These are 'œdark days' for conservatives who despise Hillary Clinton, said Dick Polman in The Philadelphia Inquirer. The Democratic presidential contender is rapidly remaking her old image as a 'œleftist Lady Macbeth,' winning over centrists and even Republicans with her work in the Senate. Her national approval rating has climbed to 52 percent'”the same as President Bush's. You'd think, then, that conservatives would welcome The Truth About Hillary, journalist Ed Klein's nasty new biography of New York's junior senator. Curiously, though, 'œmany Hillary bashers are denouncing the book.' Filled with rumors, innuendo, and gossip, Klein's book is such an obvious hatchet job that conservatives are worried it might actually further Hillary's ambitions. 'œThis stuff is disgusting,' said conservative operative Craig Shirley. 'œIt could backfire and make Hillary a more sympathetic figure.'
This time, said Sheryl McCarthy in Newsday, 'œthe vast right-wing conspiracy' has really gone too far. Klein suggests in this book that Hillary became pregnant with Chelsea after a drunken Bill Clinton 'œraped' her; that she's either frigid or a lesbian but still had an affair with the late White House counsel Vince Foster; and that a disease caused her lower body to become so dumpy. 'œNo shot is too cheap to take,' even though Klein'”once a respected journalist'”offers only unnamed sources and rumors as his evidence. His proof that Hillary is a lesbian? One of her best friends at Wellesley was a lesbian. I guess that makes me a lesbian, too, said John Podhoretz in the New York Post, since I have lesbian friends. As a conservative, I'm appalled that anyone published this 'œsordid' mess. 'œThirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower.'
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