The Truth About The Truth About Hillary

It's a New York Times bestseller and (now) a hit amongst Beltway conservatives.

Numerous media reports claim that both conservatives and liberals are shying away from the controversial new biography The Truth About Hillary by Edward Klein.

But if Klein's reception in Washington is any barometer, conservatives are embracing both the book and the one-time liberal editor who has defected with a tell-all about the former first lady.

Last Wednesday Klein was the VIP guest speaker at the two most important weekly conservative strategy sessions: one hosted by Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, and the other by Paul Weyrich, long-time head of the Free Congress Foundation.

Both groups draw top conservative leaders, Capitol Hill staffers and conservative media types. At both meetings overflow audiences greeted Klein with thunderous applause.

"Klein gave a great presentation," Norquist said. "He was extremely well-received."

Not exactly what Captain Ed and assorted others would have had us believe, huh? I believe Morrissey's phrase was "Kitty Kelly-like trash." With which, in the interests of full disclosure, I concurred, also without having read the book.

Perhaps if we had, we would have discovered that the whole "Chelsea came from Bill raping Hillary" tale that Matt Drudge hyped a couple of months back isn't in the book:

But what about claims that Klein delved too deeply into Hillary's personal life and even claimed Bill had "raped" his wife?

Although those allegations don't appear in Klein's book, claims of such have been widely circulated to discredit the book.

"Frankly, some of the phony criticisms of [the book] that have been put forward — certain assertions that he couldn't back up — Klein really exploded those," Norquist said.

"I think that was a big help because even conservatives read the New York Times and assume that there must be some of that that is true."

Norquist said Klein's presentation demonstrated that much of the criticism of Klein's book has been "disingenuous and dishonest."

I haven't bought the book. I might check it out from the library as 2008 approaches for a refresher, as I doubt there's anything in it that I, as a veteran Clintophobe, am not already at least cursorily aware of.

What I do wish to point out is a bit of my legendary prescience that I offered way back in the beginning:

[T]ossing this (alleged) excerpt out there in advance of the book's release sounds like SHP (standard hyping procedure) to me. And now a megablog has taken the bait. Mission accomplished.

I was thinking hyping by the publisher, just for the record; if this was false/negative hype from the New York Times and the Clinton warroom, it just makes Morrissey and the others even bigger suckers for being drawn into something that I said from the beginning should have been left alone for the market itself to decide.

The right-wing defenders of Mrs. Clinton's "honor" said The Truth About Hillary would "drop like a thud." But it hasn't, and isn't, and that just might be because, in their inexplicable haste to bow & curtsey to press elites and the goddess they worship, those who couldn't bear to be lumped in with us "mouth-foamers" got played like a handful of ten-cent flutes.