The odd couple

The more you reflect on the Clintons’ story, the more remarkable it becomes. A boy and a girl meet at a prestigious Ivy League law school, fall in love not so much with each other as with the concept of themselves as a couple, leave their sophisticated world to go back to his Southern backwater and despite him never controlling his roving eye and hands climb the political ladder and make it to the White House. Once there, he suffers one of the most crushing mid-term reverses of any president but still wins re-election at a canter. He gets impeached but still leaves office as one of the most popular presidents on record. She is responsible for many of the biggest political blunders of his administration but still salvages his presidency. She becomes a hate figure but is still the first First Lady to run and win elected office. Now, after all these seeming contradictions, she stands on the verge of the presidency herself. For the first time in American history, both parts of a couple could become president.

It is little wonder then that the Clintons have generated so much fascination, passion and controversy over the years. After all the ink that has been spilled on them it is hard to believe that there is more to say, but these two books definitely add to the literature. They are thoughtful, well researched and mercifully free of the paranoia that characterises so much of the work on the Clintons. They are, though, both ultimately unsatisfying. In large part this is because Hillary refused to co-operate with either book, meaning that they leave us with more questions than answers.

The two books take very different approaches. Carl Bernstein, the less celebrated half of the Watergate reporting duo that brought down President Nixon, tries to understand Hillary by going back to her childhood and upbringing.