CLINTON AND GORE - Drove each other nuts from the start

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Times of London

Clinton and Gore 'drove each other nuts' from start FROM MARTIN FLETCHER IN WASHINGTON BILL CLINTON and Al Gore, his former Vice-President, have not spoken to each other since President Bush’s inauguration, according to Vanity Fair. An article in the American magazine speaks of the “irreparable” breakdown of their relationship during eight years in the White House.

The two men had a bitter and well-publicised confrontation a few days after Mr Gore conceded last year’s presidential election, but the tensions had been building for years, the magazine said yesterday.

“Clinton drove Gore nuts,” one of Mr Gore’s former aides said. Another former White House official said: “If people are shocked now by the way the relationship hit the skids, they shouldn’t be. There was an almost unnatural suppression and denial in the first six years.”

Relations between Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore were little better. “Hillary thinks that Tipper is an unintellectual, nice lady who doesn’t have a brain in her head,” a source told the magazine. “Tipper thinks Hillary’s an ambitious, rather uncoordinated, grasping, difficult woman.”

Immediately after the Democrats’ 1992 convention, the two couples set off for a Midwest tour as if on a wonderful double date. In reality the two men were diametric opposites: Mr Clinton undisciplined, disorganised and loose in his personal behaviour; Mr Gore stiff, ordered and verging on the sanctimonious.

Aides said that Mr Gore was infuriated by the President’s tardiness and inability to reach decisions and felt a “very real dismay about Mr Clinton’s weaknesses”. Mr Clinton chafed at “the relentlessness of Gore’s help”.

The two men “did a remarkable job of containing the tensions and of wringing the best from their association”, but at a cost. “The more Gore was rigidly disciplined and rigidly played his part, the more his resentment grew,” a White House official said. “This is a guy who, instead of blowing up sometimes and venting all of the natural tensions in the vice-presidential role, is letting it accumulate and build . . . there was just a lot of s being built up inside.”

The rift widened when Mr Gore was accused of breaching campaign finance laws during the 1996 presidential election. It was the first time that he had been tainted by any of the Clinton White House scandals and he began to realise that “when you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas”.

The Monica Lewinsky affair accelerated the falling out. Mr Gore was publicly loyal, but could “barely even comprehend why Clinton would behave the way he behaved”, a friend said.

Mr Gore’s presidential campaign was the final straw. In an interview on the day that he announced his candidacy, he called Mr Clinton’s behaviour inexcusable three times. That was “a match on the huge pool of gasoline that had been accumulated”, a source said. Egged on by Naomi Woolf, the feminist author who became an adviser, Mr Gore refused to let Mr Clinton campaign for him and distanced himself from the President. Mr Clinton was “going nuts . . . He’s going: ‘Don’t use me, OK. God knows, use my presidency. Use my record.’ ”

The election ended with the Gore camp blaming Mr Clinton for the defeat and the President’s camp blaming Mr Gore’s incompetence.

Bob Boorstin, a campaign consultant for Mr Gore, said: “Did we make mistakes? Yes. Would I say with absolutely zero doubt in my mind that we would have won the election if Clinton hadn’t put his penis in (Monica Lewinsky’s) mouth? Yes, I guarantee it.”

Mr Clinton told a confidante that his wife, in her New York Senate race, “was able to figure out how to deal with her relationship with me and win by ten points. He (Al Gore) should have been able to as well.”

Shortly before Mr Bush’s inauguration, the White House held a party for all administration staff. Amid the eulogies for Mr Clinton, Mr Gore was scarcely mentioned.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2001

Answers

Clinton drove *everybody* nuts, and still is. Look at what he just did to the Japanese, who were actually going to validate him in a special presentation. He will go down in history, and in psychology, as one of the most extraordinary people of all time. Take that any way you please.

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

I saw Martin Fletcher a couple of times, on a program called "Inside Washington". I thought he was excellent.

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2001

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