Tim Russert of CNBC interviews journalist Maria Shriver, February 4, 1996, questioning her about her own interview with Hillary Clinton that occurred two weeks prior:

Tim Russert:

How long did you take to prepare for that interview?

Maria Shriver:

A couple of weeks, about two or three weeks, and I read everything. I memorized that book up and down. I memorized everything that was written about Whitewater, about Travelgate, about Hillary Clinton, about First Ladies.... You want to admire her, and yet you're a journalist and you have to ask her these tough questions, you have to be skeptical, and you can't just come on and do this like "Oh, you're so wonderful" interview.

The following are some of Ms. Shriver's tough questions to Ms. Clinton on the "Today" show, January 16, 1996:

• What's this week been like for you personally?

• In the book, you write about preparing your daughter Chelsea for the negative things people might say to her about her father, but you don't say in the book about preparing her for the negative things people might say about her mom. What's this past week, two weeks been like for her?

• But this is beyond the territory, I mean, this is tough. This is your mom someone's talking about. Is she upset about this? What have you said to her?

• Whitewater. I know you've been answering questions on this subject for four years. Thousands of documents have been handed over, but they still want even more. As you look back on this, do you wish you'd never worked for Madison Guaranty?

• You also quote a letter in there that Nelson Mandela wrote to one of his daughters while he was in prison, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, but he wrote that there is no personal misfortune that one cannot turn into a personal triumph if one has the iron will and the necessary skills. You clearly have an iron will, you clearly are skilled. How are you going to turn this personal misfortune into a personal triumph?

• You think government should do a lot more than it's doing in terms of making children a priority, doing things for kids. We're clearly living in an age where people are anti-government. How do you get across the message that we all need to see everybody's kids as our own, we need to have more programs, the government needs to be more involved?

[Ed.: In the course of the interview, Ms. Shriver called the book both "terrific" and "really terrific."]

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