What was:

Hillary Clinton was arrogant and orally abusive to her security detail. She prohibited her daughter, Chelsea, from exchanging pleasantries with them.

Sometimes Chelsea, miffed at her mother’s obvious conceit and mean-spiritedness, ignored her demands and exchanged pleasantries regardless, but never in her mother's presence. Chelsea really was a nice, kindhearted, and lovely young lady. The consensus opinion was that Chelsea loved her Mom but did not like her.

Hillary Clinton was constituently rude and abrasive to those who were charged to protect her life. Her security detail dutifully did their job, as professionals should, but they all "loathed" her and wanted to be on a different detail. She was hard work because she was so nasty and mean toward her detail. Hillary Clinton was uniformly despised by the secret service as a whole.

Former president Bill Clinton was much more amiable than his wife Hillary. Often the secret service would cringe at the verbal attack antics that Hillary would use against her husband, the then president. They were embarrassed for his sake by the manner and frequency in which she orally insulted him, sometimes in the presence of the secret service, and sometimes behind closed doors. Even behind closed doors, Hillary Clinton would scream and holler so loudly that everyone could hear what she was saying.

Many felt sorry for President Clinton, and most wondered why he tolerated it instead of just divorcing his "attack dog" wife. It was crystal clear that the Clinton's neither liked nor respected each other, and this was true long before the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Theirs was genuinely a "marriage of convenience."

Chelsea was much closer to her father than her mother, even after the Lewinsky scandal, which hurt her gravely. Bill Clinton did in fact have "charisma," and occasionally would smile at or shake hands with his security detail. Still, he always displayed an obvious air of superiority towards them. His security detail uniformly believed him to be disingenuous, false, and that he did nothing without a motive that in some way would enhance his image and political career. They did respect him, unlike his wife, but they did not particularly like him, and nobody trusted him. He was polite, but not kind.

What could have been:

Al Gore was the male version of Hillary Clinton. They were friendlier toward each other than either of them were toward former President Clinton. They were not intimate, so please don't read that in. They were very close in a political way. Tipper Gore was generally nice and pleasant. She initially liked Hillary, but soon after the election she had her pegged and no longer liked her or associated with her except for events that were politically obligatory.

Al Gore was far more left-wing and very hateful, not just politically opposed, to Republicans than Bill Clinton. Al Gore resented Bill Clinton and thought he was too centrist. He despised all Republicans. His hatred was bitter, and this was long before he announced his run for the presidency. This bitter hatred was something that he and Hillary had very much in common. They often said as much, even in the presence of their security detail.

Neither of them trusted Bill Clinton and, the secret service opined, neither of them even liked Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton did have some good qualities, where Al Gore and Hillary had none in the view of their security details.

Al Gore, like Hillary, was very rude and arrogant toward his security detail. He was extremely unappreciative and would not hesitate to scold them in the presence of their peers for minor details over which they had no control. Al Gore also looked down on them in disgust as they finally observed and learned with certainty on one occasion when Al got angry at his offspring and loudly, in their presence, pointed at his security detail and said, "Do you want to grow up and be like them?" Word of this insulting and demeaning verbiage by the format Vice-president quickly spread, and he became as despised and disliked by the secret service as Hillary.

Most of them prayed that Al Gore would not be elected president, and they really did have private, small celebrations in a few of their homes after President Bush won. This was not necessarily to celebrate President Bush's election, but to celebrate Al Gore's defeat. He was very disliked. Al Gore was not a good and kind person. That he could have been our President may suggest that God was "answering prayers" and looking out for the country with Al Gore's defeat.