“IT’S GONE WAY TOO FAR”“IT’S GONE WAY TOO FAR”
No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don’t ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.
—Neil deGrasse Tyson
Barack Obama could hardly contain his excitement.
“When I get to Ethiopia,” he said one summer evening during dinner in the family quarters of the White House, “I’m actually going to touch the bones of Lucy.”
He was referring to his upcoming trip to Africa and the 3.2-million-year-old fossilized bones of Australopithecus afarensis, the most complete skeleton of an early human ancestor ever discovered.
Lucy was often called “the grandmother of humanity,” and Obama was thrilled that she had been found in Africa, which he considered to be his ancestral home, and that he would be the first American president to handle Lucy’s bones.
However, his dinner companions—Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett—did not share his excitement. Neither of them planned to accompany the president on the Africa trip, and in any case they were more interested in talking about a far more pressing issue than Lucy’s bones.
They were preoccupied with Hillary Clinton, her mounting scandals, and her race for the presidential nomination.
According to sources who spoke directly with Jarrett about the dinner conversation, she raised the dreaded possibility that Obama might be forced to support Hillary if none of the other Democratic candidates could rough her up in Iowa and New Hampshire and knock her out of the primary race.
Obama shook his head and said, “I can’t get behind that woman and I refuse to spend time with Bill.”
Valerie Jarrett gave Barack and Michelle Obama an update on Hillary practically every night of the week.
The Obamas were obsessed with Hillary’s cascading e-mail scandal. They pressed Jarrett for information. They wanted to know everything—Hillary’s poll numbers, how she was coping, what Bill was up to, how Hillary intended to escape from the e-mail trap of her own making.
While Jarrett gave her briefing, the president paced, his head bowed, deep in thought. Jarrett was happy to see Hillary in trouble. Obama wasn’t so sure. He felt a great deal of animosity toward both Clintons, and he smiled when Jarrett told him of Hillary’s latest travails, but he didn’t want to see the Democratic Party lose the White House.
“It’s all her own fault,” he repeated over and over, according to sources who spoke to Jarrett. “Bill should have advised her better. He should have made her goddamn behave, follow the rules.”
“There’s nothing we can do now about any of this,” Jarrett said. “It’s going to be in the hands of the Justice Department. You can’t be seen to interfere. It’s gone way too far.”
Barack plopped down in a chair and let out a sigh.
“Dumb, dumb, dumb,” he said. “Just goddamn dumb.”
Jarrett disagreed.
“It’s not dumb,” she said. “It’s arrogance. The Clintons think the rules don’t apply to them. Bill’s even said so in exactly those words.”
Jarrett then raised the possibility that Obama could give Hillary a presidential pardon at the end of his term if she was facing criminal charges.
But Obama was noncommittal on the subject of a presidential pardon.
Jarrett said she was operating on the assumption that Hillary was going to falter during the nominating process and that the White House needed to have an alternative in place before it was too late.
“I’m trying to light a fire under Joe [Biden],” she said. “Joe’s loyal. He’ll listen to you and take your advice. Unlike Hillary, he’s faithful and dependable. He knows he owes you big time. A win by Joe would be confirmation that you’ve had a successful presidency.”
Obama looked at Michelle.
They were both smiling.
“Get to work on Joe,” Obama told Jarrett.