangs, the warm lights that made the First Lady glow,” recalled the Harvard Crimson in a story about her 2008 presidential bid.
However, as she sees today, the press conference didn’t end the focus on her. Smith wrote, in fact, Clinton told her lawyer that the questions would never end.
Smith wrote that after the press conference, Clinton and her lawyer David E. Kendall — who is still her attorney — had a drink together in the residence of the White House. “You know, they’re not going to let up,” she told Kendall, wrote Smith. “They’re just going to keep on coming at us, no matter what we do.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
