Clinton announced in October and stories like this, accurate or not, were everywhere with political insiders and the press. Pamela Harriman told me she'd always liked Clinton, admired his political skills, but frankly, he had "a zipper problem." She recalled how he'd stayed over at her Georgetown home several times, and on one occasion come in late with a woman and they spent the night together. Pamela was hardly a prude, but she was angry with Clinton: it was reckless, just the kind of thing that destroyed Gary Hart. She knew Hillary well and she didn't like her own home being used that way."

I ran into Don Sweitzer, a Democratic operative who was close to DNC chairman Ron Brown. Naturally, we started talking about the coming presidential race. He told me that at a recent party confab, Bill Clinton had spied Ron Brown's daughter in the audience, didn't know who she was, and tried to pick her up — or as Sweitzer put it, "hit" on her.

The enmity, I discovered, was real. When Carville suggested that I be brought on board after Kerrey's withdrawal, Hillary had responded with an angry no and then stopped talking to him for several days. "James was sent to Siberia," Begala told me afterwards.