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were generally positive. Members of Congress applauded the testimony and, according to news reports, were impressed that I knew the intricacies of the health care system. This gave me hope. Maybe my testimony had helped people understand why reform was so vital to American citizens and their families, as well as to the nation’s economy. I was also just plain relieved that I had gotten it behind me and hadn’t embarrassed myself or my husband, who was on the line for choosing me to represent him on such a big undertaking.

While many members genuinely appreciated the finer points of the health care debate, I realized that some of the laudatory responses to my testimony were just the latest example of “the talking dog syndrome,” which I had learned about as First Lady of Arkansas.

There’s a similar thought attributed to Dr. Samuel Johnson by Boswell: “Sir, a woman preaching is like a dog’s walking on its hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

Much of the praise centered on the fact that I hadn’t used notes or consulted my aides and that I generally knew my stuff. In short, even many complimentary committee members who appreciated my appearing were not necessarily sold on the substance of the plan.

I also learned that my popularity beyond the Beltway, my positive reception on the Hill and the apparent willingness of Congress to consider health care reform set off alarms among Republicans. If Bill Clinton passed a bill that provided every American with health insurance, he would be a shoo-in for a second term as President. That was an outcome Republican Party planners were determined to prevent. Our own political experts sensed a scorched-earth strategy emerging on the Right. Steve Ricchetti, the chief White House liaison with the Senate, was concerned. “They are going to come after you,”

he told me one afternoon in my office. “You’re too strong in this process. They have to take a pound of flesh out of you, one way or another.”

I assured Steve that I had taken heat before, and at least I’d be taking it now for something I believed in.

After my testimony, it was time for what the White House called the health care “rollout”―

a series of speeches and events in which the President generates attention and support for the policy. Bill was scheduled to do the rollout for much of the first half of October, starting with a trip to California on October 3, where he would hold town meetings to discuss reform and win as many converts as possible. But any presidential agenda is subject to outside events. Bill was en route to California on October 3 when his aides received an urgent call from the White House Situation Room. Two Black Hawk helicopters had been shot down in Somalia. Details were vague, but it was clear that American soldiers had been killed and that there might be ongoing violence. Troops had originally been sent to the famine-ravaged country by President Bush on a humanitarian aid mission, but it had evolved into a more aggressive peacekeeping effort.

Every President must quickly adopt a strategy when troubling events unfold: He can stop everything else and focus very publicly on the crisis or handle the situation while trying to stick to his official schedule. Bill remained in California but stayed in constant touch with his national security team. Then the news got worse: The body of an American serviceman had been dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, an appalling act of barbarity orchestrated by the Somali warlord General Mohamed Aideed.

Bill was given terrible news about Russia, too. There had been an attempted military coup against President Boris Yeltsin. On October 5, in Culver City, California, Bill cut short a town hall meeting about health care and returned to Washington. Over the next few weeks, Bill, the news media and the nation were consumed by Somalia and the unrest in Russia, and health care reform took a backseat.

We had originally envisioned presenting Congress with an outline of principles that would shape the health care reform legislation. But we subsequently learned that Congressman Dan Rostenkowski ex pected us to produce a detailed bill, complete with legislative language. Giving Congress a comprehensive bill at the outset turned out to be a tremendous challenge and a tactical mistake for us. We thought it would be z qo pages at most, but as drafting continued, it became clear that the bill needed to be much longer, in part because the plan was complex and in part because we acquiesced to some specific requests from interested groups. The American Academy of Pediatrics, for example, insisted that the bill guarantee nine childhood vaccinations in the benefits package as well as six well-child visits. These demands may have been legitimate, but this level of detail should have been negotiated after the bill was introduced, not in the drafting process. The Health Security Act delivered by the White House to Congress on October 27 was 1,342

pages long. A few weeks later, on the last day of the congressional session and with little fanfare, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell introduced the measure. Though many other bills dealing with complex issues like energy or the budget have more than one thousand pages, opponents used the length of our bill against us. We were proposing to streamline and simplify a major social policy, but it looked like we couldn’t streamline and simplify our own bill. It was a smart tactic, and it effectively obscured the fact that our health care legislation would have eliminated thousands of pages of health-related legislation and regulations already on the books.

With so much happening, I could have easily forgotten my own birthday on October 26. But my staff never missed an occasion for a party. The Hillaryland gang invited over a hundred of my family members and friends to come from around the country for a surprise forty-sixth birthday party at the White House. I knew something