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POLITICS
Gossipy book won't soil Hillary
SUSAN ESTRICH
So the anonymous second-level Democratic National Committee staffer didn't know What Hillary Clinton Knew and When She Knew It, and neither does Ed Klein. And it turns out he's not really claiming Chelsea was born after her father raped her mother, which is what his publicity machine seemed to be claiming in the excerpts last week. And as for the lesbian stuff at Wellesley, he couldn't even spell the names right, and his supposed sources denounced him before the book appeared.
And this man is supposed to be a "serious journalist."
Ed Klein's new book, "The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President," is now being trumpeted by the Drudge Report as No. 1 on Amazon's nonfiction order list.
I will admit that I had a moment of nervousness because I'm writing a book called "The Case for Hillary," and I just couldn't imagine what Klein could find. Unlike his sources, I was there myself, not when Chelsea was born, but around the White House and even at Wellesley starting three months after Hillary, and at the same reunions.
I knew he was wrong about the wild claims they were writing about. Hotbed of lesbianism? Wellesley? You couldn't find a worse place to be a lesbian at that time.
The first 10 Amazon reviews all are scathing.[the convenience of stopping at 10.] "I hate Hillary as much as the next person," Dan says, "but don't pay to be lied to." "Full of lies." Everybody complains that it's all just rehashed old stuff, nothing new, nothing sourced. It's still selling.
"Trash for cash," the Hillary folks have taken to saying, and it's a good slogan. The network morning shows passed. Bill O'Reilly has likened Klein to Kitty Kelley, whom he declined to invite on his program, and similarly passed. The challenge is to conservative leaders, other media titans and right-wing conspirators everywhere. You know who you are, and you know what this book is - and what it isn't.
It isn't the Swift Boats, and you know it. It isn't going to change the way people think about Hillary. It's another piece of Hate Hillary Rehashed Gossip, the first one of the big campaign. And that's why it poses real questions:
Is this the way you're going to take on Hillary? With lies and gossip?
Is this the best you can do?
If you want to take her on, do it like a man, or like a real nonfeminist woman: Take her on for what she's said this week about Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, if you disagree. Take her on for what she's doing with Newt on health care. Take her on about the budget or Social Security or Howard Dean or anything else that's real.
Take her on if you don't think she's been an effective senator in New York or if you have a candidate who you think will do a better job.
Take her on for something she's for or against, for something she's done or hasn't done, not for when she knew about Monica.
As a partisan, I probably should just encourage you because this kind of garbage actually puts people on Hillary's side, even if it does sell books. That's why more conventional Republicans, the kind who are trying to win votes and not ratings, don't go near it and won't go near Klein.
The right already has used this book as an excuse for a week of ugly Hillary headlines. I don't think those headlines convinced any moderate voters that Hillary isn't qualified to be president or that she doesn't care about people like them. The question is, how many weeks more? Will this be the first book of many or the last of this cycle?
There's an old saying in politics that if you throw enough mud, some of it sticks. Maybe so, but you can't keep throwing the same stuff at somebody without violating a basic sense of fair play. And your hands get really, really dirty.
Contact Estrich at Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045. |
