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MR. WATTENBERG: Hillary Rodham Clinton. Is she the most powerful woman in Washington today, and if so, is that something new? Joining us to sort through the conflict and the consensus are historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of the forthcoming book, 'No Ordinary Time:Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, The American Homefront During WorldWar II'; Gil Troy, assistant professor of history at McGill University and author of the forthcoming, 'Co-Presidency: The Emergence of Presidential Couples Since World War II'; Suzanne Garment, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute andauthor of 'Scandal: The Culture of Mistrust in American Politics';and Stephen Hess, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution andauthor of 'Organizing the Presidency.'

The topic before this house: the role of the first lady. This week on 'Think Tank.'

The founding fathers fiercely debated how the president should be addressed. The Senate offered 'His Highness, the President of the United States and Protector of Liberty.' But the House of Representatives, God bless them, demanded and got the simple and more democratic 'Mr. President.'

But should the president's wife have a formal title? None appears in the Constitution. The term 'first ' did not become common until the late 1800s. Martha Washington was hailed as 'Lady Washington.'Abigail Adams, an ardent partisan defender of her husband was derided as 'Mrs. President.' Harriet Lane, niece of President James Buchanan not Pat Buchanan, served as his first lady and was called 'America's Democratic Queen.'

Many first ladies have wielded considerable power. Edith Wilson acted as de facto president after her husband's stroke, prompting many to complain about the 'petticoat presidency.' And Eleanor Roosevelt: Eleanor Roosevelt was a legendary and independent political force. Jacqueline periodically acted as her husband's surrogate at campaign and ceremonial functions, but in the beginning,she told her staff not to use the title 'first lady,' saying it sounded too much like the name of a saddle horse.

More recently, Nancy Reagan was credited and criticized for exercising behind the scenes veto power with a heavy hand.

Now, Hillary Rodham Clinton is the first first lady in a new feminist era with impressive professional achievements andcredentials of her own. From the start, she was put in charge of the Clinton administration's most ambitious and controversial program, health care reform. However, her public prominence has attracted both intense admiration and passionate criticism. Panel, let us begin withone fast question, going around the room, beginning with Doris Kearns Goodwin. Doris and I were colleagues for a brief period on the Lyndon Johnson White House staff. Of course, you were only six at the time.

MS. GOODWIN: (Laughs) Wish that that were so.

MR. WATTENBERG: Our opening question: What is the proper role of the first lady in the 1990s?

MS. GOODWIN: Well, the most extraordinary thing, I think, is that history suggests that the proper role is what the first lady defines it to be. It may be different in the 1990s, but up until today, each first lady has been allowed to become what she wanted.

Look at the difference between Eleanor Roosevelt, the most publicized woman of her time; the next woman that comes, Bess Truman,can hide out in the White House, nobody gets mad. Jackie Kennedy comes along. She's got hats, she's got coats, she's running around instyle. The next woman that follows her wears a cloth coat.

So, so far, we've been incredibly tolerant, allowing the first lady to decide what she wants to be. That may be changing right now.

MR. WATTENBERG: Let me go to Steve Hess. Now, Steve Hess was on the White House staff of Dwight Eisenhower. He was only 13 at the time (laughter). It was a bar mitzvah present, as I recall. But in any event, how would you put it, Steve? What is the proper role of the first lady?

MR. HESS: Well, similarly to what Doris said, but of course we seewe have to start not at the beginning, but at the end. And the present first couple have created an exceptionally interesting highwire act. The idea of a truly almost co presidency is very high risk. If they pull it off, I think other subsequent presidents and their spouses may do the same thing.

But as a rule of political public administration, it is a dangerous proposition to give a great deal of responsibility to a person you can't fire. And in terms of staff, it is a very tricky business to be sitting around the table and one of your co equal staff is also the spouse of the president of the United States. So if they can pull it off, then that could very importantly change theconcept of the presidency.

MR. WATTENBERG: Gil Troy, Steve Hess mentioned your magic word,which is 'co presidency.' What do you think the role of the modern first lady or the spouse of the president, because there is noofficial term 'first lady' what do you think her role ought to be?

MR. TROY: Certainly there is no proper role. There are no rights, there are no wrongs.

MR. WATTENBERG: Excuse me. I should point out in this chronology, Gil Troy was born during the administration of Ronald Reagan(laughter).

MR. TROY: I have to say that watching the relationship between the presidential couple and the American people is kind of like watching a bad date unfold. It seems that the presidential couple at one hand doesn't know whether to be substantive or more focusing on style, andthe American people don't know what they want.

Do they want the first lady and if you read the first lady's correspondence, as I have read of Eleanor Roosevelt's, of Mamie Eisenhower's, of Bess Truman's even at that time, people were saying,we want you to help us out, we want you to take on more of a leadership role. And at the same time, when first ladies do take more of a role, everybody says, whoa, you're overstepping your bounds,you're Lady Macbeth. So it's very contradictory and no one is quitesure what to do.

MR. WATTENBERG: Suzanne?

MS. GARMENT: I think the proper role of the first lady is to do whatever it is that strengthens the presidency and thus enables us to be properly led and governed. What it takes varies enormously over time, and the situation is made especially difficult by our national fear of nepotism and its consequences.

MR. WATTENBERG: Is Hillary Clinton different? People going around saying some men can't stand her because she is a powerful woman and they've never dealt with powerful women, and she is the first post feminist. Is she different?

MS. GOODWIN: Well, you know, I think what's different about her is that she does have the women's movement behind her. What's not different is that Eleanor Roosevelt exercised a lot of the same power that we seem to think Hillary is exercising first. She testified before a congressional committee, she held regular press conferences,she had a syndicated column, she had radio broadcasts. We've sort of forgotten that. Because Eleanor was so unusual, so far ahead of hertime, there are no

MR. WATTENBERG: You sound as if you've written a book about this(laughter).

MS. GOODWIN: Oh, I know. I can't forget. Still, I think what's different about Hillary is that she has both the strength and the weaknesses of representing the modern women. So when people get frightened of her, it's not just her. They're frightened of what all of us are becoming. When they love her, it's because she's representing a new possibility for women.

MR. WATTENBERG: Well, let me ask the two women on the panel, who each happened to be married to very distinguished husbands in their own right.

MS. GARMENT: You first. (Laughter)

MR. WATTENBERG: But Suzie and Doris are not on this program because they are 'wife of.' They are distinguished academics. Isn't this a strange situation, that the feminist cause is saying, isn't this great that Hillary Clinton has this power, when in fact she is the anathema of what they were talking about, which is 'wife of'?

MS. GARMENT: I don't think many feminists today would say 'wife of' is necessarily pejorative. A lot of people were born on third base, and this is one of those cases. So I'm not sure that it wouldbe considered as much of a contradiction as perhaps it should be.

MS. GOODWIN: I mean, clearly, for the feminist movement, having a woman elected in her own right and being the president would be better than having this power devolved to a first lady. On the otherhand, Hillary has made of a position that really has only potential power in it she's created the power that she has right now. And I think that's what the feminists are applauding, not just that she's the wife and she's sitting there as Mrs. Clinton.

MR. TROY: So how come feminists didn't applaud Nancy Reagan? I mean Nancy Reagan was a powerful woman who took advantage of opportunities, and I always try to annoy my students by treating her as a feminist icon.

MS. GOODWIN: I think the difference is that Hillary Clinton has been at least out front about what she's doing in the administration. She made it clear from the start that she was taking on certain responsibilities, which gives her a little more accountability. The fear for Nancy Reagan, I think on the part of some people, was that all of her power was behind the scenes. The astrologers were floating into Washington. You didn't know where her power was being exercised.

MR. TROY: Although Hillary Clinton also changed her tune. In the middle of the campaign, when people felt that she was coming on too strong, all of a sudden they had this 'Manhattan Project,' where they put her under wraps and she put away her scarves, and all of a sudden, she was, you know, the mom, and she was baking chocolate chipcookies.

MR. HESS: I think that's an important point, because if we are going to have a co presidency, then the American people in a sense have to vote on it. It has to be up front when you're running for office. I mean, I feel sort of put upon because at that point, I was saying, hey, why all of this attention to the families, and so forth;we're voting for the president.

Well, that wasn't true, as it turned out. So I think the press has a perfect responsibility to focus on others if indeed they're going to assume that role ultimately.

MR. WATTENBERG: Steve, you can probably give a better fix on this than anyone. Hillary Clinton, as I understand it, is the first first lady to have an office in the West Wing of the White House. If you can give us a little architectural history about what that means and her own staff the East Wing, the West Wing, all that stuff. I think it's important.

MR. HESS: Yeah. It's a big proximity to power game that's played around the White House. The West Wing is where the president has his office, and the closer to the president, the better off you are as an assistant. The East Wing, the other side of the residence, is where they usually put the social office and the first lady.

So the movement from the East Wing to the West Wing, in Washington terms, is very, very significant.

MR. WATTENBERG: And she has a staff there, a staff of substantive people dealing with personnel and dealing with

MR. HESS: Well, she is a public official. There is nothing undercover about the situation now. The question is, will this be the situation in the future, because of course the odds are very great, given where presidents come from, the upper middle class, that their spouses will also be what the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls from the managerial professional class.

Now, what happens when the spouse is a professional like that? They could take a Marilyn Quayle or Dennis Thatcher role and just decide that for that period of four or eight years, they will assume the traditional role.

MR. WATTENBERG: Well, but Marilyn Quayle was 'second lady.'(Laughter)

MR. HESS: Well, but she has

MR. WATTENBERG: And Barbara Bush was first lady, and she wascharacterized.

MS. GARMENT: Well, she wielded a lot of power, but not in aterribly public way. I mean she was very visible as a figure. Ibelieve she also wielded a lot of political power in private. Butthat White House worked very well in that regard. She was notgenerally known as a Madame Dufarge or the keeper of the list.

MR. WATTENBERG: She was not known as the Madame Dufarge

MS. GARMENT: But she was.

MR. WATTENBERG: But she was.

MS. GARMENT: No, no. That's too nice a lady. (Laughter)

MR. TROY: Putting these things in broader perspective, what we're really seeing is the expansion of presidential power. I mean, a lot of what's going on in the last 40 years it's not just what Eleanor Roosevelt did, but it's also what Franklin Roosevelt did and what the progressive movement did in terms of as the government becomes more involved in daily life, people have more demands, not only on the president, but on his wife.

There is in a sense a kind of first mommy/first daddy phenomenon going on, where people turn to the first lady as first nurturer. Helpus out if we have troubles. If we're invalid, if we're widows, if we're frustrated with our children, we turn to the first ladies, we write letters to the first ladies saying, you can help us with the government.

And I think that's because the government has become more involved in our personal lives.

MS. GARMENT: So this puts a first lady in an untenable position, though. If you're going to be first nurturer, you have to have the image of being a very nurturing human being. If you're going to carry out any official or quasi official duties, you have to be pretty tough. And the two are in tension, and I think we're seeing them intension right now.

MR. HESS: But couldn't you have your professional first spouse assume their professional life? It depends on what they do. Bill Bradley's wife is a professor of German and comparative literature. She could have been that.

MS. GOODWIN: I think we should allow them to do that, but on the other hand, there's no reason to be angry at Hillary for assuming her professional life as a policymaker. That's what she was, that's what she is. I mean I don't think it necessarily means that all first ladies are going to become Hillary Clinton.

MR. HESS: That's right, but Hillary had a choice, though. I just want to say, Hillary had a choice. Before she was a lawyer. She probably couldn't have gone to private practice, but she could have been a professor of law very easily, but she

MS. GOODWIN: But it seems like policy is her passion. That's what she wants to do.

MR. WATTENBERG: But, Doris, when then Hillary Clinton, who has been appointed by her husband as the czarina of health care, which is one seventh of our economy, without a confirmation process, gets in some political trouble Whitewater, cow futures, whatever it is people, you know, normally I mean Bernie Nussbaum got in someproblems and he was out of here, you know, gone doesn't she then haveto have the accountability? And how can you have the accountability?You say, I divorce you? Walk around her three times and say, you'reout of here?

MS. GOODWIN: No. The accountability will come in that what Hillary's or a person like Hillary's power depends on is her reputation. If her reputation is hurt by some sort of scandal or by some sort of misdeeds, then her reputation will be hurt and she will not have the same power. So her power will be diminished anyway, even if the husband can't divorce her. She'll be banished. You'll see, you won't see her as much. In fact, in tough times, we haven't seen Hillary as much, and she comes forward when things are better. So there is a look, the White House isn't concerned, right? They have lots of power. They can be fired, yes, that's a difference. Butstill, I think reputation is the most important asset a person has in a Washington community. And we do have accountability. If she gets hurt, it'll be destroyed.

MS. GARMENT: It's interesting that we are so hesitant to accept that kind of informal means of control. And I was mentioning nepotism before, and I think that it's a very deep seated fear in our politics. Someone who has reached power through blood relationship with a public or marriage relationship with a public official hasn't competed in the same race. We may be better at it, but we can't get there.

So it's a kind of slap in the face to an egalitarian notion of how you proceed in public life. So I think no matter how effective that sort of control is, it may not be accepted as such.

MS. GOODWIN: I think you're right. There's going to always be people out there wanting to see the person fail because of this meritocracy business, in a certain sense.

MR. HESS: So that the farther we get away from the traditional role, the more a person loses the protective coating that both thepublic and the press put around them. We would see that, in a sense,with Rosalyn Carter a little bit if she went to a cabinet meeting, more so with Nancy Reagan, and now virtually completely with Hillary Clinton.

MR. WATTENBERG: Let me try to tie this up for a minute. Doris, I remember hearing stories and I think actually seeing memos sent to Lyndon Johnson that came back with his scrawl saying, 'Ask Bird.' In other words, somebody said, can we do this, and gave him those three nice boxes, 'Yes,' 'No,' or 'See me,' and it came back, 'Ask Bird.' But nobody went around and said, oh, she's running the White House.

MS. GOODWIN: That's right.

So are we arguing about merely how public is this going to be in the future, or is there some because of the whole feminism thing, is there going be a change?

MS. GARMENT: Well, what Doris said about this is, I think, very important, that Mrs. Clinton's role is seen by many as the emblem of an entire style that may become dominant in public life and private life. So the debate over her role is in part a debate over what style and I used that term advisedly. Someone like Elizabeth Dole would exercise much the same power, but probably in a different style. So the debate is over what style of relations between men and women.

MR. WATTENBERG: Well, is your theme, the co presidency, is that salutary? Do you like the idea of a co presidency?

MR. TROY: I think well, whether it's good or bad, it is. In otherwords, I think one of the things we're missing is the institutional demands on the first lady. I don't think that Mrs. Bradley would have the luxury of teaching college English anymore. I don't think that a homemaker would have the luxury of just staying at home with the kids.

I mean, if you look at the demands on these women to do all the social functions, to do all the diplomatic functions, to have an image I mean, Nancy Reagan had to have an image, and when the image was too much that she was focusing on buying china, she had to go and change that image and get involved in the fight against drugs. Barbara Bush

MR. HESS: But slow down a second. Assuming that Lynn Martin get selected. Her husband is a federal judge.

MR. WATTENBERG: Former congresswoman from Illinois.

MR. HESS: Yeah, former secretary of labor; one of those mentioned not up front, but mentioned

MR. WATTENBERG: Dynamite woman.

MR. HESS: in the Republican Party. Her husband is a federal district judge in Chicago. Would he have to give up his judgeship under your expanded role of

MR. TROY: I think well, first of all, we live in a sexist society,and as a result, that means that there are going to be certain demands on women that there aren't going to be on men. And I think there would be a lot of talk about following the Dennis Thatcher model and having him check out. And he might and the fact is, if his credentials are impressive enough, he might be able to run himself.

But there are so many demands on the couple as a couple, there are so many political demands, so many social demands, so many diplomatic demands, that I frankly don't think he would have the luxury. And if I was his boss, I wouldn't want him because he'd be too busy.

MS. GARMENT: That brings up the role of idiosyncracy and individual temperament. There are some people who can do these things rather gracefully and some people who get other people's hackles up. Mrs. Clinton is, for better or for worse, something of a polarizing figure. So in meeting these often conflicting demands, she doesn't get a lot of slack cut for her.

MS. GOODWIN: Although she did at the beginning. You know, it seems to me that one of the difficulties that Hillary Clinton is having now is that when she was first lady in those first months, the press went nuts over the idea that this was so powerful, she was so extraordinary that it was almost like they were waiting to pull herdown.

MR. HESS: Well, the press always gets it right by averaging. They go too far one way, too far the other way. (Laughter)

MR. TROY: There's also there's a political need for more people to help out the presidency. In other words, when Jimmy Carter first starts running and he's doing his, you know, very intense, one on one campaign in Iowa, he needs Rosalyn Carter in Florida. And I think the presidents need those emissaries to the world of television, to theworld of press, to the world of entertainment to kind of make them more famous, to give them a higher profile.

MS. GOODWIN: You know, he's brought up an interesting pointbecause one difference today from the past is the media exposure of the private life of our public figures so that we become more interested, whatever the first lady does. She's already been in 'People' magazine, and everybody knows about the kid and the father and the mother in a way that wasn't true before.

I mean, there was one time when President Pierce spoke about the death of his son at his inaugural, it was considered an incredible breach of dignity because you didn't talk about your private life--even though his little kid had just died before he became president and his wife wasn't even going to speak to anyone because she was so upset. So that's different today. I mean today I think it's gone the opposite direction.

MR. HESS: There's nothing we can do about that.

MS. GOODWIN: You don't think there's anything we can do about it? Are we going to have just no private lives anymore?

MR. HESS: I think it will just have to be understood, to the degree that you ask for the power from the people, you give up that comparable amount of your privacy.

MR. WATTENBERG: You have all been around this operation. Every president that I have observed at some point or another says, I need a zone of privacy. This is just absolute--I mean, Camp David and all that--blah, blah, blah.

And then the next day, you get the photo opportunity schedule fromthe White House Office of the President. I'm not talking about the current incumbent, but believe me, I'm sure she'll be there, the daughter will be there, the son will be there, her Secret Service code name is such and such, her favorite hobby is tennis, blah, blah,blah.

I mean, don't those presidents of ours want it both ways?

MS. GOODWIN: Oh, of course they do.

MR. HESS: Absolutely.

MS. GOODWIN: I'll tell you, that's another interesting piece aboutthis first ladyship because one of the important functions in thepast that I think first ladies performed for their husbands was to allow them to relax. I mean, the famous comment that Jackie Kennedy said, when Jack comes home at the end of the night, he doesn't want to talk about Cambodia and Laos with me; he wants to talk about the kids and have candlelight dinners, and so forth. And that was one of the difficulties that Eleanor Roosevelt had. Poor Franklin would be in there trying to have his cocktail hour, and she'd come in talking about migrant workers and blacks, and he couldn't relax as a result.

So I'm not sure it's very relaxing between Hillary and Bill Clinton at this point in time. And that's a normal function. Lady Bird, as you know, when Johnson would go off on these crazy jags about the press and, you know, paranoid sometimes, she would stick her hand on his knee and just say, now, Lyndon, don't believe those FBI reports, you know they're not true. And that settling device is very important, but to the extent that a woman becomes a professional, it's hard to be the relaxer.

MR. TROY: Mamie Eisenhower was in the Oval Office three times in eight years because she didn't want to get involved.

MS. GOODWIN: No kidding?

MR. TROY: She wanted to keep, you know, that zone of respect.

MS. GOODWIN: But you know, I think one of the problems is, to the extent that politicians give in to the press's desire for interesting, dramatic stories about their personal lives, as I think Clinton and Gore did in this last campaign, when they gave their convention speeches, they talked so heartfeltly about their private lives, I worry that to some extent they can become like Oprah Winfrey after a while. There's got to be a mystery to leadership. Part of the great leaders of the past--we didn't know them all that well. I don't know that I want to know what kind of boxers Bill Clinton wears when he gets up in the morning.

MR. WATTENBERG: I never believed that presidents could be, quote,overexposed. You said, oh, don't overexpose them. Do you get the feeling that Clinton--I mean the president is overexposed?

MS. GOODWIN: Oh, absolutely overexposed. Absolutely.

MR. WATTENBERG: For just that reason. I mean you lose some dignity when every time you turn on C Span, there he is. You say, oh, him again--even if you're interested.

MS. GOODWIN: That's right.

MR. WATTENBERG: Let's wind this thing up. Let's go around the room and let me ask you each two questions. The way this whole thing has developed--and we can go this way--is it good for women? Is it goodfor America?

MS. GOODWIN: To the extent that--you mean the way this whole thinghas developed, that there's more room for a first lady to have power,exposure and public stance? I think it is good for women and good forAmerica, yes.

MR. TROY: I think the co presidency is good for women in that it brings them in. I think it's problematic for America in that it does create this confusion between governance, which is, after all, what the president is supposed to do, and the more fluffy side of things.

MS. GARMENT: I think it may be problematic on both counts.

MR. HESS: I do, too. I started by saying this is a high wire act,and we will have to see what happens when they get to the other end.

MR. WATTENBERG: And that, Steve Hess, is about where we began this discussion. Thank you, Stephen Hess, Dr. Suzanne Garment, Professor Gil Troy, Professor Doris Kearns Goodwin. And thank you.

This is a new show, you know, and we would like to hear from you.So please send your comments to the address on the screen.

Until next week, I'm Ben Wattenberg. END