The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President by Edward Klein

Product Details

Synopsis

Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most polarizing figure in American politics. Love her or hate her, everyone has a strong opinion about the former first lady turned senator who is almost certainly going to run for president in 2008.

Despite more than a dozen years in the national spotlight and more than a dozen unauthorized books about her, she has managed to keep many secrets from the public especially about her turbulent marriage and its impact on her career. There have been plenty of rumors about what Hillary and Bill Clinton did behind closed doors, but never a definitive book that exposes the truth.

Bestselling author Edward Klein draws on rare access to inside sources to reveal what Hillary knew and when she knew it during her years as first lady, especially during her husband’s impeachment. Klein’s book, embargoed until publication, will break news about the choices and calculations she has made over the years. It will also prove that she lied to America in her bestselling autobiography Living History.

When she was just a little girl, Hillary Rodham dreamed of becoming the first female president, and her lifelong dream is almost within reach. But just as the swift boat veterans convinced millions of voters that John Kerry lacked the character to be president, Klein’s book will influence everyone who is sizing up the character of Hillary Clinton.

Publishers Weekly

Reading this book - instead of just the pre-pub discussion around it - makes one thing perfectly clear: it will not, as has been hoped or feared, do for any Clinton presidential campaign what Unfit For Command did for the Kerry one. This clip+paste job by a former editor of the New York Times magazine is unlikely to change a single mind, let alone vote - to paraphrase the political commentator, conservative Tucker Carlson, readers who already hate lightning-rod Clinton know why they hate her. Those who like her won't find their minds changed by any of the ersatz revelations in this ultimately uninteresting book. Klein, also the author of several books about the Kennedys, conducted some live interviews for this one, but he also borrowed liberally (pun intended) from dozens of published books and articles. What "news" he turns up is too minor to make even Entertainment Tonight: the former First Lady drinks decaffeinated coffee, likes to sleep late in the morning (unlike her early-riser husband), and is self conscious about her thick legs. Oh, and as a Wellesley student in the 1970s, she had lesbian friends and didn't shave her legs or underarms. Klein seems intent on rehashing the rehash in this too-boring-to-even-be-execrable title. While glossing over such provocative - and substantive - Clinton issues as Whitewater, Travel-gate and Vince Foster's suicide, he concentrates nearly half of his 250 pages on - you guessed it - Monica Lewinsky. His central point: Hillary wasn't surprised, as she wrote in her memoir Living History, by an early morning confession from Bill about Monica. She had in fact known about the president's chronic womanizing - and Monica specifically - for some time. Her "wronged wife" act was just that: spin to garner sympathy for her own political ends. It's certainly true that Hillary came through the Monica mess as a more sympathetic character to many voters, but I don't remember Clinton so much as cultivating a wronged wife image as having one thrust upon her by the media. And in any case, who cares? There's no doubt that the Lewinsky affair was embarrassing and hurtful to the then-First Lady; she neither created nor enjoyed it. Besides, who hasn't put a different face on painful personal behavior that somehow went public? Another of Klein's points is that Hillary is ambitious - and that in her quest for power, she has put off lots of people including, he says, the revered late New York senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and his campaign manager wife, Liz. (Moynihan's daughter has denied any problems in her parents' relationship with the senator.) Again, the word that comes to mind is "Duh." I'd be tempted to pull out that old saw about how if Clinton were a man, "ambitious" would be a compliment, but since she's a woman, it's a synonym for that word that rhymes with "rich." I'd do that, but that would be too Klein-ian of me: superficial, cliched, and gender obsessed. But maybe I'm wrong about one thing: Perhaps The Truth will change some votes. After reading it, those who've been tepid about the senator might indeed rally around her. After all, Klein makes it clear that any time someone tries to humiliate her publicly, she somehow manages to come out on top. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information

Biography

EDWARD KLEIN is the author of The Kennedy Curse; Farewell, Jackie; and several other New York Times bestsellers. He is also the former foreign editor of Newsweek and former editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine. He is a frequent contributor to Parade Magazine and Vanity Fair.