Posted on 08/15/2003 5:41:15 AM PDT by mountaineer
Sen. Hillary Clinton's book has occasioned many surprises. It ought not to have been a success. Most of the reviews in the nation's most prestigious journals were hostile. Living History, it was said, was a political book designed to further her political career and a possible run for the presidency in 2008. It was a biased account of her years in the White House that told not the true story but her version of the story.
Worst of all, it was said, she tried to explain why she did not dump Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. A woman who purported to be feminist and had any self-respect would have walked out on him. Some reviewers even expressed the hope that the book would flop and that the publisher would lament the huge advance payment. Most books by former politicians, it was said, were failures.
The reviews themselves did not surprise me. The elite media had hated the Clintons even before the first inauguration and had, in an odd political alliance, made common cause with the radical Republicans who wanted to repeal the election. I was, however, inclined to believe that the public had had enough of the Clintons and wanted to forget about them. All right, she had been elected to the U.S. Senate, but from New York, not a ''mainstream'' state like Texas or California.
One commentator even said he would eat his shoes if her book sold a million copies. When sales passed the first million, Sen. Clinton brought him a cake in shoes form. He ate the cake. When you sell a million books, you can afford to be gracious to begrudgers.
All right, there was a lot of hype about the book and a big advertising and media campaign. True enough, but you don't sell a million copies of a book by hype and ads, nor do you draw huge crowds to bookstore signings. How, then, does one explain the huge success of the book?
The answer, I suspect, is the disconnect between the national press and the ordinary people. People in President Bush's Republican ''base'' have always despised the Clintons, but that group never has been a majority of the country. Even at the height of the impeachment charade, Bill Clinton's job-approval rating hovered at 60 percent (higher than Bush's current rating) and his wife's at 70 percent. This is a phenomenon that the talking heads and the punditocracy did not and do not understand. The majority of Americans are not Puritans. Both the Republican ''base'' and the pontificators are: the former because of religious commitment, and the latter because presiding over the burning of witches sells newspapers and improves ratings. Moreover, the majority of American women knew that the constant complaint about Hillary Clinton's clothes and hair were exercises in envy.
Hence it would seem that the success of Sen. Clinton's book is continued evidence that people are still fascinated and even charmed by the Clintons despite the ill will of the critics. They are not put off by a man whom the media dislike because he's ''poor white trash'' and is too smart for his own good, or by his wife, who is also too smart and should have stayed home to make cookies.
The biggest surprise of all for me when I began to read the book is that it is a love story and a story of religious faith. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton loves her husband. She has always loved him and still loves him. He retains his ability, as she says, to make her laugh. She has often been furious at him and with good reason. Yet she still loves him and still is ready to forgive him. The begrudgers of both genders who do not like that or scoff at it are not the majority--not the kind of women and men who rushed out to buy the book and collect her signature.
Moreover, she is a woman of deep religious faith, an example of the socially concerned Methodism that has accomplished so much good in our country.
It is not the faith of the fundamentalist ranters who, being without sin, denounce the sins of others. But it is a faith that, as Living History documents, will sustain a woman through eight years of horror and help her to emerge a winner.
Obviously, the writer knows nothing about those who hold to the fundamentals of the historic Christian faith. As such, the author is discredited.
"The elite media had hated the Clintons even before the first inauguration...
Obviously, the writer knows nothing about the elite media. As such, the author is discredited.
That was what I was thinking...as I ran all the way down the hall to the bathroom.
I will still bet that the publisher ends up in the red on this one.
I caught that to. The elite media has happily served as a substitute for toilet paper for the clintoons since '92.
If this is true, apparently she does not require reciprocation, which makes it a really sick kind of love.
If we judge them by their actions,(they never spend any time together) we have to conclude this claim that there is love a complete crock. Their love has always been the love of power, and makes whatever feelings they have for each other conditional.
Twisted is what they are. Ugh.
Is that why she spends so much time with Billy Boy now? Is this guy a metrosexual, or what?
"Oh, I was just gushing, simply gushing as I read Hillary!'s book! Gushing, gushing I tell you! Now, where's my pedicurist? I thimply must have him!"
California is a mainstream state......not too many years ago, I would have liked to get hold of some of whatever he's smokin', now I just wonder how he functions in the real world. A mind is truly a terrible thing to waste.
The answer I suspect is that 800,000 of them were bought through the auspices of certain campaign funds.
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