Bio or term paper?

Bernstein borrows heavily from other authors for his uneven book on Hillary

Lynn Bronikowski, Special to the Rocky

Published June 8, 2007 at midnight

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Carl Bernstein's much-hyped unauthorized biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton, A Woman in Charge, is neither a bomb nor a bombshell as he rehashes everything from Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers to her ill-conceived health-care reform plan and insistence that she have an office in the West Wing.

Mostly, though, he disappoints, devoting about 20 pages to her years in the U.S. Senate and a scant three pages to her decision to run for president. It's as if he lost steam in his eight-year labor and then rushed to print as she became a presidential front-runner.

Bernstein's detailed stories often are more about Bill than they are about Hillary. And most are ho-hum to anyone who has read the former first lady's Living History, her husband's My Life, Gail Sheehy's opuses in Vanity Fair and any of the scads of other books on the Clintons.

At the same time, you could say Bernstein has written the definitive book on Hillary, a term paper complete with hundreds of footnotes as he lifts freely from others' published works while dotting his book with tidbits gleaned from 200 interviews he said he conducted.

It's almost as if he tries too hard to dish on Hillary, even though - from the flattering title and cover photo to his last page, where he praises Hillary for her passion "which deep down is perhaps her most enduring and even endearing trait" - you get the impression he likes her, he really likes her.

But dish he must, tossing in such incongruous, unproven and unfair statements as: "Throughout her years as a public person there has been sexual innuendo about Hillary, implying that somewhere along her way - in rumor it is usually Wellesley - she experimented with lesbianism." The Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter who once helped dump a president finds nothing, so why put in even the hint of such a rumor?

From the opening pages, Bernstein launches his first strike: to debunk Hillary's idealization of her father and idyllic childhood growing up in Park Ridge, Ill., which she conveys in her biography Living History. His interviews with Hillary's childhood friend Betsy Eberling and others paint a picture of a Hugh Rodham full of rage, a household run like a boot camp and the demeaning treatment of Hillary's mother.

"I could go home to two parents who adored everything I did," Eberling told Bernstein in several generous interviews. "Hillary had a different kind of love; you had to earn it."

But other Bernstein interviews are so downright banal one has to wonder if he included them only because he did a little legwork. That seems the case when he caught up with Hillary's Harvard boyfriend, Geoff Shields, whom she dated her freshman year at Wellesley.

"She was attractive, interesting to talk to and she was a good dancer," said Shields. Ah, weren't we all.

The same goes for his many references to her looks, her makeup, the way she dresses, her hair, the headbands and "Coke-bottle glasses" she wore over the four decades he covers.

Bernstein does, however, score some juicy interviews, such as a diatribe from Betsy Wright, Clinton's longtime chief of staff in Arkansas, about Bill's multiple affairs while governor.

"I talked to Hillary several times during that period by phone, and we were pulling our hair about him. He was a mess," Wright told Bernstein, adding that during one of their tête-à- têtes, Hillary finally lamented: "There are worse things in life than infidelity."

Bernstein also relies heavily on a trove of private notes of Diane Blair, Hillary's friend and confidante during the Arkansas years. Blair had planned to write a book but died of cancer at age 61 in 2000 before doing so. Out of these papers, Bernstein trumpets one of the book's few new tidbits: that in 1989 Bill wanted a divorce to be with Marilyn Jo Jenkins, a power company executive he had fallen in love with. Hillary refused.

"She didn't own a house. She was concerned that if she were to become a single parent, how would she make it work in a way that would be good for Chelsea," Bernstein writes of Hillary's conversation with her friend. Hillary also thought aloud about running for governor of Arkansas, which Bernstein characterizes as a threat "out of anger and hurt."

Bernstein hammers far too long on Hillary's failed health-care plan and her fears that she'd be indicted for the Whitewater scandal, all old news with fresh faces and quotes.

"I find her to be among the most self-righteous people I've ever known in my life," said Bob Boorstin, who worked for Clinton when Hillary was pushing for health-care reform. "And it's her great flaw; it's what killed health care."

Meanwhile, if you're tempted to flash forward to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, it enters around page 500. Bernstein gives little new insight except to reveal that talking to Bill about her possible run for the Senate "was a kind of therapy in itself," and that the episode and forgiveness that followed were critical to her evolution as a politician.

Bernstein closes his book as if he's writing a thesis, concluding:

"Almost always Hillary has stood for good things. Yet there is often a disconnect between her words and her actions. This is where Hillary disappoints."

And so does Bernstein.

A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton

• By Carl Bernstein. Knopf, 628 pages, $27.95

• Grade: B-

Too many trivial details

Where does Carl Bernstein go wrong in his lengthy tome on Hillary? Let us count the ways:

6. Number of times in 90 pages that Bernstein lets us know Hillary wore glasses, three times calling them "Coke-bottle."

25. Number of times Bernstein refers to Hillary's clothing, including a reference to when, as a young attorney, she wore "awful plastic jewelry" to court.

31. Number of previously written books on the Clintons that Bernstein references, peppering his book with recycled material. The titles include Hillary's Living History (19 references in the first 60 pages); David Maraniss' First in His Class (at least 60 times in 80 pages) and Gail Sheehy's Hillary's Choice (at least 35 times in the first three chapters).

Lynn Bronikowski is a freelance writer living in Aurora.

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