“HRC” by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes

[Valin]

Hugh Hewitt:

Hugh Hewitt

Thursday, April 17, 2014

 

 

impossible-to-put-down chronicle of the five years in the life of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that begins with her loss to Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential primaries and ends with her departure from the Department of State in early 2013 with the ashes of Benghazi just beginning to be sifted and her campaign for the presidency just beginning to take shape. It is a must read for conservatives –an indispensable guide to Hillaryland, the Planet Bill and the vast Clinton Universe which now looms over the country like a political death star. Allen and Parnes have done the GOP a favor: They have given it a map. Now the GOP must study it.

 

Part of that map emerges because of what isn’t detailed in the book. The gaps are revealing –very revealing. They point us to what Hillaryland fears most. Allen and Parnes had lots and lots of access to almost everyone in Hillaryland — Chelsea and Huma Abedin, Hillary’s “second daughter” seem to be the only major figures in the drama they didn’t talk with directly and at length– but everyone else gave them their takes on the five years in question, and from those vast hours of interviews comes the first comprehensive account of what went on at State from the time “HRC” walked in the doors.

 

I taped my three hour interview with Allen Wednesday, and will air the first two hours today and hour three tomorrow –a classic radio tease, that– and Allen’s voice is almost gone because of book tour talking. So perhaps was his resistance to conservative probes, because his candid, often very surprising answers and agreements will render a verdict on Hillary’s tenure at State you won’t want to miss, which is why you want to read the book. The interview should alert you to the book’s value to conservatives, but it has to be read to be appreciated, for Hillaryland’s strengths and weaknesses to be understood at least in part.

 

(snip)

 

 

Live Stream Here

6 - 9 PM Eastern

 

 

[Valin]

Audio and Transcript of Jonathan Allen Interview on “HRC”
Hugh Hewitt
Friday, April 18, 2014

A Passover/Easter gift for you –the audio and transcript of my long interview with Jonathan Allen, co-author with Amie Parnes of “HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton”:

Audio Part 1

Audio Part 2

Audio Part 3

[Valin]

Dems Realizing Hillary’s Record Matters
Jonathan S. Tobin
04.17.2014

Hillary Clinton’s likely presidential candidacy rests on two pillars: gender and resume. Just as electing the first African-American galvanized the country in 2008, Democrats think, and not without reason, that nominating the putative first female president would, in and of itself, be a conclusive argument in 2016. But at the same time, Clinton is also running on what is now a rather lengthy resume as a first lady, U.S. senator, and secretary of state. Yet after years of basking in the almost universal adulation of the mainstream media during her four years at Foggy Bottom, some rather pointed questions are starting to be asked about what it is she did–or didn’t do–while serving as the chief architect of American foreign policy.

 

As a front-page New York Times feature on the subject points out today, the crisis in Ukraine and the attention being given to other foreign-policy quagmires, such as Iran and the Middle East peace process, are forcing Democrats to ask themselves a question they had hoped not to have to ask, let alone answer: does Hillary’s record in office matter? Defining Clinton’s “legacy in progress” is a delicate question for the Times, and the story does its best to pose it in a sympathetic manner.

 

(Snip)

 

If even the New York Times cannot assemble a coherent argument for her time as secretary of state as a success, then that is a poor omen for a general election in which she will have to account not only for her own political baggage but also the failures of a lame duck and increasingly unpopular Obama administration. Gender may remain a Clinton trump card in 2016, but the resume she built up so carefully over the last decade and a half since her husband left the White House is looking more like a problem than an asset.

 

 

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Jonathan Tobin hates women