Talk:The Truth About Hillary

Drudge comparison
I am reminded of one headline by Drudge during the 2004 U.S. election. He got hold of a picture of Kerry and Edwards arm in arm after a campaign rally.. the headline was "CAN'T KEEP HANDS OFF EACH OTHER". Take out Drudge if you want, but don't touch Hannity.. if you start arguing that Sean Hannity isn't a conservative I'm going to laugh. Rhobite 06:18, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)



He prefers to call himself conservative. And there's plenty of libertarians more conservative than most republicans. Libertarian doesn't mean "not conservative". I know Drudge is libertarian, there's no need to back it up. RJSampson

'''DRUDGE: Oh, yeah. I'm a prolife conservative'''

Please excuse the expression, but you are being RIDICULOUS if you think Hannity is not a conservative. He hosts a debate show for crying out loud. Fox News bills him as the conservative one. He wrote a book about "Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism"! I'm sorry to say, your claim that Hannity is not a conservative is very mistaken. Rhobite 06:25, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)


 * Where Hannity stands on the socio-political spectrum is clear, and the POV reasons for obscuring this fact are demonstrated by editors who proclaim how conservative they are in edit summaries. In any event the article is better off in its current form, ie. without mention of the minor point of a Hannity interview on the day the book was launched. 203.198.237.30 07:44, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

dispute
changed "liberal" to "progressive" to agree with organizations self-description, wikipedia article, and description as quoted by the Associated Press article being sourced.

There is no dispute on the factual accuracy of this article. The only dispute is on whether or not its appropriate to include the labels "conservative" and "liberal". Of course, there's no dispute that Drudge is conservative (proof is below) or that Conason is liberal (would be happy to post proof for that if requested). The dispute is.. Should we include that in the controversy section? I, and others, say yes. Someone else says no. But it's not appropriate to put a disclaimer disputing the factual basis. RJSampson

...Does every political article on wikipedia run into this non-sense when it's created? This is truly exhausting. RJSampson

Conservative and Liberal
We would appreciate it if the characterizations of Drudge and Conason would remain. A user on this site got very angry at me for having characterized Matt Drudge and others as conservative. It's as if he wants Drudge to be considered an unbiased source, so we can all bask in the headlines of his gossip-site (which are normally acrimonious to the left and/or magnanimous to the right). The interview posted below shows Drudge is proud to be conservative. Conason is proud to be liberal. Neither of these two personalities are centrist book reviewers, and to exclude their political orientation could possibly make this suggestion. This is a CONTROVERSY section, so this article needs to highlight points of view that exist (but not exclusively) on both the Left and the Right.

I've read the book cover to cover and it is not a Biography. It is a political book written by a disaffected Centrist who is now Conservative (according to HIS interviews. Shall I post those as well?)  Because it is a work with political intent, it is EXTREMELY appropriate to state reactions from prominant people from the group the book targets (Liberals) and the group that the book is written to make look better (Conservatives). Matt Drudge is conservative, Joe Conason is Liberal. Period. They're both proud of it, they have both been described that way in other articles in the mainstream (ie, not Foxnews or New York Times) press outlets like Reuters and Associated Press. Therefore, they will be described that way here. It only benefits the reader, it is a FACT and not POV, and if that upsets you, you should not be editing this article as your desire to remove "conservative" characterizations clearly demonstrates bias. Removing Conason's "liberal" characterization comes across as a thinly-veiled attempt to stay neutral. All you have done is remove facts from a Wikipedia article, which is extremely counterproductive. The characterizations stay.RJSampson 08:12, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Ditto. Rhobite 20:17, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Matt Drudge IS conservative
I am replacing Matt Drudge's characterization as conservative. Libertarians can be conservative, and Republicans can be liberal. More importantly, Drudge considers himself conservative. If you still insist that this is our opinion/POV, I am attaching an excerpt from an interview between world-reknown (for better or worse) journalist Camille Paglia and Matt Drudge. I am also enclosing a link to the entire text.

This should resolve, once and for all, that Drudge is conservative and we don't want any know-it-all teenagers (or those with teenager personalities) getting angry about it and removing it:

PAGLIA: You're antiestablishment down the line, except when it comes to your politics. Do you really consider yourself a conservative?

DRUDGE: Oh, yeah. I'm a prolife conservative who doesn't want the government to tax me. There are issues that I'm so frightened of -- 1.2 million abortions a year scares the hell out of me. Oftentimes when I see these superstorms forming, you know, sometimes -- I wouldn't be honest if I didn't think it was retribution. I also am opposed to big government. Now, you would argue: Well, how could you support a government interfering with the rights of a woman over her own body? But I would argue: No. That all life is sacred. Abortion is the issue that really motivates me.

See the full interview at:

www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/927041/posts <-- The question is about 1/4 the way down. RJSampson 07:19, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're a mean guy, Pitchka.

Thoughts on parts of "The Truth About Hillary"
Though I opposed Sen. Clinton in the primary campaign, I think that “The Truth About Hillary Clinton” reads like a gossip paper and, as stated in the Publisher’s Weekly's Editorial Review by Sara Nelson in Amazon, it was “unlikely to change a single mind,” assuming the book was meant to torpedo Clinton’s 2008 election campaign. That Mr. Klein may have once been a N.Y. Times magazine editor-in-chief does not mean he’s the "Show-Stop Shi-,” as Da Brat would say, and he might have shown more journalistic skill by better developing issues of more substance. Much of the book’s content is unsourced, anonymous, hard to believe, and eminently unimportant. The information for which I got the book -- Clinton’s part in Rose Law firm investments; the questions of conflict of interest that they begged; and the legal issues regarding her part in the secret health care reform task force -- were given short shrift. One thing of interest on the health care was a quote from Brad DeLong, a Clinton administration Deputy Assistant U.S. Treasury Secretary and part of Hillary's 1993 task force, which DeLong says demonstrated that she was a poor executive, administrator, manager, and politician, and would thus be an “abysmal” president, even sixteen years later. The quote can be found on various web sources and is posted by the former admistration official's own website.

The book ends with some observations interspersed in the chapter whose theme was "Hillary inspires fear.” According to the book these are recollections from former President Richard Nixon. Nixon, then in his eighties, had been invited to the White House to chat with Pres. Clinton about Russia. Klein states Nixon probably did not have a great deal of love for Mrs. Clinton, the lawyer who during his administration was on a congressional committee working to get his resignation. This was aggravated by Ms. Clinton’s saying “Had you survived in office ..” to Nixon, on greeting him when he entered the White House's family residence section.  Klein recounts Nixon then saw Chelsea momentarily enter the room. On seeing that Chelsea’s arm “involuntarily jerked away” from her mother when Clinton sat close to her, Nixon gleaned that Clinton’s relationship with daughter Chelsea was cold. I can do without “Bush on the Couch”-type expose psychoanalyses and innuendo from those who are not, in this case, professionals. But the presentation of the observations and implied aspersions on motherhood also show a particularly cruel intent of the book, even if valid.

Though Klein may have been trying to depict a Nurse Ratchet image, I found it interesting and humorous that the childhood Ms. Clinton, when bullied, had no aversion to punching an occasional boy in the face, showing early on that toughness I do admire in her. Yet this, and innumerable similar anecdotes, are delivered with a misogynist’s innuendo, and Klein drops the bombshell that Clinton didn’t pour her heart and soul into what apparently is the First Lady's duty -- deciding the White House Christmas cards.

A good deal of the book's thrust attempts to assassinate the personalities and characters of both Clintons; presents a salacious tale of President Bill Clinton, Ms. Lewinsky, and other “other women;” and suggests to put a lesbian jacket on Ms. Clinton and a college-day, radical “lefty” jacket on both Clintons -- much of which wouldn't raise interest outside worlds that have no books, newspapers, TV, radio, or internet. He can defend his sourcing all he wants, but, I'm sorry, Edward Klein is no Woodward and Bernstein. Some reviews I've read contend this book was largely a copy-paste job, but if it had used more remarkable, relevant, revelatory hard data -- instead of rumors we'd hadn't already heard -- it may have carried some interest.

A delightful Joe Queenan review (registration may be required) on the book can be found in Klein’s very own N.Y.Times, where Queenan, tongue-in-cheek, states he would have preferred “..fewer footnotes like ‘interview with a member of the Clintons' personal White House staff, who wished to remain anonymous’  and more citations reading, ‘Interview with friend who wished to remain anonymous for fear that Hillary Clinton's lesbian friends would hire commie gangsters associated with mobbed-up trade unions to whack her.’" But, as Mr. Queenan aptly points out, Klein "didn’t bring his A-game."

What I did gain from this book, however, was the desire to pursue the fascinating story of the personages involved in the House Committee on the Judiciary's Nixon impeachment inquiry, and how Hillary investigated curtailing Nixon's possible legal defense strategies in a way that Nixon could not cross-examine witnesses that would sully the reputation of the late John F. Kennedy, whose administration allegedly surveilled American citizens and employed organized crime to assassinate leaders of foreign states. Muzzling the Nixon legal defense thus, the author claims, would have helped clear the road to the White House for Senator Edward Kennedy's future bid.

DonL (talk) 07:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 02:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)