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Hillary Rodham Clinton:
What Every American Should Know,
by the American Conservative Union


(Click for Amazon book review)

BOOK REVIEW by OnTheIssues.org:

This book is anti-Clinton, but is researched and respectable in its critique, not just name-calling and partisanship. The A.C.U., the American Conservative Union which claims organizational authorship of the book, is hence part of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," but exhibits the way negative politics SHOULD be conducted.

The ACU believes that Bill and Hillary want to improve America. The ACU disagrees with Bill and Hillary's goals and methods, but they don't question their motivation. The ACU concurs that Bill & Hillary want what they think is best for America -- while other critics question their underlying motivation. In the build-up to the 2016 presidential race (and in the build-up to the 2008 race), this book goes against the usual "Obama/Hillary want to destroy America." If every negative political book took this view, American politics would be a whole lot more civil. The ACU sees that Bill & Hillary (& Obama and other non-conservatives) love America as much as the ACU does -- they just have different policies. Many other anti-Clinton groups can't say that, and therefore sound extremist and partisan.

That's not to say that the ACU doesn't attack Bill & Hillary quite strongly -- they do! Although they put Hillary on the cover, they reserve their greatest venom for Bill. For example, they describe Bill as "an insatiable goat of a man" (p. 26) and spends five pages discussing the women that qualify Bill for that moniker (with names and stories). The book does its share of attacking Hillary too, conveniently organizing its chapters by the title of each scandal:

This book is too old to be an effective vehicle for attacking Hillary in 2016, but it does provide a solid base of anti-Hillary information from her past. You'll need newer sources to create attacks based on Benghazi or email servers, but maybe the ACU will publish a sequel. Read this book is you want solid anti-Hillary stories -- or if you're a Hillary supporter, if you want to defend against them.

-- Jesse Gordon, jesse@OnTheIssues.org, April 2013, updated Feb. 2016