To kick off the Democratic National Convention, ABC had an enthusiastic Clinton fan and biographer, Gail Sheehy, as a guest on their morning show. If you remember last week, Good Morning America took a decidedly different approach when they brought on a liberal anti-Trump guest on the first day of the Republican National Convention. Anchors George Stephanopoulos and Robin Roberts sat enraptured as Sheehy described the Clinton marriage as some sort of epic romance out of Hollywood where Hillary was Bill's knight in shining armor.
Reporter Mary Bruce introduced the segment by hyping the Clintons “have been a team from the start,” but Hillary Clinton “was her own force to be reckoned with.” Roberts and Stephanopoulos took it from there to introduce their special guest, Gail Sheehy, an author and biographer of the Clintons for the past twenty years. Roberts started the interview by asking how the Clintons have been able to make their marriage “work” when “it hasn’t always been easy.”
Sheehy brought up on Stephanopoulos was a Clinton staffer in 1992 so he knows firsthand the PR problems that the Clintons have had to deal with:
SHEEHY: You know, I think George knew in '92 one of the big problems you had as a staffer for the Clinton campaign was convincing people that this was not just an arrangement for power. That it was actually a marriage of love and it is.
Sheehy continued explaining how Bill was “the soft-hearted victim” and Hillary was always there to “fight his battles for him” like his knight in shining armor.
SHEEHY: [W]hat I found over twenty years is over and over again, you know, Bill messes up, Hillary marches in and saves him. Her father told her life is combat. She is ready to fight. He's the soft hearted victim. She's going to go out fight his battles for him she saves him again and again. He rewards her with more affection. Sometimes more power and they're right back together.
Sheehy then goes on to explain how Bill “seduced” Hillary amidst the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
SHEEHY: [T]he president looks like he hasn't slept for weeks and they are sleeping in separate places but they come together, she gets up to introduce him and she talks about his commitment and she talks about how important their life is together and then she introduces 'My husband, Bill Clinton.' And he gets up and he goes over and not just an air kiss, he grabs her in a Rhett and Scarlet clinch and seduces her all over again. That was the aha moment.
Stephanopoulos brought up how there is a whole new generation that is not familiar with the Clintons’ marriage and that Bill should “do that at some level again this week.” Reliving his time as a Clinton staffer, Stephanopoulos asked Sheehy, “Does he [Bill] have to make a confession like, ‘I haven’t made things all that easy for her?’”
Of course, Sheehy enthusiastically agreed that it was time for Bill to take all blame off of Hillary Clinton for any scandal associated with their name, because she entered politics to “rehabilitate the family name” and has “had to take the brunt of his missteps for so long.”
