A Tale of Two Biographies

The biography of Hillary by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, Her Way, is really worth reading. It contains lots of new insights, the product of diligent investigative reporting by two of the best. The chapters on her positions on Iraq and how they respond not to military facts but to poll data are very good and their tracking of her Senate ethical improprieties, while not surprising, are still riveting. The Clintons have tried to spin this book as about their marriage. They wish it were. Instead it is about a politician addicted to lying and misrepresenting herself.

Carl Bernstein’s book, A Woman in Charge, by the same publisher who put out Bill’s memoirs, is a far more friendly treatment of the senator and, while well written, has nothing really important and new to say.  Unfortunately, it ends its narrative in 2001 just when Hillary started her Senate career and her presidential run.

One even is given to suspect that the Bernstein book is part of an effort to tone down coverage of the truly interesting stuff in the Gerth volume.