United States: The media has renewed its focus on the Clintons, writes Denis Staunton in Washington.
As Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton opens up a commanding lead over potential rivals for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, American media attention has turned on the state of her marriage with an intensity not seen since President Bill Clinton left office.
In a front-page article last week, the New York Times said that the marriage is "Topic A" for many prominent Democrats and by yesterday it was the hottest topic on the weekly political talk shows too.
"The dynamics of a couple's marriage are hard to gauge from the outside, even for a couple as well known as the Clintons," wrote the New York Times, before devoting almost 2,000 words to such an analysis.
The newspaper interviewed 50 people, including some aides to the Clintons, although the couple urged those close to them not to co-operate with the article. In an unprecedented move, however, their spokesmen issued a joint statement about the relationship.
"She is an active senator who, like most members of Congress, has to be in Washington for part of most weeks. He is a former president running a multimillion-dollar global foundation. But their home is in New York, and they do everything they can to be together there or at their house in DC as often as possible - often going to great lengths to do so.
"When their work schedules require that they be apart, they talk all the time," the spokesmen said.
According to the article, the Clintons have been remarkably successful in finding time to spend together - an average of 14 days a month and 51 out of the last 73 weekends. They spent 24 days out of 31 together last August but only one - Valentine's Day - in February.
The article claims that "several prominent New York Democrats" became concerned last year about a photograph of Mr Clinton leaving a restaurant with a group that included Canadian politician Belinda Stronach.
"The two were among roughly a dozen people at a dinner, but it still was enough to fuel coverage in the gossip pages," the paper wrote.
One reason the Clintons appear together in public so seldom may be that Ms Clinton wants to establish herself as an independent political figure in the minds of the American public.
At the funeral of Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King's widow, in February, most observers were struck by the contrast between the passion and emotional appeal of the former president's speech and the somewhat prim, restrained performance of his wife.
Ms Clinton has faced more sustained abuse and wild accusations than almost any other figure in American public life, with a succession of books by right-wing authors making the most bizarre claims about her private life. Her aides say that the senator takes every kind of negative press coverage in her stride, except when it involves her daughter, Chelsea.
Washington Post columnist David Broder said this week that the New York Times article was a sign the Clinton marriage would be "the elephant in the room" if Ms Clinton seeks the presidency in 2008.
"The very fact that the Times had sent a reporter out to interview 50 people about the state of the Clintons' marriage and placed the story on the top of page one was a clear signal - if any was needed - that the drama of the Clintons' personal life would be a hot topic if she runs for president," he wrote.
Other commentators pointed out, however, that Ms Clinton had actually benefited politically from her husband's infidelity, which allowed her to project a more vulnerable, human side than the American public had previously seen.
Lanny Davis, a friend of the couple who, as a lawyer, advised Mr Clinton during the scandals that plagued his presidency, told the New York Times he believes the American public will be equally understanding in 2008.
"There are a lot of people who will work for her if she runs for president and who are worried about the relationship.
"The conventional wisdom is that the relationship might hurt her - all those old memories and scandals will be evoked. But I'm betting, and maybe this is wishful thinking, that that's not correct," he said.