Amazon.com
Hillary Rodham Clinton is a touchstone for a generation. Supporters view her as a feminist icon, detractors as an enabler for her husband's constant philandering--and as someone with her own dangerous political agenda. The First Partner is a well-written, well-researched, and insightful biography in which Joyce Milton fully considers her subject's many contradictions. Hillary Rodham's upbringing was as stern and demanding as her husband's was loose and adoring. She has always provided discipline; he, charm. Milton concludes that the first lady's "most significant public accomplishment by far" has been "saving Bill Clinton from political ruin" by standing by him and stage-managing behind the scenes on numerous occasions.
Those who crave sensational tidbits will not be disappointed by the book's "greatest hits" recap of the various Clinton scandals: the suggestion that Bill Clinton used drugs when he was governor; that the Clintons considered divorce; the alleged affair between Hillary and Vince Foster; her use of profanity with Secret Service agents; the banning of Barbra Streisand from the White House; the "kitchen coup"; the pornographic Christmas ornaments; the failure to credit her collaborator on It Takes a Village--not to mention Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, Chinagate, and Monicagate. Milton claims that whenever there is trouble, Hillary Clinton can usually be found right in the middle of it, but that she consistently denies involvement, expecting friends and employees to cover up for her. Perhaps Milton's most valuable contribution in The First Partner, though, is to take a hard look at HRC's liberal ideas and politics going back to her college days, including the groups to which she has belonged and the people with whom she has associated. An understanding of these views, obviously strongly held, will become increasingly important and relevant when evaluating Hillary Rodham Clinton's political character during--and after--her husband's presidency. --Linda Killian
From Library Journal
Biographer Milton has drawn a fairly unflattering portrait of Hillary Clinton that traces her personal and professional development from her childhood in Illinois to her years of study at Wellesley and Yale Law School, her early career, and her role as First Lady. Clinton's relationship with the President is examined in detail, from their first meeting in law school through the Monica Lewinsky affair. Her bond with daughter Chelsea and possible run for political office are also examined. Reader Sandra Burr has a pleasant voice, although she speaks a bit too quickly at times. The impressive abridgment is seamless, and listeners will probably not be aware of the phrases, paragraphs, or pages that are cut throughout the book; it is also severe in places, at times stripped to a bare-bones summation of the facts. Not a necessary purchase except where demand dictates.ALeah Sparks, Bowie P.L., MD Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times Book Review, Robin Toner
In Milton's account, ambition is Mrs. Clinton's great sin, and a willingness to overlook just about anything to keep her husband's political career on track...
From AudioFile
Part biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton and part compendium of all the alleged scandals connected to the Clintons, this audiobook provides much detail on the young HRC and also discusses every scandal ever connected to the Clintons, even some long discredited. In a low, clear, serious voice, Burr communicates the author's cynicism toward Mrs. Clinton and her professional and political activities. The audiobook is well produced, with excellent music at the end of each side. M.L.C. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
Milton may not intend her biography as a hatchet job, but it will be a lot more popular with the "vast right-wing conspiracy" than among those urging Hillary Clinton to run for a New York Senate seat. As in her Charlie Chaplin biography (Tramp, 1996), Milton is more interested in dishing dirt than in understanding her subject; here, she adopts a "gotcha" tone, whether the issue is Clinton's alleged bossiness in high school or her Arkansas real-estate deals. Although Milton's introduction opens by asserting that, in 1992, "I felt I could identify with Hillary Rodham Clinton," it closes with attacks on her subject's brainpower ("She is not a clear thinker, perhaps because she trusts her intellectual rationalizations a lot more than she trusts her emotions") and attitudes (she's "a victim of that great delusion of the 1960s--namely, that it's possible to continually reinvent oneself, rewriting the rules to suit whatever role one happens to be playing at the moment"). Milton has a right to these opinions, but they make her a questionable choice as biographer. With several other Hillary Rodham Clinton biographies due later this year, purchase only if demand is anticipated. Mary Carroll
From Kirkus Reviews
A biography of the First Lady that evaluatesmostly negativelyher performance as lawyer, politician, policy wonk, presidential advisor, as well as loyal and ambitious spouse. As Milton (Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplin, 1996, etc.) sees her, Hillary Rodham Clinton is a shapeshifter, ``rewriting the rules to suit whatever role [she] happens to be playing at the moment.'' Reworking generally familiar material, Milton takes hard-working and competitive Hillary through her Illinois elementary school and Girl Scout troop, high school and Wellesley College. Her commencement speech at Wellesley put her into the national spotlight for the first time (in a Life nagazine article about that year's ``best and brightest''); at Yale Law school, Hillary met Bill Clinton, who would keep her in the spotlight. A good part of the book is devoted to the Clintons' life in Arkansas, sullied by Bill's philandering, Hillary's penchant for insulting the people of Arkansas, the growing complexities of what became the Whitewater financial scandal (described in confusing technicality), and their combined talent for blaming other people for mistakes. The basis of the Hubbell/Foster/MacDougal relationships are laid out as well. Once in the White House, according to the author, Hillary's demand to be a working First Lady and her general posture that people should accept what was best for them (by her standards) led to the health care fiasco, among other early disasters. Following the 1996 election, Hillary shifted her interest to the international scene, already planning for her postWhite House years. It's uncertain, says the author, how the humiliation of the Lewinsky scandal will affect those plans or the Clintons' marriage, which has already survived so much. Throughout, the author questions Hillary's ethics, judgment, intelligence and abilities, and her manners. It is time for the pendulum to return to center regarding Hillaryshe deserves neither her present sainted status nor her earlier Wicked Witch of the White House characterizationbut this story, complex and detailed as it is, is more spiteful than informative. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
"Milton chronicles Mrs. Clinton's lifelong capacity to reinvent herself with devastating accuracy."
Book Description
nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Hillary Rodham Clinton has fascinated the nation since she became First Lady in 1992. In The First Partner, acclaimed biographer Joyce Milton goes beyond the headlines and offers real insight into Clinton's character, her values, and her career.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Milton offrs new perspectives on the firestorms that have raged about Clinton, from the health-care fiasco to Whitewater to the Lewinsiky scandal. She also examines Clinton's attempts to reconcile a host of contradictions--feminist convictions in painful collision with family commitment; philosophical beliefs in conflict with political reality; the precarious balance between professional ambition, public image, and private life. Lively and evenhanded, this definitive biography is a revealing portrait of one of the most enigmatic women in politics.
About the Author
Joyce Milton is the author of Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplin and several other books. She is also the coauthor of The Rosenberg File. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Excerpted from The First Partner Hillary Rodham Clinton : A Biography by Joyce Milton. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
Chapter OneThe First VictimWhen a woman with servants spends the weekend cleaning out her closets, it usually is not a good sign. And when Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters that closet cleaning and hearing a good sermon at church had been the highlights of the past few days she was, by her standards, baring her soul. That Saturday, January 17, 1997, her husband had given a six-hour deposition to lawyers representing Paula Corbin Jones in her sexual harassment case.Although the Clintons did their best to put up a show of unconcern, anyone who knew William Jefferson Clinton realized that for him to testify under oath about his sexual history was a very bad idea indeed. How this no-win situation was allowed to come about ranks as the greatest mystery of the political partnership of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, which had proved in so many other ways to be a resounding success.Certainly, it didn't take a Yale-trained lawyer to recognize that there were other options. Even a young Pentagon employee named Monica Lewinsky, who would never be accused of being politically astute, recognized that the Jones case cried out for a settlement, regardless of its merits. In the months before Clinton's deposition was taken, Lewinsky and her Pentagon colleague Linda Tripp thrashed out scenarios that would lead to an out-of-court resolution, thus solving both the President's problem and theirs. As Lewinsky saw it, the imperative was clear. "The American people elected him," she reminded Tripp, I so let him do his stupid job. You know?"One "game plan" laid out by Lewinsky assigned a key role to Hillary Rodham Clinton: The First Lady would go on Larry King Live, having let it be known that she was prepared to take a question about the Jones case. When asked, Hillary "would respond emotionally. It's hard to see something we don't see from her often," Lewinsky mused. Hillary would then say, "The country is being robbed of its time that the President spends on other issues. They wish it would simply be settled. It's been hard on our family. I would like nothing more than for this to be a non-issue in our lives and in the lives of the American people."His wife having cleared the way, Bill Clinton could appear the next morning with press spokesman Mike McCurry at his side and make a brief announcement, saying that for the sake of his family and the country he had decided to give Paula Jones the apology she was demanding and settle the lawsuit. It would be "sort of a gallant statement," Monica thought, and given Bill Clinton's high poll ratings, "a two week story," maybe "a three week story" at most.This was not, however, the scenario the Clintons chose to follow. The Jones deposition might be a minefield, salted with booby traps, but they had negotiated treacherous territory before and survived. Several women who had indicated that they might be prepared to cooperate with Paula Jones's attorneys had already reneged. Notably, Kathleen Willey, an attractive widow appointed by the President to the United Service Organization's Board of Governors, and her friend Julie Steele had backed off from a story earlier reported in Newsweek that the President had fondled Willey and placed her hand on his genitals when she visited the Oval Office one day in November 1993 to ask him for a job.There were still a few witnesses who might pose problems for Bill Clinton, among them Linda Tripp, who had told Newsweek reporter Mike Isikoff that she saw Willey emerge from the Oval Office that day, disheveled and apparently "joyful" over being the object of the President's advances. Like numerous other female career employees in the West Wing of the White House, Tripp resented the way jobs had been doled out to women who caught the President's eye, and she was furious that Willey, who hadn't been too proud to take the appointment offered her, would be presented to the world as a victim. From Tripp's point of view, her statement to Isikoff had not only been the truth, it happened to defend Bill Clinton against the charge that he was a sexual harasser.This, of course, was not the way the President's allies saw it. Soon after the Newsweek story appeared, Tripp heard from Norma Asnes, a New York producer and personal friend of Hillary Clinton. Tripp knew Asnes slightly, having met her at an official Pentagon function a few years earlier. Suddenly, however, Asnes had become very chummy. She invited Tripp to spend a few days at her luxurious Fifth Avenue apartment and asked her to come along on a chartered yacht cruise planned for the following summer. And in November, after Tripp's named appeared on the witness list for the Paula Jones suit, Asnes talked of introducing her to executives who could help her find a better-paying job outside of government. Tripp was flattered at first but also suspicious of Asnes's motives. Referring to Asnes's closeness to the First Lady, she told Lewinsky, "Let's not forget whose friend she is." Tripp also expressed her reservations to Asnes, who told her, "I like to enjoy the people I'm with. I like them to be articulate, bright, and mentally stimulating. They don't have to be at my level. It doesn't matter if they're not millionaires."Far from finding this reassuring, Tripp was insulted. "So I'm one of the plebeians," she told Lewinsky. "I hate to sound like a skeptic. But-why? I mean, we don't know each other that well."'The question of what-or, more to the point, who-inspired Norma Asnes's desire to play Pygmalion would come to interest Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. His investigators later interviewed Asnes, but in the push to deliver a timely report to Congress, the role played by the First Lady's friend was just one more lead that was never developed. But for Tripp, who had already been called a liar by the President's attorney Robert Bennett, Asnes's approaches were evidence...
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