The man behind the book

The answer to the question "Why did you write this book?" is, according to Klein, "pretty simple." "I write about fascinating people. Hillary Clinton is probably the most fascinating person in the country today, if not in the whole world," he said. He decided to do the book in late 2002. "I knew I wanted it to be a hard-hitting, truth-seeking book, and though I did not go in with any ax to grind or any agenda, I knew it was going to be warts and all, because that's what I write."

Klein sold "The Truth About Hillary" to Penguin in 2003 along with "Farewell, Jackie," his fourth book about the Kennedys, as a two-book deal. Klein will not disclose how much he was paid. Viking, Penguin's prestigious trade imprint, published "Farewell, Jackie"; the Clinton book went to the brand-new conservative imprint, Sentinel. Sentinel's publisher, Adrian Zackheim, said that Klein's Clinton proposal had been "about the aptness of a book about her, not about what was going to be in it." It wasn't just aptness; it was angle. As Zackheim said, "We don't anticipate selling to people who are advocates of the senator."

According to this timeline, Klein did the bulk of the research and writing of "The Truth About Hillary" while being paid by an openly conservative press that was not looking for a book that would appeal to Clintonites. When asked if the circumstances could have had an impact on his objectivity, he said no. "I wrote this book for Sentinel exactly the way I would have written it had it been for Random House or Simon & Schuster," he said. "However, I don't think any of those imprints would have published it." Claiming that "book publishing is probably more liberal in its political affinities than even newspapers and magazines," Klein said that "the people at the top of Penguin aren't happy with 'The Truth About Hillary.' I think most people who work at that conglomerate hope to see Hillary as president of United States."

Klein does not. "I think she's the closest thing we have today to what I would call a Nixonian character," he said of Clinton. "Like Nixon, she is paranoid; she has an enemy list. Like Nixon, she has used FBI files against enemies. Like Nixon, Hillary believes the ends justify the means, and like Nixon, she has a penchant for doing illegal things." When asked to elaborate on the illegal things, Klein laughed. "I believe that the order to get those FBI files came directly from Hillary to Craig Livingstone," he said. "I believe that the miraculous discovery of the Rose law firm billing files two days after the statute of limitations ran out was also an illegal act. I think she lied to the country when she said that this Monica Lewinsky matter came as an utter and complete surprise to her."

But lying about Lewinsky was not illegal. "Well, technically it's not," replied Klein. "But it certainly strikes me as, if not illegal, then at least immoral."

Clinton's press secretary, Philippe Reines, offered only this response to the book, "We don't comment on works of fiction, let alone a book full of blatant and vicious fabrications contrived by someone who writes trash for cash."

Klein pointed out he's been a journalist for almost 50 years now. For "The Truth About Hillary," he said he interviewed over 100 sources, including classmates, White House support staff, speechwriters, military aides, Cabinet officials, senators and congressmen.

The trouble is, so much of his information is attributed to others who have written on the Clintons that his own sources, anonymous or not, don't exactly burn the barn down. While there is lots of ugliness about Clinton's role in Whitewater and the Lewinsky affair, none of it will come as news to anyone who has watched television over the past 14 years. Klein's fresh revelations include the accusation, made by a fired White House usher, that Clinton went over budget in her White House redecoration and "secretly tapped into Historical Association funds." Klein doesn't indicate in his text that he checked this claim with the people who manage the Historical Association budget. But even if he had, the great faux-wicker scandal of '93 is not likely to provoke the frothing fury of, say, allegations that John Kerry shot himself to get a Purple Heart.

But rumors that Hillary Clinton is secretly a lesbian very well could. It's true, Klein doesn't come out and directly level this charge, but the intimation is there. In advance of the book's publication, even Page Six in the New York Post -- not exactly the press organ of choice for Hillary supporters -- questioned the veracity of Klein's reporting on the issue, and took issue with the book's innuendo about Clinton's proclivities, including the implication that because Clinton is friendly with lesbians, she may well be one herself. "The reason the words 'lesbian' and 'lesbianism' appear in the book at all have nothing to do with sex and all to do with politics," said Klein in defense of the book. "Hillary's politics were shaped by the culture of radical feminism and lesbianism at Wellesley College in the 1960s."

Here Klein seemed to go off the deep end, rolling off names of Clinton friends and appointees and their Culture of Lesbianism crimes: Tara O'Toole (Marxist reading circle), Roberta Achtenberg (persecuted the Boy Scouts), Joycelyn Elders, Donna Shalala, Janet Reno, Eleanor Acheson. "She surrounded herself with many women who were either openly lesbian or suspected of being lesbian or appear to be masculine," he said.

"I did not invent the fascination with her sexuality," said Klein. "When people found out I was writing this book the first question they asked me was: Is she a lesbian? Should I have written a book that didn't address that question? What kind of woman would countenance a marriage of 30-something-odd years in which her husband is constantly betraying her? Does sex mean anything to her? What kind of woman boasts that one of her favorite publications of all time was a magazine called Motive, published by the Methodist Church, in which Marxism, feminism and lesbianism were promoted as positive ideals for young people? What kind of woman is purposefully surrounding herself as a public figure with women known to be lesbians?"

It seemed that the expected answer could only be: "A lesbian?"

No, insisted Klein, for what could only be legal reasons at this point. "If she had had lesbian affairs, don't you think the right-wingers would have uncovered at least one lover?"

As for comparisons between his book and "Unfit for Command," Klein said that he wrote his tome "to take a good, hard look at Hillary's true character. If my book is being compared to the Swift Boat Vets' book on that account, then comparison is apt." (Klein has not read "Unfit for Command.") "On the other hand, I did not set out to scuttle Hillary's chances of becoming president." In fact, said Klein, he believes that Clinton "not only has a great chance of getting the Democratic nomination in 2008, but a great chance of winning the White House." Klein said he is registered as an independent and votes "rarely" to preserve his journalistic distance.

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