Bill and Hillary Clinton. Mrs Clinton's senate spokesman referred to the
upcoming biographies as 'cash for rehash'
Posted on 05/26/2007 7:56:07 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Hillary Clinton's aides have launched a characteristically withering attack against two long-expected biographies of the Democratic presidential front-runner.
Bill and Hillary Clinton. Mrs Clinton's senate spokesman referred to the
upcoming biographies as 'cash for rehash'
They have dismissed one as "totally discredited" because of a single disputed anecdote, and claim that both simply rehash old ground.
The former First Lady's battle-hardened war machine is suspected of leaking at least one of the books so that it could launch a co-ordinated rebuttal campaign and take the steam out of the revelations before their official publication next month.
In a suspiciously well-prepared response, her senate spokesman, Philippe Reines, remarked: "Is it possible to be quoted yawning?" He then derided both books as "cash for rehash".
The spin operation by the New York senator's campaign team will be a dry run for handling more explosive accusations expected in forthcoming books, documentaries and on websites by anti-Clinton conservative activists.
These are expected to include claims that her husband, Bill Clinton, 60, has continued to conduct extra-marital affairs since leaving the White House in 2000 under the cloud of scandal created by his affair with the intern, Monica Lewinsky.
Sen Clinton, 59, and senior aides have indicated that they expect a broadside of attacks from what they now call the "Republican machine" and what she used to refer to as "the vast Right-wing conspiracy".
The first volley was delivered last month with the release of The Clinton Crack-Up by R Emmett Tyrrell, the editor of the American Spectator, who relentlessly pursued the Clintons during their time in Washington. Mr Tyrrell claims that since leaving office in 2000, the former president has had a series of affairs, mainly one-night stands on foreign trips.
Private investigators are known to have been digging into the former president's relationship with a wealthy divorcée in the upstate New York town of Chappaqua, where the Clintons have lived since 2000. Claims about the nature of the friendship appeared on Right-wing websites and in an American tabloid in 2004 and 2005.
His closeness to the glamorous blonde Canadian heiress and politician, Belinda Stronach, also came under scrutiny after the two were seen together socially several times. The normally gossip-averse New York Times reported last year that several prominent New York politicians "became concerned" over a tabloid photograph of the two leaving a restaurant, while the Toronto Globe claimed they were more than just friends.
Belinda Stronach denies any
romantic involvement
Miss Stronach, 41, a fixture in Canadian gossip columns, denied any romantic involvement with President Clinton, although he was widely believed to have encouraged her short-lived but dramatic career as an MP. Most notably, she crossed the floor to join the rival Liberals, and harboured leadership ambitions in both parties. Mrs Stronach said last month that she was stepping down as an MP to resume her role in her family's car parts empire but that she would continue until the next election.
The two Hillary biographies concentrate on the political and personal pasts of the Clintons, according to Friday's report in the Washington Post, which obtained pre-publication copies.
In A Woman In Charge, the author, Carl Bernstein, writes that in 1989 the then governor of Arkansas wanted to divorce his wife for Marilyn Jo Jenkins, a power company executive, but Mrs Clinton talked him out of it. She had also considered a split, but confided in a friend that she hoped the attention on his life at the White House would force him to rein in his sexual activities, the veteran Watergate reporter says.
But it is Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton, by former New York Times reporters Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, that has drawn most criticism from the senator's aides.
The authors write that the Clintons drew up a plan for each to serve two terms in the White House, citing two sources who said they were told of the strategy by Taylor Branch, a prominent historian and friend of the couple.
Mr Branch has now dismissed the story as "preposterous" and said he had heard nothing of such a plan. His denial was seized on by the Clinton camp to dismiss the whole book. Mrs Clinton's research director, Judd Legum, declared triumphantly on her website that "the book's central premise has already been debunked" - even though the authors do not say the claim was their central premise.
The books highlight how Mrs Clinton led efforts to suppress the stories of women claiming to have had affairs with her husband and to fend off various investigations into the couple's financial activities in Arkansas. At one stage, she was apparently convinced that she, too, would be indicted.
The influential website, politico.com, led speculation that the Clinton camp leaked the books to the Washington Post. It also highlighted an attack on Mr Gerth published on Thursday evening by Media Matters, a Democratic-leaning group.
Mrs Clinton's camp is at pains to avoid public discussion of the couple's private lives. "It's uranium-242," said the Democrat strategist and Clinton insider, James Carville. "You pick that stuff up, and it'll blow up in your face."
But senior aides have made clear that she will not allow herself to be "Swift Boated", a reference to the attacks on John Kerry's Vietnam war record that derailed his 2004 presidential campaign.
Indeed, her presidential campaign team has been bolstering its rapid rebuttal team and "oppo" department - researchers working on the backgrounds of her political opponents.
The political value for rival candidates of being associated with any personal allegations about Mr Clinton is also by no means clear.
"I think there's a very real danger that it would backfire badly for any candidate, Republican or Democrat, to be seen to try to get at Hillary by dredging up dirt on Bill," said a senior Republican strategist and White House adviser. "It could lead to a sympathy factor for Hillary. And it could make the other candidate seem tacky, cheap or desperate. If this comes from anywhere, it is most likely to be from activists with no clear links to a campaign."
None the less, the scrutiny of Mr Clinton's private life again illustrates how the man who is his wife's greatest political asset could also turn into her worst liability, if he does anything to remind voters of the lurid side of their White House years.
Bill’s a has-been.
“Bill’s a has-been.”
Right up there with the Peanut Farmer....Jimma Carter.
Losers, Both.
If Hillary had just divorced Bill....
She would not have to worry about this stuff.
She is not the bright woman her supporters claim.
Unfortunately, the GOP is moving left and giving Hillary every chance to win. Its the “race to the bottom”
Well, actually it was Bill who wanted to serve two terms - twice - but Hillary's into power-sharing and knows where Bill's skeletons are buried, so they compromised: two for him, two for her.
But he’s a RICH has-been who will continue to rub our noses in it, probably even after he’s dead.
I find it ironic the tern “swift boating” has been picked up by the press, when it is the Dems that are the master of dropping peronal stuff just before the election.
We would have never been through the 2000 election debacle if 4 days before the election Bush’s drunk driving arrest from years ago hadn’t suddenly “popped up”.
"Sure, I'm a has-been! I has been with this woman, and that woman, and that one over yonder, and that one there..."
Affair or not, what’s he even doing out with this woman?
I believe that. I'm sure it was only physical for one of them... no more emotional than choosing a cigar.
Bill Clinton’s “sleaze” is starting to show on his face...
Howard Wolfson = zero credibility.
The Clinton’s marriage- does anybody really give a rat’s ass?
I thought he was a “Been there, done that, got the penicillin.”
As I said here more than a year ago, I'll be surprised if Bill doesn't suffer an untimely demise prior to the elections in November, 2008, if necessary, to gain the sympathy vote for the Hildabeast.....he could be "Fosterized" just to make certain she gets the throne......
Hillary's ONLY claim to fame is she was erstwhile bed partner to the most corrupt president in the last hundred years. It's up to everybody NEVER to forget this.
Re-hashing it does not make it less true.
Stupid liberals.
Are you kidding? Her Heinous would LOVE for some of those stories to come out. She has always polled better when she’s considered the ‘cheated on wife’.
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