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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (11400)	6/22/2005 5:37:30 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

SMEAR FOR PROFIT John Podhoretz NEW YORK POST June 22, 2005 ON page 202 of his new tome — just out yesterday — Ed Klein writes, "Greed seemed to be the only explanation for the outlandish book deal." Klein is referring to the $8 million advance Hillary Clinton received for her autobiography. These are curious words to be publishing in 2005, when Klein and the world know that her book "Living History" was a phenomenal success and has earned its author more than the $8 million in royalty payments advanced to her. Curious and revealing. Because if any book in recent memory reads as though it has been written out of greed — a greedy hunger to separate millions of conservative book buyers from their hard-earned 25 bucks — it is Ed Klein's "The Truth About Hillary." This is one of the most sordid volumes I've ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. Sixty pages into it, I wanted to be decontaminated. And 200 pages into it, I wanted someone to drive stakes through my eyes so I wouldn't have to suffer through another word. Though Klein suggests in his subtitle that he has written a study of a power-hungry politician — "What She Knew, When She Knew It, And How Far She'll Go to Become President" — he's produced something quite different. An unduly celebratory biography is called a "hagiography." Klein's book is a "hate-eography." Despite a distinguished journalistic pedigree including stints as the editor of both Newsweek and The New York Times Magazine, Klein has chosen to emulate the works of the highly dubious bio-defamer Charles Higham, who with the slimmest of evidence wrote books claiming that Errol Flynn was a gay Nazi spy and Howard Hughes was a bisexual. Klein may offer a few words here or there about Whitewater or Travelgate, but what really floats his boat is the Higham-like notion that Sen. Clinton is secretly a lesbian. He has no proof whatever for this claim save that she has had some lesbian friends. (So do I. Does that make me a lesbian?) Indeed, Klein even offers the quaint theory that it doesn't really matter whether Hillary ever acted on her supposed lesbian tendencies. "To be a lesbian," he lectures on page 63, "it was not necessary for a woman to have a physical relationship with another woman. Such a relationship could be romantic and asexual." He quotes someone he says is an unnamed college classmate of Hillary's, who claims that "the notion of a woman being a lesbian was fascinating to Hillary . . . But she was much more interested in lesbianism as a political statement than a sexual practice . . . Hillary talked about it a lot, read lesbian literature, and embraced it as a revolutionary concept." Oh, really. Let's see. It's June 2005. Hillary Clinton has been a major public figure in the United States for nearly 15 years. Somehow I imagine that if, indeed, she had "embraced" lesbianism "as a revolutionary concept" during her college years — years that have been written about exhaustively — we would have heard about it before now. We also probably would have heard by now that Bill Clinton learned Hillary was pregnant with Chelsea by reading about it in an Arkansas newspaper. This detail is offered up by a single source — an "investment banker from New York" — in the course of a story about how Bill "raped" Hillary while on vacation in Bermuda in 1979. Everything in this book that matters has been written before, and better. Everything else in it shouldn't have been published. E-mail: podhoretz@nypost.com nypost.com

To: Sully- who wrote (11400)	6/23/2005 2:00:03 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

NOW THAT IS A TOUGH REVIEW jim geraghty reporting TKS John Podhoretz is my hero. His take on the Ed Klein book about Hillary Clinton: <<< This is one of the most sordid volumes I've ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. Sixty pages into it, I wanted to be decontaminated. And 200 pages into it, I wanted someone to drive stakes through my eyes so I wouldn't have to suffer through another word. >>> So that's a thumbs down, right? I can't believe some loons thought Kathryn was too tough on Klein in her interview. The guy is throwing around poorly-sourced crap. If you're going to throw around nitroglycerin like the rape tale, you had better have some darn solid evidence. No matter what anybody thinks of her parents, Chelsea Clinton deserves better. I can't believe anyone compared this book to "Unfit for Command" - the Swifties had dozens of witnesses, and odd contradictions in Kerry's stories over the years, and Christmas in Cambodia, and Kerry's testimony before the Senate, and a veritable mountain of evidence compared to Klein's stuff. Kitty Kelley is the better comparison. Folks, there are plenty of arguments against Hillary Clinton, her policies, her views, her proposals, and her philosophies. This stuff ain't it. Nobody on the right, left, or center ought to stoop to this level. tks.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (11400)	6/23/2005 4:25:21 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Klein Backs off Clinton Rape Smear in Hannity Interview Posted by James Joyner Outside The Beltway Edward Klein has backed down from his allegation that Bill Clinton raped Hillary, leading to the conception of Chelsea. <<< Klein backs off rape smear in Hannity interview (Media Matters for America) Asked by interviewer Sean Hannity "about whether or not Bill [Clinton] raped her [Hillary Clinton] and conceived Chelsea that way," author Edward Klein backed off the claim in two June 21 interviews -- and told two conflicting stories about his own sourcing for it in the process. In an afternoon interview on Hannity's nationally syndicated radio show to promote his new attack book on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), The Truth About Hillary (Sentinel, June 2005), Klein said, "My source never said Bill raped Hillary." He added that the supposed "source" thought that Bill Clinton had made the comment, "I'm going to go back to my cottage and rape my wife," as a "joke" and in "jest." But in a later TV interview with Hannity on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Klein backed off the story entirely, saying, "Nor do I suggest for a second that he [sic] was raped." Within the course of a few minutes in the radio interview, Klein flip-flopped on how many sources he had for the story. In his book, Klein sources the story only to "an anonymous source who was with the Clintons in Bermuda." Klein's book cites no other sources to support the story. When initially pressed by Hannity, Klein said he had only one source: HANNITY: It's only one source. KLEIN: It's one source who I checked out very carefully. A few minutes later, however, Klein changed his mind, telling Hannity that he had more than one source on the story: HANNITY: Is one anonymous source enough, then, to go to print with something like that? KLEIN: Well, you know, I've been at this for 40-some-odd years, Sean. And I've dealt with anonymous sources all my life. HANNITY: But one source? Were you able to corroborate the source? KLEIN: Of course. I wouldn't go to print -- HANNITY: So, you had two sources? KLEIN: I had -- sometimes I had several sources. HANNITY: But in the case of this rape story -- KLEIN: Of course I did, yes. But in the Hannity & Colmes interview, Klein returned to his original claim that he had only one source: HANNITY: In the case of the story of how Chelsea was conceived, you had one source in the book. KLEIN: Yes. >>> Unbelievable. via Peter Daou Related: The Truth About the Truth About Hillary outsidethebeltway.com Ed Klein: The Truth about Hillary outsidethebeltway.com Update: For those visiting from Michelle Malkin's site or another direct link who are not regular readers, I should note that I am in no way a fan of Bill or Hillary Clinton. While I admire both of their political skills, I find little to like about them as people. But there's plenty for which to criticize the Clintons without libeling them. outsidethebeltway.com outsidethebeltway.com mediamatters.org daoureport.salon.com