Hillary! - Nick Gillespie on

Hillary! - Nick Gillespie on why Hillary!'s new book is likely to be a complete dog:

Spell-binding memoirs, especially by political figures, are based on revelation; the form is inherently confessional. While Clinton certainly has access to first-rate material—both in terms of politics and in terms of a one-handed read—her entire public persona is built upon obfuscation, privacy, and stoicism in the face of public humiliation. Seneca himself caved under pressures far lighter than those generated by the revelations of Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinski, not to mention Travelgate, Whitewater, and the Vince Foster suicide. Such personality characteristics hardly mark her as exceptional in politics—indeed, they are the tools of the trade. But no one wants to read a memoir by a politician who doesn't take off the mask, and it doesn't seem as if Clinton's will be slipping any time soon. Occasionally, a politician can engage the public with a boilerplate political tract—Barry Goldwater managed this difficult trick with The Conscience of a Conservative—but Clinton's political program is already widely known and several volts short of electrifying.

Which means her only route to reader interest is going tell-all. She may or may not be the "congenital liar" that William Safire once swore she was, but does anyone really think she's more likely to dish now that she's a sitting senator and future presidential candidate? Although accounts of her emotional life have found their way into public view, it's unfathomable that she will discuss such material in a way that will satisfy the reading public. What will she really have to say about her relationship with a husband who is a serial philanderer and an embarrassment even to many of his defenders? Very little.

I suspect it'll be like reading a lecture from an overly-stern sunday school teacher.

Stay tuned.

Posted by Mitch at May 1, 2003 08:16 PM