William Jefferson Clinton's Psychologyespecially the public, must know all he is doing. Clinton is a man with
strong analytic capacities and a mastery of facts that comes from
decades of immersion in policy, and he wants the public to know it,
Consider in this regard the economic conference staged by the
newly elected president and his staff in December 1992 in Little
Rock during the transition period. Some advisers argued against it,
believing (correctly, it turned out) that it would take time away from
other important matters of planning and implementation. However,
soon-to-be president Clinton wanted to make a strong impression as
someone who had mastered the complexity of the American econ-
omy. "Professor" Clinton demonstrated at length his grasp of policy
detail, putting his intelligence on display in a setting structured to
be supportive of ideas he had presented during the campaign. "Clin-
ton got to do what he loves most: talk policy and show off his knowl-
edge" (Drew 1994, 27).
It is not surprising that someone with Clinton's large and success-
ful ambitions, sometimes realized against great odds, would come to
think of himself as somewhat special and unique. And I believe that
he did see himself as uniquely experienced and qualified to provide
this country with leadership. Both views, of course, had their origins
in Clinton's early experience with his mother's view of him.
The sense of being special can also be reflected in the view that one
has been singled out and treated differently, whether for good or for
bad. For Clinton, this often takes the form of pointing out the
impossible standards to which he is held. For example, when the
issue of his marital fidelity was raised during the campaign, Clinton
was suffused with a sense of his own victimization and a sense of
being singled out for martyrdom. He complained loudly to his trav-
eling companions, "No one has ever been through what I've been
through in this thing" (Goldman et al. 1994, 118). In the famous
Rolling Stone interview (Wenner and Greider 1993, 81), he corn-
plained of being held to "an impossible standard" and of "never" get-
ting credit for his accomplishments in spite of having "fought my
guts out." He conveys a sense of being above the law because of his
special gifts.
The sense of having been singled out became of the important,
major, or unusual nature of what one is trying to accomplish calls
attention to one's efforts and to the valiant struggle one is waging. It