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By James Carney, Michael Duffy and Julie Johnson/Washington

Perhaps the most startling thing about Hillary Clinton's performance last week on Capitol Hill was the silent but devastating rebuke it sent to her cartoonists. This was not the Hillary as overbearing wife, the Hillary as left-wing ideologue, or even the Hillary as mushy-headed spiritual adviser to the nation. This was Hillary the polite but passionate American citizen -- strangely mesmerizing because of how she matched the poise and politics of her delivery with the power of her position. No wonder some of Washington's most acid tongues and pens took the week off.

For her aides, at least, the fawning reaction to her star turn testifying about health-care reform was a form of vindication. "It's kind of nice," says a senior White House official. "She finally gets to be judged on substance instead of on her hair or her proximity to power." For her interrogators on Capitol Hill, her presence in their midst was a political opportunity, and so no amount of obsequiousness seemed excessive. They praised the First Lady with such words as "brilliant" and "remarkable"; they were reduced to joking about her prowess ("In your next life, we ought to submit your name for Jeopardy," said Massachusetts Congress Richard Neal); some even felt moved to diminish her husband. "In the very near future, the President will be known as your husband," said Dan Rostenkowski, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Of course, Clinton had spent some time preparing for her first prolonged exposure to Capitol Hill and a national audience. She received much of her training leading a bruising campaign in Arkansas to overhaul the state's education system. And before her appearance before lawmakers last week, she had courted them privately in more than 150 meetings already this year. She won many of them over with a mixture of brainpower and solicitude. When Neal asked her if hospitals that provide free care without government subsidies would be exempt from some of the plan's cumbersome strictures, Clinton did the unthinkable. She freely admitted she didn't know. By the time the hearings ended, at least one poll had found that 40% of Americans believe Hillary is "smarter" than her Rhodes scholar husband, and 47% think she is qualified to be President.

As Congress delves into the nitty-gritty of the plan, the warm glow of cooperation no doubt will fade, and the bareknuckle deal making will begin. "We don't intend to get from here to there on euphoria," concedes Clinton strategist Paul Begala. Clinton is, if nothing else, level-headed about her role. On the Sunday before her testimony, she spent two hours practicing, and another hour the following day. But that night she turned to another important matter: a parent-teacher meeting at daughter Chelsea's high school.