NYT Book Review blasts "uniformly negative" Clinton bio "Her Way" by NYT reporters

[DeepModem Mom]

Shining a Halogen Light on a Senator’s Dark Corners
By ROBERT DALLEK
Published: June 5, 2007

....In “Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” Jeff Gerth, a former reporter for The New York Times, and Don Van Natta Jr., an investigative reporter at the paper, have written what will become mandatory reading for Mrs. Clinton’s opponents.

Mr. Gerth and Mr. Van Natta see themselves as relating the unvarnished truth about Senator Clinton. “Never before has such a high-profile candidate occupied the spotlight for so long without the public’s learning the facts about so much that is crucial to finally understanding her,” they write. Mrs. Clinton; her husband, Bill; and their supporters have told a flattering story about the couple. “Now it is time for another,” less laudatory version.

Mr. Gerth and Mr. Van Natta describe Mrs. Clinton’s undeniable flaws. They see her as unable to acknowledge misjudgments on health care reform or her vote in support of President Bush’s war in Iraq: she believes that it would “arm her enemies and undermine her carefully cultivated image as an extremely bright person who yearns only to do good for her fellow citizens.”

The book is almost uniformly negative and overly focused on what they consider the Clintons’ scandalous past and the darker aspects of Mrs. Clinton’s personality. Her ambition, for example, is seen as an unattractive compulsion that, at times, has led her into untoward behavior. They assert that the Clintons had a longstanding deal to win the presidency, first for Bill and then for Hillary, a secret pact of ambition.

The evidence of such a pact — interviews that have already been challenged in the press — is less than convincing. Moreover, that the Clintons are ambitious and hunger for the public spotlight is obvious. But does this make them different from anyone else in politics, including two of our most notable presidents, Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt?...

(Robert Dallek is the author, most recently, of “Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power.”)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/books/review/05dallek.html

[papau]

1. WOW - a fair book review of a book smearing a Democrat - from the NYT even - hell must be cold today

n/t

[fasttense]

2. How awful, a woman with ambition!

"Her ambition, for example, is seen as an unattractive compulsion that, at times, has led her into untoward behavior."

And if they were doing a bio of an ambitious man would it be a fault? I doubt it.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. I think you're right. Is there any candidate in either party standing up in those debates...

who would subject themselves to that without a boatload of ambition?