20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
She's a Great Woman, June 28, 2005
This review is from: The Seduction of Hillary Rodham (Paperback)
Almost ten years have passed since the publication of this book. From before then and until recently, David Brock has appeared now and again on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal," during which time he moved from the right to the left on the political spectrum, eventuating in his disavowal of the right-wing attack machine in which he had played such an important part. Compelled by a sudden interest in Hillary Rodham because of her possible run for president, I selected THIS book to educate myself on her because it was during the research and writing of it that Brock turned away from the dark side of the force. Something about her inspired him to take a political one-eighty, so one would assume that he shared in this book something of what it was that brought him to such illumination. I remember when it was released, right wingers were furious to learn that their heretofore reliable hitman hadn't delivered the magic bullet that would put an end to the Clintons, and Hillary in particular. Instead, Brock presented a detailed account of the influences that drive Hillary Rodham, and to a liberal's delight and a right winger's disdain, she's basically a deeply spiritual person, with her ideology steeped in Christianity, the type known as social gospel activism. It's hard to take the moral high ground in opposing her after these submissions, and you'll have to find something else to hate her for besides your affected righteous indignation.
The book focuses primarily on her moral influences, and shows how they consistently affected her. She had always been personally conservative, despite the influences of the campuses she attended in the 60s, shunning the libertinism, refraining from drugs, and remaining relatively chaste; politically she rejected the destructive anti-establishment revolutionary thinking preached by the harder activists. Her activism lay in the belief in making change within the system by altering how the law is viewed. It was all very fascinating stuff, and the reader will learn to split a hair or two.
What some readers in some of these reviews possibly objected to was the way Brock mentioned some of the rumors -- gossip, mostly from her detractors, alleging lesbianism or an affair with Vince Foster; the gossipers should make up their minds -- but these stories had to be discussed if the book was to have any credibility at all. Brock inserted some incredulity into the comments by putting them in the context of hardball politics played by her husband's political enemies, jealous backbiters, and sometimes just plain old Arkansas male chauvinism. When Hillary moved with Bill back to his home state, she didn't deal graciously with a male-dominated political system that resented strong women. Some of Bill's closest friends panned her. Her strenghts made them feel weak. From what I gleaned, she was committed to intelligence itself as a tool, as a gift, and as such, regarded it as an asset she was sure principled people would appreciate. This was not the case, as most people's agendas were less noble than her own. Eventually, she learned to play the political game, to take on APPEARANCES, using tactics every politician on Capital Hill uses every day, and, as in everything else she sets her mind to, she excelled in it. Lacking her practicality and her commitment to her long-range goals, some people were harshly critical of her, accused her of selling out. The truth is, she detested the political games even as she played them -- preferring instead entreaties to reason -- but she brushed aside her objections for what she felt was a greater good, the use of her gifts to make positive changes in society.
More instructional to the reader is the detailed accounting of the scandals that had eclipsed everything and anything else about the Clintons. The tableu that had played out via hundreds of insinuating soundbites was revealed as just a shadow play. The financial scandals were too complicated to be appreciated through snatches of news, and Brock here lays them out in detail, connects the dots, forming a cohesive story, and you realize that a lot was made of nothing, that the whole fiasco resulted from machinations of a partisan political system, polemics gone wild. He doesn't explicitly say so here in this book, as he does in a later one, but that is indeed the case.
Overall, it's a good read. Only one part was boring, an interminably long description of how people were selected for President Clinton's cabinet, a tedious detailing of the relationships Hillary relied upon to establish control. This is only a minor point. Most of the time, he moves along. Brock's criticisms were always accompanied with a mitigating point, describing Hillary in the context of a political food chain. And while Brock's criticisms seemed harsher toward the end of the book, the rest of it betrays his very high regard for her.
And why wouldn't he have a high regard? She possesses a moral conviction to advance society for everyone's benefit, and a superior intelligence at her disposal to aid her in accomplishing it, qualities that would add up to greatness in any other politician. Brock's main detraction is how Hillary dealt with a hostile poltical environment, that her education and her values inhered in her a more principled approach, one based on moral arguments she might deliver in a courtroom, and this worked to her detriment in the final analysis. But she's unable to set the rules, and thereby forced to play by them as they are. That's a small detraction in my estimation. By the time I had turned the last page, I had come to see her in an entirely new light, as one fine human being with only minor character flaws. I recommend this book to anyone interested in a clearer picture of her.
On the other hand, to the rabid Clinton bashers, I say this: Don't bother, as YOU won't get much out of it; it is simply not spiteful enough.
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21 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Even-handed????, June 13, 2001
This review is from: The Seduction of Hillary Rodham (Paperback)
I disagree with the other reviews of this book. It is even-handed only if you consider damning with faint praise to be even-handedness. Brock's thesis is that while Bill Clinton is a sleaze bag; Hillary is a sincere committed radical--sort of a Emma Goldman with a law degree. While he does at times acknowledge that a double standard has been applied to the Clintons, as compared for example to the Bushes, he repeatedly denigrates Hillary by resorting to guilt by association. He trots out every associate she has ever had who has been involved in any liberal or left-wing cause and gives you their background in lurid detail. According to Brock, Hillary's intellectual development stopped in college or law school. I await his new book to see whether he really is ready to write an even-handed appraisal of the current political scene. In this book, he assumes that the liberals are naive or out to destroy basic American values. For example, he assumes that there wasn't merit at all to the Vietnam war protests or that anyone could actually believe that the war was both immoral and not in the interests of the United States of America.--Arthur Amchan
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