New book on Hillary by Carl Bernstein is attracting attention

[nodular]

Bernstein's new book on Hillary is out. Although I support Hillary and the book is seen as a negative, I find the information provided very interesting so far. Bernstein is a hard-working reporter who has gathered quite a bit of information about Hillary's life, including her childhood.

While those who attack Hillary will no doubt find much ammunition here, I think Hillary supporters also need to look at this book. One of Bernstein's ideas is that Hillary needs to increase her authenticity, both to be elected President and to be an effective President. This idea also exists among Hillary supporters.

Bernstein thinks it is important to have a high-quality biography available of any person who wants to be President. He makes the comment that if such a biography were available of George Bush in 2000, he could not have been elected. One thing is immediately clear, Hillary had a very mean father.



Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist says his biography reveals her ‘real’ self]

"A new biography’s unflattering portrayal of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton as someone who “camouflages” her real self for political gain is starting to attract attention — and not for the salacious stories most books recount about the Clintons.

"A Woman in Charge, by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carl Bernstein, gives scant attention to the tense days the former First Lady spent in the White House when Bill Clinton was sneaking around with his intern, Monica Lewinsky. Instead, the former Washington Post reporter, who helped blow the lid off Watergate, attempts to portray Hillary Clinton as someone who is willing to rewrite her own history to advance the political career she put on hold when she moved to Arkansas with her college sweetheart who would later become president.

“This is a woman who led a camouflaged life and continues to,” Bernstein told TODAY host Matt Lauer on Friday in an exclusive interview. “This book takes away that camouflage.” The book, which he called the first “real biography” of Hillary Clinton, will be available on June 5...

"Bernstein’s book also explores Clinton’s strained relationship with her disciplinarian father, the development of her religious convictions, and her political ideals that took shape during her studies at Wellesley and Yale Law School. The author goes on to disclose, among other things, that Bill Clinton fell in love with another woman while becoming a rising political star in Arkansas, and quotes insiders who say Hillary Clinton wouldn’t give him a divorce."



Here's a place to read five pages from the biography. I only had time to read the first page today but it was excellent. I will read the others soon.

[corkhead]

1. We all know that sooner or later she was going to get fatally smeared by the pukes.

I say better now than after the nomination.

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

2. Bernstein's not a puke

[corkhead]

12. see # 10...

:hi:

[RufusTFirefly]

3. Carl Bernstein? Republican??

Do tell.

[corkhead]

10. I didn't mean to imply necessarily that he was, but I do stand by my statement

that sooner or later the pukes would do the smear job. I am happy someone is doing it before the nomination, maybe Bernstein is proving that he is a good Democrat doing us all a favor.

I am now wearing my asbestos suit...

[IndianaGreen]

11. Hillary is the Democratic version of Evita Peron

and like Evita did in Argentina, all those that say anything critical of her will be smeared and attacked mercilessly. The authoritarian streak in Hillary and her political cabal should be raising warning flags all over the place.

[corkhead]

13. The fact that she listens to that turncoat Carville alone supports your contention.

:toast:

[William769]

14. Lets not forget those that smear and attack her mercilessly

Now theres a cabal.

[IndianaGreen]

22. What? Has Hillary finally come out clean about Entergy?

Published on Friday, May 4, 2007 by CommonDreams.org

Hillary’s Mother-F’ing Tour Business

by Greg Palast

Bill Clinton began his political climb by running for Arkansas Attorney General campaigning on a pledge to fight Entergy’s electric price hikes. His pro-consumer plan was defeated in court by Entergy’s law firm - which included one Hillary Rodham.

There were more favors for Entergy. In 1998, I discovered, while working under cover for the Guardian and Observer, that Tony Blair was personally fixing the system to let Entergy to violate British policy on coal plants. Why? I picked up in my secret recordings of Blair’s cronies that calls to take care of Entergy, rules be damned, had come in from the office of ‘the Flotus’ - the First Lady of the United States.

It gets creepier. In June of 1994, Entergy’s partner in Asia, the Riady family of Indonesia paid recently-resigned Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell a $100,000 consulting fee. Odd that: Hubbell was on his way to prison for the felony crime of inflating his legal bills. Why would Asians pay a lawyer for advice on Asia who was on his way to the pokey?

Maybe it had to do with his partner in crime. I’ve conducted investigations of lawyer over-billing. It is nearly impossible for a senior lawyer to pad billing records unless the junior partner also fraudulently monkeys with time logs to make sure the records don’t give away the game. Who was Hubbell’s “little lady” junior partner? Today we call her Madame Senator.

<snip>

Code Pink and New York environmentalists have been pulling out their hair over Senator Clinton’s backing of the operation of the creaky old Indian Point nuclear plant just above - and within irradiating distance of - New York City. The owner of the Indian Point nuke? Hillary’s old buck buddies, Entergy.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/04/967

[alfredo]

17. People have already made up their minds about Hillary. This book

will do little to change that. All it will do is confirm opinions on both sides of the debate.

[lisa58]

4. I saw Carl Bernstein interviewed a couple of times about this book...

...and it seems to me that Hilary is better than she thinks.

I met her at a fundraiser for her senate re-election a couple of years ago at the home of a friend and I wasn't impressed. I came as a really big fan and left disenchanted.

What you and Carl Bernstein say is exactly my experience. I wish she would allow us to see how great she really is.

I'll vote for her if she gets the nomination, but she's not my first choice.

[ElizabethDC]

5. As best as I can tell, the book isn't a hit job in any way

I haven't read it yet, but based on the interviews I've seen with Bernstein and the excerpts I've read, he doesn't seem to be trying to say anything particularly negative or damaging. The book has gotten good reviews.

However, as best as I can tell, it doesn't really give much new information - almost everything that's touted as new information is stuff that I'd read about before - much of it in Gail Sheehy's biography on Hillary.

[OzarkDem]

24. Read the Media Matters review

David Brock knows how these folks operate.

[glitch]

6. Here's Media Matters' take on Bernstein's take on Hilary. Worth a read esp on "authenticity"

http://mediamatters.org/items/200706080010?f=h_top

[DURHAM D]

9. Carl needed a paycheck.

I wonder how William Mellon Scaife is involved? I wonder if Ted Olson edited it? What a pile of hyped crap.

Thanks for posting the Media Matters response. If there is one thing David knows it is how the Arkansas Project Part II really works.

[nodular]

15. Thanks, glitch.

The article you reference certainly raises a big question mark about what Bernstein is doing. Is the guy getting a little too old to work? Looking for an easy payday?

I appreciate your early feedback on this.

[OzarkDem]

23. Carl's hatchet job

apparently not a very good one at that, but what the heck, some corporate types will pay him a lot of money for it. I doubt it will sell very well, though. Surprised he didn't have a deal with Regnery Press.

I like the part where Media Matters points out Bernstein took 5 different positions about Hillary in just a few paragraphs.

[ellisonz]

34. Actually, the article deliberately misses its own points:

"Clinton also described a sometimes harsh father in her autobiography, Living History:

My dad was a rock-ribbed, up-by-your-bootstraps, conservative Republican and proud of it. He was also tightfisted with money. <...> My father could not stand personal waste. Like so many who grew up in the Depression, his fear of poverty colored his life. My mother rarely bought new clothes, and she and I negotiated with him for weeks for special purchases, like a new dress for the prom. If one of my brothers or I forgot to screw the cap back on the toothpaste tube, my father threw it out the bathroom window. We would have to go outside, even in the snow, to search for it in the evergreen bushes in front of the house. <...> My brothers and I were required to do household chores without any expectation of an allowance. "I feed you, don't I?" Dad would say. "

She's been a chameleon since she was 3 years old probably. And yes Virginia, that is an accurate descriptor of the woman.

[davidwparker]

7. "high-quality biography available of any person who wants to be President"

So do I since the press is dead in this country, it's up to authors and bloggers to find this information out.

[EVDebs]

8. I'll vote for anyone who'll UNDO the damage these GOP nuts have done !

The will of the people has never figured into their plans, never will. Dems have got to put a progressive agenda together too.

[Bitwit1234]

16. Isn't it amazing....

with all the zillion of negative books about Hillary that the republicans have written, (and Bernstein MUST be a republican to write smears) why are they still writing books about her.

We have 20 other candidates who sure as hell have done a lot darn worst that Hillary Clinton ever has, but nothing no books..How about Romney. How about rudi and his women. (And by the way they say he has latched on to another mistress). So why Hillary..I suppose the republican group are so damn jealous they just have to mess them selves with Hillary Hillary Hillary Hillary.

[polichick]

35. They're terrified of her...

Powerful women like Hillary threaten them on lots of different levels ~ thankfully, she's strong enough and wise enough to consider the source and write it off.

[whistle]

18. Is the book authorized by Hillary Clinton? Did Bernstein authenticate

...his sources?

[pretzel4gore]

19. bernstein knows about 'fortunate son'

published in 2000, before the election. James Hatfield's (1958-2001) book was alot more revelatory about junyer then anything Hill Clinton could have done - for example, the frantic efforts by the gopigs to track down any pictures of drunken bush dancing naked on a bar in a crowded houston pub, his involvement in cocaine/dope dealing and his family's efforts to bury the plain fact bush was little more then a petty crook ie: see 'Harken Oil'...bernstein of course knows where woodward came from; and that should be THEE STORY if bernstein really wanted to peddle his arse er... i mean make some money
!http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hatfield
i betya most of you never heard of 'Fortunate Son' (and carl bernstein does too)

[Bullet1987]

20. Things like this is why Hillary shouldn't be the Democrat nominee.

[Captain Hilts]

36. Don't give yourself away, it's "DemocratIC nominee." nt

[glitch]

26. I have the book. Wish I'd gotten it signed too. And I wish he'd backed up his new book,

which he claimed to have even more shocking revelations, to numerous hard drives around the world before he "suicided".

[nodular]

32. Your Wikepedia reference does not inspire confidence.

pretzel4gore:

Apparently this guy had a pretty bad criminal record and was actually paroled from jail at the time he wrote the book!

"Soon after the book's release, The Dallas Morning News reported that Hatfield was a paroled felon who had been convicted in 1988 of paying a hit man $5,000 to murder his former boss with a car bomb. It was also revealed that Hatfield pleaded guilty to embezzlement in 1992. Hatfield at first denied the allegations when his publisher confronted him, but he eventually owned up to his criminal history."

In addition, he previously published a book under false pretenses.

All of this doesn't prove the facts in his book wrong of course, but it doesn't sound too good.

[pretzel4gore]

33. James isn't the issue...junyer bush is

whatever flaws of character Hatfield possessed are dwarfed by bush, and the bushmedia. bush is a killer in the style of ted bundy; Jim Hatfield is dead! That he killed himself to save his child (i think Bill Clinton also feared for his daughter and the gopig's lack of any conscience regards hurting those close to bush's opponents is well known- i do not accept anything regards Hatfield's 'criminal' past; the gopigs are liars who had to destroy James Hatfield, and eagerly use the judicial system to create false impressions)
Noone has denied any of the truths Hatfield brought to light. Bush (and the nazipoohs) is worse then anyone can possibly imagine...and bernstein is one of them; his actions prove that

[elocs]

21. Is Senator Clinton above criticism? Could any criticism of her be justified or true?

For those who support Senator Clinton it is much better to address this now and if she gets the nomination then it is much, much better for all Democrats to have any questions or criticisms addressed now. It is simplistic to dismiss things which may be considered negative as simply Republican trashing and bashing. After all, Democrats can do that equally as well to their own. Do we have the notion that if Bernstein wrote a book sticking it to Bush, then he is a god, but if he writes anything negative about a Democrat then he is a lying dog? Is there no middle ground, no ability for discernment, to sift and separate the truths from the untruths, the negatives either true or exaggerated?

[OzarkDem]

25. If it were real criticism

most people wouldn't have a problem. But it isn't. Its Bernstein taking any excuse and rationale he can come up with to make Clinton look bad. He has nothing, no real facts or revelations, just a rehashing of what we already know with his special spin on it.

[elocs]

31. Is any criticism real? Is Bernstein using false facts and revelations?

If a fact is a fact, can it be false? Is Bernstein's intent known or do we know he intended on doing a hatchet job on Senator Clinton? Really, what is regularly posted here at DU is a rehashing of what we already know and everybody puts their own spin on it. One is considered to be a negative criticism to one person may mean nothing to another. Negative criticism of Senator Clinton will not have much of an effect on those who will not vote for her, but simply reaffirm their opinion of her. This is going to have to be dealt with sooner or later. Better sooner, true or not.

[shireen]

27. is it really negative? Or is the media just calling it that for hype value?

At some level, we all wear camouflage. We all use it to our benefit.

Hillary is hardly the first politicial figure to do it.
Al Gore wore camouflage during the 2000 campaign.
Bob Dole was in camouflage during the 1996 campaign.
The public personas they projected may be nothing like their private personalities. But it's their choice to be that way, we have no business telling them to change who they choose to be, or criticize them for not acting like they are our BFFEs.

And we should stop expecting them to act like our BFFEs. People liked GWB because they thought they would enjoy having a beer with him. RIdiculous ... might as well nominate your beer buddy for president. :beer:

The book reviews make it sound like she's deeply flawed, that there's something wrong with her. Such bullshit! I've never liked reading unauthorized biographies of living figures because they're an invasion of the book subject's privacy. And you'll never know where the facts end and fiction begins. (I suppose you could say the same about authorized bios too, but at least those were written with the approval of the subject who wanted to control his/her image. No one's perfect.) The only time it's OK to do an unauthorized expose is when there's evidence the person they're writing about has hurt innocent people or committed crimes. If a presidential candidate led a secret life reading child porn, off with his/hers head!

And why print irrelevant accounts of Bill falling in love with another woman, and Hillary not giving him a divorce? First of all, it's none of our business and doesn't need to be broadcast to the world. It makes Hillary sound like she's a control freak who has her husband on a leash. If Bill really wanted to leave Hillary for another woman, he could have done it even if she didn't want a divorce. But he didn't.

Don't buy the book. Just let Hillary be ....

[thethinker]

28. I have seen Bernstein interviewed regarding this book

I do not feel he is being overly negative toward Sen. Clinton. In fact, when he was on the Charlie Rose show I kept saying, "I hope she sees this show".

He said he had researched the book for 7 years. He seems sincerely interested in Sen. Clinton.

I think he had valid point regarding the fact that the public feels they do no know Sen. Clinton or what she stands for. That is how I feel. Her style is to keep people from knowing the real Hilary. I feel this is a real mistake. I am not sure if this is her style or just bad advise from handlers.

In the end, this lady may be our candidate and we may all have to support her. I certainly hope she changes her handlers or style before the general election. I think if she would just open up and be human people might like her. She is coming off as a cardboard character. I know her supporters do not want to hear this. She needs to make some changes if we are going to beat a Republican in the general election.

[Libby2]

29. Fuck him

I'm sure if Bill really wanted a divorce he would have gotten one.

[Captain Hilts]

30. Men evaluating women's lives in books reviewed by other men!!!

Do we really want to hear Bernstein evaluate someone else's marital problems?!?!