Edward Klein’s book, The Truth About Hillary, has made him quite the popular person. On second thought, maybe it hasn’t. Since its release in mid-June, Klein’s book has reached the number two spot on the New York Times bestsellers list and has attracted much criticism as well as praise. But you’d be hard-pressed to find him talking about the book on television as he’s been shunned by most of the networks.
There’s no doubt his book is critical of the former First Lady. Klein is convinced that Hillary has been trying to re-position herself and re-brand herself as a centrist and a moderate – anything but a liberal – since she entered the United States Senate. And, his book is the first effort that examines the sincerity of Hillary’s move towards the center.
Klein, a registered Independent with a r???? ©sum???? © full of liberal credentials: foreign editor of Newsweek, editor-in-chief of the New York Times Magazine, writer for Parade and Vanity Fair, he has had four other best selling books. However, the type of reaction his previous works received is nothing like the chastising he’s facing now for revealing The Truth About Hillary.
Human Events: What has the media attention been like regarding your new book?
Edward Klein: “A lot of people have criticized the book without reading it, so I’ve been charged with saying that Bill raped his wife, which I never say in the book, or that Hillary is an out and out lesbian, which I don’t say in the book…so a lot of people have simply gotten the book wrong. And, in many cases, I think it has been on purpose. I expected Hillary and her people to hate the book and try to prevent people from reading it by calling up their media friends and organizing a boycott of me, and that’s what they’ve done with the major television networks.”
Klein says he was booked on a number of television shows and, with the exception of Lou Dobbs of CNN and Sean Hannity of Fox News, he has been cancelled everywhere else.
Klein’s critics point to his use of anonymous sources throughout the piece.
HE: What do you think about the people who say, “It’s a great book, but he used people who weren’t willing to go on the record and so that discredits his book”?
Klein: “Well, they don’t say that about Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about Watergate do they? …If you’re writing about someone who is extremely powerful, like Hillary, extremely vindictive, like Hillary, who has an enemies list, like Hillary, and will punish anyone who speaks any ill about her at all, like Hillary, then naturally these people don’t want to have their name on the record in a book like this. They’re afraid of her and that’s the only condition on which they’ll speak. If these critics don’t want books about Hillary that use anonymous sources, they’re not going to get honest books.”
Klein conducted 96 interviews for his book both in person and over the phone. He says he researched every book and article that has ever been written about Hillary Clinton and was given access to confidential documents from Hillary’s 2000 Senate campaign.
HE: You said people are afraid of Hillary and won’t speak unless used anonymously. Afraid of her how?
Klein: “The Clintons have ruined many of their critics over the years in Arkansas, in Washington and today. This very day, in fact, as you and I speak, they launched a campaign to call into question my credibility both personally and journalistically and to convince the major television networks not to have me on as a guest in connection with this book. They’ve been largely successful in that effort and that’s a hurtful thing to the sales of this book, obviously.”
HE: Do you think people give the Clintons too much credit in terms of their power and influence?
Klein: “I don’t think they give them enough credit. This word is rarely used in politics, but I think the Clinton's are evil. And, I think the way Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as an evil empire, I would call the Clintons an evil duopoly – an evil husband and wife team in politics.”
HE: When Christians think of “evil,” they think of “un-Godly.” Is this the same “evil” you speak of?
Klein: “Yes it is.”
HE: And why do you believe that?
Klein: “I believe both of them have sold their souls to the devil in order to achieve power. One only has to look at their marriage to realize that Hillary has abided and even abetted Bill’s serial philandering because she has…connected herself to him in order to achieve her political goals. …And, they claim to be [of] great adherence to Billy Graham and Christianity, and they claim to be God-fearing, church going, Bible reading people, but they violate so many of the Ten Commandments that one can only describe them as un-Godly.”
In The Truth About Hillary Klein tells his readers about Hillary’s childhood, how she was treated like a boy by her father and how she grew-up as a combative child and in many ways the neighborhood bully. Klein also examines Hillary’s life at Wellesley College in the 1960’s where she endorsed gender-feminism and the lesbian agenda for politics. He claims Hillary’s relationship with Bill during their time at Yale Law School as being largely one of political convenience. The book also details Hillary’s years in Arkansas as well as her time in the White House. Klein says he makes a connection between Hillary and Monica Lewinski that hasn’t been made before, in so far as, Hillary knew about Monica and Bill two years before the story broke.
HE: Can you distinguish between the feminist agenda and the feminist-gender movement you say Hillary was pursuing?
Klein: “There is a distinction between the broad scale feminist movement that has resulted in opening-up real opportunities for women all over the United States in various fields, which were not open to them before: equal pay for equal work, opportunities to enter medical school, law school, business school, etc. None of which is what I’m referring to when I refer to Hillary’s feminism. Because the feminism she endorsed was called then, and I think is referred to now, as a gender related feminism meaning that: we don’t need men, we can do this on our own, we reject the support of men whether heterosexual or homosexual, we rely on women and only women to advance our cause, we are separatists and militants about it, we will sleep with whomever we want, dress however we want, behave however we want under all and every circumstance. This agenda that I’m just describing is what I have in mind when I talk about Hillary and Wellesley College.”
HE: After all your research and all your investigating, what have you learned about Hillary’s core?
Klein: “She’s been in public life since 1974 when she joined Bill Clinton in Arkansas. So we have a 31-year public record, and the core of that record and the core of Hillary is of a gender-feminist and a person who endorses the radical feminist view of politics, which is a far left position on our political spectrum.”
HE: You believe that Hillary, since she has entered the US Senate, has been trying to re-position herself as a moderate and show that she’s not so far to the left. Is that who she has become? Has she had a change of heart?
Klein: “I don’t believe so. I believe she made an accurate calculation that a liberal cannot get elected President of the United States – an out and out liberal. That’s not where the American public is today. We are becoming a more conservative country all the time. And Hillary, with her ambition to win the White House, acknowledges that by, in effect, turning her back on some of her former positions, some of her former supporters and re-positioning herself as a moderate on such issues as God, prayer, abortion without parental consent, immigration; she’s adopted many of the Republican positions or at least has moved toward those positions in recent years, doing what Bill Clinton did – triangulating by adopting his opponent’s positions on things. I don’t believe this is a sincere change of heart. I think this is a pure political calculation on her part.”
HE: Doesn’t she alienate her base when she leans more to the center?
Klein: “She has in fact alienated a number of liberals who think she’s being disloyal to them and her heritage. However, her calculation is that when it comes down to it…between her and a future Republican opponent…they’ll have no choice but to vote for her.”
HE: You claim Hillary is not a victim.
Klein: “Absolutely not a victim. …She’s adopted that role because it suits her purposes and gets her the most votes.”
HE: Every time Hillary’s been attacked, every time she hits the imaginary brick wall, she doesn’t collapse. She doesn’t fall down. She busts right through, stronger than ever. Don’t you think this book is just going to elevate her further?
Klein: “I don’t think so.”
HE: What makes your “attack” on Hillary different from all others that have failed in the past?
Klein: “I think my 'attack,' if you want to call it that, or my indictment, has hit a really sensitive nerve in the Clinton camp, her camp, because it gets to the core values she holds and how those values were formed. And, I think that though she’s been partially successful…in keeping me off television, thanks to conservative publications like yours, the conservative websites and conservative talk shows on the radio, my book has gone to number two on the New York Times bestsellers list as of this coming Sunday, which is a victory for this book over her effort of censorship.”
At the end of our conversation Klein was asked to rate Bill and Hillary Clinton on a scale from 1 to 10 in terms of who’s more dangerous in the eyes of conservatives. He responded, “On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the most dangerous, I’d put Hillary at 10 and Bill at about 7. Bill is a much more pragmatic person than she is. He’s ready to compromise much more quickly than she is. Hillary is a true, bred to the bone, ideologue.”
Klein believes a lot of the material in his book will not be forgotten and that all future books about Hillary will have to refer back to his work and cope with the material he raised.
