The Hunting of the President

Sidney Blumenthal:
There was a sense among a certain social set in Washington, that Clinton was not their kind of person. He gave a little talk at a party that was given to welcome him to town when he was President Elect, and he noted that those who came to Washington weren't there to serve themselves, and shouldn't be. But, they were there to serve the people who sent them. Now, some of those at that party thought that he was criticizing them. And they didn't understand that he wasn't talking about them or parties, he was talking about the White House and the Congress. He was making a political statement, but this was a threat to the status system in Washington. And those who chose to accept it as such chose to reject Clinton as an interloper and outsider and to stigmatize him as white trash and here he is someone who is deeply conciliatory and moderate in his nature and yet arouses intense opposition - what's the source of the paradox. It has to do with the entrenched power that he's confronting and trying to change.

Andrew Cooper:
...and Everett said "Oh, I'm very involved in this organization called ARIA: the Alliance for Rebirth of an Independent America... A.R.I.A." And I asked him what that was and he said, "Well, it was this group that is, is, ya know, absolutely committed to bringing down Bill Clinton. And we're gonna do it. And we've got we've got money, and we've got resources and there are people all over the country who are working on this project."

Andrew Cooper:
Whether it was true whether it was false, they would use anything they could get to discredit him and undermine him. They really wanted to undermine his Presidency. He was sort of obsessed with the sex angle. The sex angle really got Everett excited.

Betsy Wright:
Bill Clinton had women falling all over him. It was one of the things that drove me crazy about working for him. Was it was just - there is something so horrible about a politician having groupies kiss their feet constantly. It, it doesn't keep them humble it does the opposite, and it happens to anyone who has political power. And Bill was thought to be attractive by a lot of women and there were just women throwing themselves at him constantly.

David Brock:
While they seemed like Bill Clinton was nice enough there was definitely a hatred for Hilary Clinton and a sense that they wanted to humiliate her by telling these stories.

Betsy Wright:
I never understood how some of these Arkansas based people who were being relied on and listened to and wined and dined and flown around by the LA Times and others, how they got the credibility that they got to be listened to, because there wasn't one of them that was um a semi normal person."

David Brock:
Clinton's lawyers made the argument to the US Supreme Court that it is simply incompatible with being president to be an active defendant in an active lawsuit. And the Supreme Court 9 to nothing brushed that argument aside and said ya know it won't atke up too much time its no big deal just do your depositions and get on with it. I mean, if the Supreme Court has ever been proven factually wrong - this is the case. Because obviously, the one thing we can say is that it was a rather time consuming and preoccupying matter for Bill Clinton.

Narrator:
After Davis and Camarada quit the case, her lawyers would be the Rutherford Institute headed by John Whitehead, who had long been affiliated with Jerry Fauldwell and the religious right.

Robert Bennett:
And I remember George Stephanopoulos coming into the Oval Office not once but two or three times and saying "Mr. President you have GOT to get into this meeting." It was surreal. I was taking the time of the President of the United States during an international emergency, talking with him about the Paula Jones case.

Bill Clinton:
You have to understand there is an honest disagreement in America today, in the aftermath of the Cold War and in a globally interdependent world, as we move from an industrial age to a global information age, where the way Government has operated before is not entirely relevant to the present and has to be changed. The [Republican] anti-government values crowd basically believes that the most important thing to do is get the right people in power and then concentrate power and wealth in their hands. That's what they honestly believe. They don't think they're bad people, and I think it's a mistake for us to treat them the way they treated us, because if we do that, then they own us.