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68 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hillary's Long March., May 29, 2004
Most conservatives are completely baffled by the Hillarymania of today's liberals. A recent poll illustrates that she remains a highly polarizing figure among the American electorate. Should she run in 2008, the right will have no trouble turning out its base as 48% of the population hold an unfavorable view of her. Her road to victory will be formidable, but the Clintons have encountered numerous challenges over the years and emerged victorious time after time. It is undoubtedly for this reason that R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. (with Mark Davis) decided to write Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House.
Their account is a brief political history of the woman who could be queen. It is also an attempt to warn us of what may happen should she seize power. This biography gazes into the future and is terrified by what may be.
The "Madame" in the title refers to China's Madame Mao who was known as "the white boned demon." Tyrrell does not accuse Hillary Clinton of being a demon but does believe that the respectable person presented to us by her PR department does not in fact exist. Senator Clinton is a "Coat and Tie Radical" who has never forgotten or disowned the revolutionary ideas of the 1960's. Society exists for her and her kind to reconfigure.
As the allusion to Madame Mao may have informed you, this book is not an objective account of Hillary's life. It is written from the perspective of a warrior in the Clinton Wars and there is nothing equivocal in its narration.
As Editor in Chief of The American Spectator, R. Emmett Tyrrell's experiences with the Clintons were legion and none of them produced pleasure. He recounts a story when he ran across Bill in the Jockey Club. He decided to ask him a question. The former President responded with annoyance and a very pathetic temper tantrum. Yet Tyrrell notes that it was Hillary's cold stare, as opposed to Mr. Clinton's babyish whines, that truly unnerved him.
Madame Hillary will not appeal to anyone on the left or moderates in general as there is little diplomatic or uncertain about its tone. Tyrrell has seen all he needs to see from the former first lady and, while he admits that she has made great strides in her political skills, he fears for all of our futures should she become president.
"Madame Hillary would, in her wildest dreams, undoubtedly relish a presidency that was an unending left-wing rampage, a national Cambodian re-education camp for anyone caught wearing an Adam Smith necktie or scarf. Such `extremists are the enemy, after all, composing the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy that must be scotched if Clintonian America is to be saved. She would install an all-woman Cabinet to thumb her nose at the patriarchy...With Hillary now making all the appointments, why not have a Cabinet full of short-haired harridans and crypto-Marxists from assorted left-wing hothouses?"
She is one of the most important people on our planet and Tyrrell believes this outcome is not due to chance. He depicts her as an individual consumed by ambition and a lust for power. Her personality is colored by an overwhelming need to control others. She is a "self-promoting dynamo" and a "self-regarding existentialist." What steps she takes (and over whom) are irrelevant. The ends always justify the means. The author asks Dick Morris about her private life and he relays that she doesn't have one. Hillary is an example of a life whose essence is to make the most of the political opportunities that are encountered.
Madame Hillary is a well-written work and a general good use of one's time, yet it is by no means a comprehensive history of the junior Senator from New York. If that's what the reader is looking for I'd recommend Barbara Olson's Hell to Pay instead. Although, as far as producing entertainment and arguments for the conservative faithful, there are few better or more timely offerings available than this strident book by Emmett Tyrrell.
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81 of 93 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Let's all do the Clinton Four-Step!, May 25, 2004
One of the most useful aspects of this important and entertaining book is the light it sheds on how the Clintons (both of them) habitually respond to any criticism: (1) Vigorously deny it; (2) Launch ad hominem attacks on the critic; (3) Act personally victimized by the criticism ("Why do they hate me?"); and (4) Say the critic is obsessing over "old news." Some of the reviews on this page prove their supporters have learned the script well.The Clintons and their scandals are hardly old news, given that she is a powerful US Senator and presumptive candidate for the presidency. Bob Tyrrell has had the Clintons' number from the beginning. And in this book, he picks up the late Barbara Olsen's torch as the writer with perhaps the clearest understanding of Hillary Clinton, her deeply radical, if deeply camouflaged, designs for our country, her lust for power, and how she intends to go about winning it. The problem is that the Clintons arouse such strong feelings, both pro and con, that it can be difficult to separate the facts from the *Kultursmog* (such a great word -- I've admired it for years). Tyrrell and coauthor Mark Davis have done the heavy lifting for us, giving us chapter-and-verse not only on the Clintons' Arkansas and White House years, but also Madame Hillary's journey "from Methodism to Maoism" (p. 120) and into the ranks of Coat and Tie Radicals. Like Olsen, Tyrrell sees the heavy hand of Saul Alinsky not only in her early radical years, but also in her approach to politics and power even today. This is enlightening and disturbing reading. I've always suspected that one of the things the Left hates most about Bob Tyrrell is not just that he skewers them so thoroughly, but that he has such fun doing it (Ann Coulter commits this sin too). This book "was a pleasure to write," he notes on page 209, and I have no doubt he means it. It was a pleasure to read, too. Tyrrell has always had a way with language that recalls some of the great polemicists, Mencken being the most obvious comparison. But the key to Tyrrell is that he backs up his entertaining and sometimes idiosyncratic language not only with solid research -- kudos to coauthor Davis here -- but also with a rational train of argument and conclusions that flow logically from the facts presented (far be it from me to suggest Ann Coulter sometimes parts company with him here, to say nothing of scurrilous windbags like Michael Moore, but I can see how you might reach that conclusion). Hillary Clinton is going to remain a political force in this country for a long time to come. So long as she does, this book will be an important reminder not only of the fraudulence of her so-called "accomplishments" (which are what ... exactly?), but also of her true motivations, goals, and a track record that -- Point Four above notwithstanding -- should be much on the mind of the American voter. That makes "Madame Hillary" a book to keep handy for the next decade or so, at least.
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26 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark indeed, March 21, 2004
I should start this review by saying I used to subscribe to the liberal agenda. I believed in state sponsored dole programs, government intervention in the affairs of everyday life, and the use of the judiciary to bring about change. Yes, my friends, I even voted for Bill Clinton in 1996. Then, about six or seven years ago, I experienced what I can only describe as an epiphanic experience, a Kuhnian paradigm shift in my political outlook. Several factors accounted for my sudden migration away from the liberal cosmology. Arguably the largest influence on my new sense of the world occurred from reading history. I quickly saw that the ideas of today's elites didn't jibe with reality, that these concepts had been tried before and had always failed. Even worse, not only did liberalism fail, it brought about the end of civilizations. The scandals emanating from the Clinton White House also did a lot to dampen my enthusiasm for the liberal "truths." Anyone who could blindly support the Clintons despite the deluge of lies, smears, and outright crimes perpetrated by the dynamic duo are truly pathetic creatures in dire need of help. The idea of Hillary Clinton running for, let alone winning, the presidency of this great nation is a notion that sends chills down my spine. "Hillary for President" also scares R. Emmett Tyrrell and Mark W. Davis, so much so that the two conservatives decided to write this slim novel outlining the ways Hillary will attempt to usher in an era of far left quackery the likes of which even Lenin, Stalin, and Mao could not have foreseen. According to Tyrrell and Davis, Hillary Clinton's background as a "coat and tie radical" in the 1960s and 1970s, along with her subsequent record as First Lady and her Senate career, should disqualify her from serving as President of the United States. The authors outline in ghastly detail the real Hillary Clinton, from her early work as a pro-Marxist ideologue following the tenets of radical troublemaker Saul Alinsky, to her article calling for the complete liberation of children from their parents, to her weird relationship with Willie. What emerges is a portrait of a woman so inebriated with power, so in love with herself and her pro-communist vision for America, that she will do almost anything to attain the Oval Office. Watching horror films and reading horror novels is one of my favorite hobbies, and let me tell you right here and now that "Madame Hillary" is one of the most horrific books I have ever read. Although the authors seem to think there is hope for stopping Hillary and her extremist agenda even if the public does put her into office in 2008, I have grave doubts whether the country could long survive another Clinton administration. Could Hillary Clinton become president in 2008? According to "Madame Hillary," anything is possible where the Clintons are involved. The attention seeking former first family never passes up an opportunity to grab the spotlight even at the expense of the current crop of presidential hopefuls. Hillary uses her position in the Senate to garner headlines, raises and dispenses millions through several PACs to other party apparatchiks, and carefully stakes out positions on pertinent issues of the day in an attempt to set herself up as a candidate in the next presidential election. Madame Hillary has her talons firmly planted around the throat of the Democratic Party, and she will use this position and influence to fulfill her "destiny." If that "destiny" comes to fruition, disaster will follow. How so? Remember the universal health care debacle of the early 1990s where she attempted to socialize our medical system? A Hillary regime would be much worse. Senator Clinton will attempt to socialize all aspects of our society by increasing entitlements to undreamt of levels, increasing taxes to European heights, and further radicalize the judiciary. She could win the presidency, but I have to believe she won't. Hopefully, too many people will remember the scandals. What drives Hillary Clinton to remake America? Saul Alinsky and her days as a radical at college inform our former First Lady's belief system. Tyrrell and Davis pored through Hillary's "Living History" and adroitly compared statements she made in the book with Alinsky's radical primer for overthrowing society. The comparisons are frightful. Senator Clinton's penchant for confrontation, her practice of emphasizing symbols over ethics, and the belief that discord instills meaning in one's life all mesh with the tripe found in Alinsky's book. Through these three tactics, Hillary Clinton will destroy all of our institutions and replace them with her own brand of leftist extremism. If you don't think the former First Lady is a leftist ideologue, look at what she says, at the groups that support her, and then visit the library to dig up Richard Hofstadter's "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." This short essay was written to expose the psychological contours of the far right, but the same analysis applies to all extremists. I think you'll see what Hillary Clinton is all about after reading this informative article. Then read "Madame Hillary." I have two complaints about the book. One, it isn't as funny as "Boy Clinton." You can tell Tyrrell didn't write the whole thing because the book is missing his trademark wit. Second, the heavy emphasis on power politics makes for a depressing read. Republicans and Democrats struggle not in an effort to accomplish anything but in order to grab power. I am already quite cynical about politics, and I know the book's descriptions of the shenanigans going on in Washington are true regardless of party, but I am always still surprised by the depths elites will go to attain power. Still, Hillary Clinton is the worst of the lot if her past record is any indication. Let's hope circumstances will keep her out of the White House forever.
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