Conservative websites and bankrollers are counting on a new biography of Sen Hillary Clinton (D-NY) to dash her hopes for a 2008 White House bid.
The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President comes out next week. The publisher is Sentinel, which focuses on conservative views and audiences.
The publisher is comparing it to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in publishing ads. Gopusa.com sent out a half-million e-mails touting the book as able to destroy a Clinton Presidential bid. And even Ricard Mellon Scaife is funding a website that's promoting the book.
Vanity Fair excerpted part of the book earlier this month. The passages revealed nothing new.
But the conservatives behind promoting the book see reported revelations about Sen Clinton's private life enough to sink her campaign — much the way the Swift Boat Veterans and the tie in book Unfit for Command contributed to Sen John Kerry's (D-MA) defeat in the 2004 Presidential race.
They may be a bit too anxious. Much of Sen Kerry's problems came because he ignored the claims in the heat of an active race. That delay made Sen Kerry look like he was hiding something.
On the other hand, the Clinton machinery revolutionized "rapid response" during Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. Their press people wore badges that read "Speed Kills" with a skull above crossed lightning bolts. They were able to blunt damaging press with a quick response.
And the book is coming out more than three years before the election. It could have the effect of only "immunizing" the Senator against the same claims during the 2008 campaign. Conservatives are counting on some pretty outrageous claims in the book — Matt Drudge claims it says Chelsea Clinton was conceived after Bill Clinton raped Hillary in Bermuda. Such claims may be so unbelievable that people could simply consider even legitimate criticism of the Senator three years from now.
All this talk may just be hype for a book the publisher knows will sell like hotcakes to people who don't like Hillary Clinton. And in the end, The Truth About Hillary may turn out to be more Fortunate Son than Unfit for Command.
Article comments
1 - Patriot
I am looking forward to Hillary showing up on the campaign trail and trying to answer the unanswered questions of her past…
Such as -- just how did she find her “missing” Whitewater accounting records -- just around the corner in a White House hallway two years after they were subpoenaed?
And is she going to resurrect her infamous government health care plan?
If you haven’t seen it -- you gotta see her “organization chart” -- it’s unbelievable!!!
2 - The Duke
Never read a Clinton book, probably never will...
Never read a Bush book, or a Reagan book.
Never read a Kerry book, or a book about JFK, or Johnson, or Nixon.
I did read the Truman book, John Adams book, Jefferson book.
Read a Lincoln book... Jackson book (Stonewall), lots of civil war history.
I dunno' I guess the lives of these little, grasping, self-centered egomaniacs doesn't really interest me.
Sorry.
3 - Randy Case
Patriot, that health care plan is looking a lot better all the time, considering 45 million Americans can't get health insurance these days.
And in light of how the Social Security privatization plan has blown up in Bush's face, that organization chart is getting more and more welcome every day.
4 - Aaman
We do not publicize other commercial sites here, methinks
5 - Milt
I read the excerpt in Vaniety Fair and a thought came to my mind that about 10 or so years ago, after the Northridge Earthquake, Hillary Clinton visted the suburb of Chatsworth, Ca., in one of the parts of the San Fernando Valley that experienced a great deal of damage, to present a check to a business man who owned a business on DeSoto Ave., in Chatsworth. It was said to be the largest SBA Disaster loan ever granted/funded - according to local newspaper reports of the day. I often wondered why Hillary personally delivered the check to this business man when many other businesses and individuals in the area couldn't get an SBA loan. Lastly, a few years later the same business filed for bankruptcy. Wonder if the loan was ever repaid?