When the Monica Lewinsky crisis broke around President Clinton, it was his wife Hillary who as usual was the first to spring to his defence.
This morning she is due to go on the Today show, originally to prepare the way for the President's State of the Union address later tonight, but now with the added task of defending his character.
Yesterday morning she stood close to him before the TV cameras as he again denied any sexual affair with Ms Lewinsky.
As demoralised White House aides last week wondered was this a "bimbo eruption" too far, Mrs Clinton went into what her former press secretary called "full battle mode". As always through the storms that have battered her husband back to their Arkansas days, she was standing by her man, but not in some sentimental gushy way.
It was almost six years to the day since she sat beside him for the TV interview where he admitted causing pain in his marriage but denied a 12-year affair with Ms Gennifer Flowers. Then Mrs Clinton turned to the camera and said: "You know I'm not sitting here as some little woman like Tammy Wynette. I'm sitting here because I love him and I respect him and I honour what he's been through and what we've been through together, and you know, if that's not enough for people, then heck, don't vote for him."
Last week, as Washington was reeling from the first allegations of her husband's affair with a young White House intern, Mrs Clinton spoke calmly to reporters as she got on a train to Baltimore where she was to speak to a conference on children. Firmly denying the allegations, she admitted: "It is difficult and painful anytime someone you care about, you love and you admire is attacked and subjected to such relentless accusations as my husband has been."
She went on: "But I also have now lived with this for, gosh, more than six years, and I have seen how these charges and accusations evaporate and disappear if they're ever given the light of day."
However, this time she is taking no chances that the mounting allegations with their often salacious details will evaporate as easily as that.
Behind the scenes at the White House she is reported to have taken charge of the fightback. It is she who has made the phone calls that have brought back trusted and experienced former aides, Mr Mickey Kantor and Mr Harold Ickes.
Mr Kantor, a former Secretary of Commerce and a skilled attorney, is given the job of co-ordinating the sometimes conflicting advice from the President's lawyers and political advisers. Mrs Clinton is also an experienced lawyer herself and is able to weigh the political demands of the present critical situation against the legal constraints.
She has been a steadying force as the television cameras camp on the north lawn of the White House. She has been the gracious hostess at a large dinner arranged months ago for contributors to the White House restoration fund at which the guests included the backer of publications most critical of the President.
Last Saturday, for a showing of the new film The Apostle about a corrupt preacher whose marriage falls apart because of his philandering, the stars Robert Duvall and Farah Fawcett, were among the invitees for dinner.
Watching films rather than the unending coverage of the unfolding crisis has been one way the President has been able to keep his mind off the stream of allegations which has kept America in thrall for the past week.
On Sunday morning, as if it was just any Sunday, Mrs Clinton was filmed arm-in-arm with her husband as they went to church near the White House. Yesterday she stood beside him in the Roosevelt Room as he delivered his strongest denial yet that he had sexual relations with Ms Monica Lewinsky or encouraged anyone to lie about it.
Yet many people marvel at her strength and determination in the middle of what seems to many to be another betrayal of their marriage. In a highly-praised biography of Mr Clinton, First In His Class, author David Maraniss reports Mrs Clinton one day musing to a friend in Arkansas "I wonder how history is going to note our marriage".
Mrs Clinton is known to have a strong temper. How does she hold it in check at the thought that the husband she helped to get to the White House may have been playing around with a 21-year-old intern not much older than their daughter Chelsea?
It was reported yesterday that it was Mrs Clinton and not the President's deputy chief-of-staff that ordered the transfer of Ms Lewinsky from the White House to the Pentagon after complaints that she was hanging around the President too much.
Only a few weeks ago, photographers surreptitiously captured pictures of the Clintons embracing and dancing together on a secluded beach on the Virgin Islands.
People wonder if there is some "understanding" between the Clintons about their marriage, an understanding that enables Hillary to come out and bat for him when other women would call it a day. The television chat shows now have discussions about how wives face up to these situations.
Clearly Mrs Clinton is a very tough lady. She has sometimes had to be restrained by staff when she goes into "attack mode". During the 1992 election campaign she went on the offensive against her husband's media attackers in a Vanity Fair interview in which she tried to turn the spotlight on President Bush.
The media were turning a blind eye to rumours that Bush once had a romantic relationship with a woman aide, Mrs Clinton said. She later apologised and said she had not meant to be "hurtful to anyone".
This time she is taking a less aggressive stance but she is as determined as her husband not to be driven from the White House by a sex scandal.