My further take on Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, “A Woman in Charge” and the 2008 race

About a month ago, I put up a piece on my take on the degree of “split” between Gore on the one hand, and Hillary and Bill Clinton on the other, over Hillary and Al’s competition for Bill’s support in their respective 2000 races.

Commenter TJM accused me of doing the work of A. The Republican Party and B. “The Village” in taking Sally Bedell Smith’s interview in Vanity Fair in advance of her book.

Well, I just got done reading Carl Bernstein’s bio of Hillary, “A Woman in Charge,” which I would at least give a solid four-star rating. It’s sympathetic, while yet well-researched. The fact that both Clintons ultimately chose not to cooperate speaks volumes, to me.

Anyhow, while Bernstein certainly has an armlist of MSM credentials, I certainly wouldn’t consider him a captive of the Beltway, certainly not to the degree his Watergate cohort Woodward has become.

Now, that said, Bernstein also notes, in agreement with Smith, how tension between Al and Hillary already started at the beginning of Bill’s first term, and, from the moment Bill said she was going to get a West Wing office.

So, I’ll stand by not only the Hillary-Al issues comments of the original post, but my assertion that they played a part in Gore not running this year.

On the flip side, as a newspaper journalist, I’m sad. The potential blood on the floor from, let’s say, a grudge match, would have been spectacular.

Oh, and contrary to TJM’s assertion at that time, I’m not a reactionary.

Interesting how a “gadfly” can get banned from Kos for being too Green and then called a reactionary by somebody else.