BOOKS: A Woman In Charge by Carl Bernstein (on Hillary Clinton)

A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Carl Bernstein

My rating: 4 of 5 stars





This was a fascinating look at Hillary Clinton.  The book did a great job of showing her intelligence and strength.   It also showed how her arrogance, mistakes and stubbornness hurt her husband's presidency.  It also showed how she changed over time. She learned from her mistakes.  She grew to appreciate the value of having a favorable relationship with the media.  It's too bad she didn't learn that one earlier.  She offended them so badly and they never really forgave her for it.  They were really quite brutal to her for a long time.  She also learned how to play the Washington Game instead trying to succeed as a pushy outsider. Once again, it was another lesson that was learned too late in her husband's presidency.   Her health care plan may have had better success if she'd had more political savvy back then and been willing to work with people outside the White House.  I also admire her for keeping her religious beliefs private.  She met regularly with a prayer group for support and comfort but didn't try to use that for political gain.     

The book spent a lot of time discussing how she dealt with her husband's womanizing.   She was publicly humiliated for years and still stood by him.  Was that good or bad?  Who knows?  It was her business.  I personally didn't care about the whole Monica Lewinsky thing other than being annoyed by all the fuss over it.   Powerful men are in a setting where it's easy to cheat.  It seems fairly common.  It's not that big a deal to me.  While I don't approve of adultery and would have left his cheating arse in Arkansas, it wasn't my marriage.   She was also from a different generation than me.  It's too bad the country didn't hear more about her fairly traditional values at the time.  The public probably wouldn't have been so harsh on her.  Of course, I think a lot of that came from the media's vicious treatment of her.

It's a bit disturbing how powerful our media is in this country.  I'm all for the freedom of the press. But, it's a little frightening how they can exploit some issues to stir up a public frenzy and yet basically ignore other equally ( or even more) important issues.   I don't like the way they turn on some people and do everything they can to ruin and destroy their lives.   They can turn a minor inquiry into a witchhunt and nobody seems to care.  




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