Posted on 06/25/2005 7:07:58 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Every once in a while, something hits your desk and makes you wonder whether there really isn't an argument to be made for book burning.
Edward Klein's "The Truth About Hillary" a purported biography of the New York senator and former first lady, which arrived this week is precisely that sort of something.
Prurient in its focus, shameless in its methodology and vile in execution, this volume is a near-perfect example of what has come to be called "bio-porn," a particularly noxious subgenre of the polemic literature that nowadays infests our bestseller lists.
A book like this does not have a publisher so much as it does an aider and abettor called Adrian Zackheim, who runs Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin U.S.A. established to bring to market the "conservative" titles that lately have been reliable moneymakers. The problem with an enterprise conceived to pick conservative pockets rather than address conservative consciences is that it tends to miss some of the movement's finer points such as self-restraint and civility. But even now, few serious conservatives are willing to stand by and watch them trampled quite as wantonly as Klein has done.
"Mr. Klein's problem," Peggy Noonan wrote this week, "is that he assumes the market is conservative and conservatives are stupid. They're not, actually." The former speechwriter for President Reagan went on to call the book "poorly written, poorly thought, poorly sourced and full of the kind of loaded language that is appropriate to a polemic, but not an investigative work."
The New York Post's John Podhoretz described Klein's book as "one of the most sordid volumes I've ever waded through."
Just how sordid?
Well, it even triggered the gag reflex on Fox News, where Bill O'Reilly announced on-air that he would not interview Klein.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
As it is, the book about Hitlery is receiving a decidedly cold shoulder...just like the Swift Boat Vets got when they had the guts to expose John F'in Kerry as a fraud.
It's the down-'n-dirty stuff. I admire Peggy as a writer, but she does like to keep the linens clean at all times.
I wonder how our old, lamented, friend Barbara Olsen would have reacted.
But I'm sure that question was asked upthread somewhere.
Btw, greetings, you! :-)
Peggy Noonan can certainly write some good stuff, but it does seem to me that she is out to be the Mar"fa" Stewart pen-person of the Repub Country Club set. She also appears to have a wee bit of an ego issue and pretty tender when she is on the receiving end of the big stick of criticism!
Well .. O'Reilly did not interview Kitty Kelly either after she wrote that skunk of a book about the Bush family. And .. Bill has stated that he did read the Hillary book.
Kennedy, Kerry, Gore, Dean and"The Truth About Hillary"
Who is really happy about Edward Klein's new book "The Truth About Hillary"?
If you believe the big media, it's the "right wing" and websites like NewsMax.com.
But we hear the book may also be well received among some Democrats, a high-ranking party insider in Washington tells NewsMax.
Could these ranking Democrats include Teddy Kennedy, John Kerry, Al Gore and Howard Dean?
As NewsMax's Insider Report has revealed before, these four liberal Democrats - the so-called "Gang of Four" -- detest Hillary Clinton and have pledged to stop her no matter what from getting the Democratic nomination.
Each member of the Gang has his own motive. Kennedy is disgusted by the Clintons' moderate politics and he has already endorsed Kerry for 2008. Kerry has his own presidential ambitions. Gore blames his 2000 loss on Hillary, who he says siphoned off key resources to her Senate race. And Dean blames the Clintons for his 2004 campaign woes.
Some insiders are noting that Klein's book is an interesting anomaly: He is not a conservative author bashing Hillary. Indeed, Klein has very liberal media credentials - having served in editor jobs at the New York Times Magazine, Newsweek and Vanity Fair.
Yet, he is bashing Hillary. And many arguments Klein uses against Hillary are from a decidedly liberal point of view.
Even conservative Washington Times editor Tony Blankley noted the effect of Klein's liberal critique.
"Principled liberals, I suspect, will be deeply disconcerted by what they will find out about her mind in this book," Blankley wrote.
The book also, at times, seems protective of Kennedy and Kerry. (Klein has written extensively on the Kennedys.)
Blankley writes about a passage in the book recounting a meeting between Sen. Clinton and a group of liberal women campaigning for a childcare bill:
"When they asked her why she was not supporting it, Sen. Clinton explained: âIt's not going to fly. I'm not going to spend my political capital on something that is doomed before it starts.'
"The women responded: âIf it was Ted Kennedy, he'd stand on what he believes.'
"Hillary bristled at the invidious comparison," Blankley writes, and "strode out of the room in a huff.
"The women understood quite well: She will do anything to get to the White House, including dropping child care."
And that lack of principle is not only vexing to conservatives but to liberals like Kerry and Kennedy.
In another section, Klein details how Hillary stabbed John Kerry in the back, promising publicly to go all out to support his 2004 campaign, but then doing as little as possible.
Clearly, when a major attack book like this comes out, we have to ask, like the Romans, cui bono?
Clearly, conservatives and Hillary critics will enjoy the book - but it won't change their firm opinion of her.
But what about moderate to liberal women voters - who pick up those tabloids every time Hillary's on the cover?
Klein has spent his career appealing to such readers. His books on JFK Jr. and Jackie Onassis were runaway best sellers.
And how could the Gang of Four benefit from such a salacious book coming out on Hillary?
Easy. The party insiders know that for them to win in 2008 it's absolutely critical for the Democrats to nominate a candidate who is not considered "too liberal" or "too polarizing." Hillary's camp knows this as well, and that's why she is so worried about the book.
If the Klein book is any indication, the civil war among the Democrats in the run-up to 2008 may be nasty.
We remember the rumors that Democrats were behind the Miami Herald's 1988 story about Gary Hart's affairs, and in 1992 it was Democrats who pushed the Gennifer Flowers story about the Clintons.
From that episode the Clintons learned their worst enemies are often on their side of the aisle.
Sounds like a non-denial denial to me...
I read myself to sleep on this book last night. What a b*tch!
The MSM is seeting that we will never forget that Hitlery threatened one of her husband's rape victims, Juanita Broaddrick into keeping silent. The MSM knows that Bill is a rapist and Hitlery is his enabler and will punish anyone who dares to write or talk about it.
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