Featured Review: Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Jeff Gerth and and Don van Natta Jr.

By Michael P.F. Van Der Galien Jun 26, 2007, 14:55 GMT

When I bought my copy of Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Jeff Gerth and Don van Natta Jr., I was looking forward to read it as soon as possible. I could not wait to read more about one of the most fascinating women in modern American history who is known for having a complicated character, with different sides. I have read many books and articles about her, including Living History her autobiography, but I expected this time to different: this time, I thought, I will not read a biased book, no, this time I will read a book by two great journalists, who will describe Hillary Clinton’s life as objectively as possible. Well, I have seldom been so wrong in my life. The authors of Her Way seem to greatly dislike Clinton and constantly focus on the bad sides of her character, while ignoring the good sides, and they skip from one controversy to another, giving the reader the impression that Hillary Clinton’s life is one big controversy.

As in every biography, the authors go back to the day Hillary was born and the family she was born in. They describe her father as a true conservative Republican, while her mother was more of a Democrat (quite like Clinton herself describes her parents like in her autobiography published in 2003). When little, Clinton agreed more with her father than with her mother on issues of politics; until she went to college that is. On Wellesley – an all women college – she slowly but surely broke with her Republican ties: where she was once a Goldwater girl, she now turned into a staunch Democrat. The authors of the reviewed book, imply that this is all new for the reader, her change being quite radical, etc. Of course, the opposite is true: we all know that Clinton was once a Republican, and that she turned into a Democrat and that she was – on some issues – quite far left, say, 30 years ago. If one is surprised by that, one probably never watched the news nor read any newspapers in the last, say, 15 years.

Another important part of the book is dedicated to Whitewater. The authors have done a tremendous deal of research, not just specifically for this book, but also in the years before reporting for the New York Times. Therefore, they know a lot about Whitewater and are more than happy to share this knowledge with the reader. Sadly for the authors, the average reader knows quite a lot about Whitewater as well and – perhaps more importantly – does not want to know more: we all know that Hillary kept secrets, that she might have behaved unethically in some regards, and that she tried everything possible to keep the press (and Republicans) from finding out about it. If one decides to spend a lot of words on Whitewater, one should better have discovered some new, disturbing facts and actions, or else the reader will be bored. Suffice to say, the two authors did not produce any truly significant new facts.

The book has certain themes, that come back time and time again. The most important ones are:
- Hillary cannot be trusted
- Hillary is manipulative
- She is overly ambitious
- She is calculating
- She is an opportunist and willing to sell out those she cannot use any longer
- She is arrogant (she believes she is always the most intelligent person in the room
- Unable to admit to having made any mistakes

The authors use everything that ever happened in Clinton’s (political) life to support these claims, and to bring up these themes. For instance on page 165 of the Dutch translation by Artemis & co, Gerth and Van Natta try to portray Hillary as ungrateful and disloyal by writing that Hillary thanked 400 individuals in her autobiography, but she did not take the time to thank Marian Wright Edelman (founder of the Children’s Defense Fund for which Clinton worked for a while) for all the work she did, and for the fact that she, Edelman, inspired Clinton to dedicate her life to help children, as Van Netta and Gerth write on page 164, followed by a note (64). Now, most people do not check notes, so when one reads these pages one thinks to oneself “that ungrateful…” however, when one actually checks the note, one sees that Van Natta and Gerth got their information (that Edelman was a source of inspiration) from Clinton’s autobiography. Luckily, I own a copy of Living History myself, so I decided to look up what she wrote about Marian Wright Edelman. Although she, indeed, does not thank Edelman at the end of the book, she does mention her on several occasions in the story itself and always in a very positive way. For instance, she writes that she regrets that she and Edelman broke on Bill Clinton’s welfare reform bill, that she was always a great source of inspiriation and, basically, that she, Clinton, owes her, Edelman, a lot. Now, I do not know about you, but I’d rather be mentioned in the book itself like that, than to be one of 400 names at the end of book, names no one (except for over-enthousiastic journalists) reads.

When reading (especially the first half of) this book, I got the impression that I was not reading a biography, but a hit piece. Van Natta and Gerth spend so much on Hillary’s mistakes and potentially embarrassing words, votes and actions, that I would not have a hard time to believe that it was written by strategists of Clinton’s political opponents. The only thing that Van Natta and Gerth find worth mentioning, are Hillary’s weaknesses. The only thing they describe is dubious behavior, or at least behavior / votes that could be used against her. After reading Her Way, you know exactly how to attack Clinton, and how to make Clinton look bad, but you have – in essence – still no idea who Hillary Clinton truly is. Gerth and Van Natta present the reader with a caricature, not the full picture.

Roughly the second half of the book is dedicated to Hillary Clinton as a Senator. This is more interesting and less negative than the first half (which is not exactly difficult to accomplish of course). It is quite enlightening to read how Clinton approached the vote on whether or not Bush should be allowed to use force against Iraq. Clinton, privately, seemed to oppose military action, but she firmly believed that – at that point in time – she had to make herself look strong, tough and decisive. As Bill Clinton once said, in times of crises, people rather have a decisive president who is wrong,
than an indecisive president, who is right. So, she voted in favor of the bill before the Senate. Later, of course, this vote brought her in trouble so she tried to distance herself from it. She began calling the Iraq War, Bush’s War, and started to backpedal a bit, without admitting that she made a mistake back in 02 because admitting mistakes is not something Clinton is very fond of – to put it mildly.

Her inability to admit to have made mistakes, is another major theme in Her Way. Whenever the reader forgets for a minute or two that Clinton almost never admits to have been wrong in the past, the authors immediately remind him of this flaw in Clinton’s character.

The part of the book that is dedicated to Clinton as Senator is worth the read, although it is still quite biased. Compared to the first half, however, the second half is almost objective and fascinating. Overall, I would strongly urge the potential buyer, to ignore Her Way and to – instead – pick up a copy of Bernstein’s biography of Clinton which appeared at just about the same time as this one.  Not because I read Bernstein’s biography myself – I have not had the time yet – but because it cannot possibly be as bad, let alone worse, than Van Natta’s and Gerth’s hit piece.

Michael P.F. Van Der Galien is the chief political reviewer for M&C. Visit his blog at http://mvdg.wordpress.com/