Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine by Daniel Halper Page B

that we had a good relationship.”
    Clinton has even gone so far as to entertain a reconciliation of sorts with the chief bogeyman of the Clinton years, at least as Bill and Hillary saw it: former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr.
    Starr, a soft-spoken but thoughtful man, has had his motives impugned by Clinton himself, who told a Fox News reporter that the investigation into him led by Starr was not done with integrity. “There were things done in Arkansas . . . under Mr. Starr’s direction that were unforgivable, lots of them. And so no, I [do] not agree that it was done with honor and integrity,” Clinton said publicly in 2010. “I trusted the justice system and I trusted the press to cover it right, and I didn’t realize what the real game was. It was my fault as much as anything else for agreeing to be investigated, but I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. And so they just kept it going on and on and on. It was a nightmare. And I think, as a result of it, we’ll never have it again. The only good thing to come out of it was, it killed this whole system. I don’t think there’ll ever be another one like this again.” 11 Clinton loathed Starr, as he made clear to aides and occasionally to reporters.
    Starr, who is now the president of Baylor University in Texas, said that while he hasn’t met with President Clinton since his investigation into him, he would. Gladly. “Would you be willing to have a smoke?” Starr, with a laugh, says he was asked. “A smoke with the peace pipe. I’m from the West. I have Indian blood. I have been taught to talk that way—to have a time of possible reconciliation,” he explains. Starr, who wouldn’t name the Clinton associate who asked him, said he responded, “Of course. Anytime.” It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s likely one day soon it will.
    Starr says he’s not surprised by the Clintons’ comeback in public esteem. “We . . . have short memories, and he’s lovable,” Starr now says of his former nemesis. “If he weren’t lovable, I mean then he would have an enormous problem.” If Clinton could charm Starr, even though he’s eviscerated him and his motives in public, one might wonder if anyone is safe from his charms.
    “Listen,” Georgia Republican senator Johnny Isakson tells me. “If they ever write a book on charming initiatives, he ought to be on the book cover. He can charm anybody.”
    Indeed, most people who have met him call Bill Clinton the most charming person they have ever met. “Clinton was the most talented politician I ever met, certainly the most charming man I ever saw,” says Brit Hume, who covered the Clinton White House for ABC News. “He was easygoing, seemingly, and he had an amiable way about him. All politicians have it to some extent, but he had it in spades. It was interesting to cover him because he could talk at incredible lengths, and would wield detailed knowledge on all sides of issues.”
    “To a one-on-one, when you’re with him then, your whole world just kind of disappears—I don’t know if other people have said this—but he just kind of locks you in,” says one former longtime aide.
    It’s a line I indeed heard from nearly everyone who interacted with President Clinton—usually from those who do not know him well. His eyes connect with yours and for that moment, you become the most important person in the world—to a person who is, or at least at one point was, the most important person in the world. People describe it as an exhilarating experience. Even people who once reviled Bill Clinton.
    “He really does have some of the most remarkable eyes,” says Michael Medved. “Even though you know you’re being conned, when he looks at you, you have the impression that you’re the only person in the world, and that he is listening and hearing.”
    Jim Nicholson recalls a time shortly after he began serving as chairman of the Republican National Committee when Father Andrew Greeley, one of the most