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It all started with a look. At least that's how Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton tells it in her exclusive interview with Oprah, set to air Tuesday. The senator from New York remembers fondly her first encounter with Senator Barack Obama on the floor of the senate chamber on Capitol Hill. Sen. Clinton was returning for her second term and Sen. Obama was the wide-eyed rookie.
"I ambled over to him and asked him who he was assigned to sit next to? He pointed to the other side of the room. I suggested he switch with Arlen Specter so he and I could get acquainted."
Clinton tells Oprah, through tears, that she was well-intentioned at first, but long nights spent together writing legislation intended to socialize everything from health care to grocery shopping showed the pair how much they had in common. Maybe it was the shared apathy toward the freedom of repressed people in the Middle East. Maybe it was years of Bill's late night "cram sessions." Whatever the motivation, it was lust at first sight.
According to Clinton, she and Obama met one evening after a subcommittee meeting on allowing bears to intermarry with bunnies. One thing led to another and nine months later, Ahmad Rodham Clinton-Obama was born.
Of course, it had to be kept quiet. Ahmad was sent to live with his paternal grandparents, which, according to Clinton, "tortured me every day that I was not able to be with him. Everyone knows how much children mean to me. I mean, I'm not those other politicians who use their kids to further their careers."
When asked why she was coming forward now, Clinton explains that, while she and Obama have long since split, she feels that a mixed-race child could really help her win over the minority superdelegates. Only time will tell if the campaign move will help. In the meantime, the Associated Press has obtained the only public photo of little Ahmad, seen below. |
