Hillary Clinton: political career and influence

¶ … Village

Gottlieb, Alan. She Took a Village: The Unauthorized Biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Bellevue, Washington: The Merril Press, 1998.

Alan Gottlieb's book She Took a Village derives its title from Hilary Rodham Clinton's own book it Takes a Village about how the whole community should participate I the raising of a child, at least in a sense. For Gottlieb, that idea is itself anathema, and in this book, he ostensibly writes a biography of the woman that is really a rehashing of a good deal of intemperate speculation and contrived scandals about both Clintons. At the time of publication, the Clinton presidency was halfway through its last term, and speculation even then was that Hillary Clinton would run for president at some point. This book is largely an effort to forestall such an eventuality by raising all of the supposed scandals surrounding the Clintons, including a variety of unsubstantiated claims about criminal activity, fraud, drug-dealing, and even murder. These claims remain unsubstantiated in this book, though there is a clear assumption on the part of the author that anything one can say about the Clintons that is bad must be true. The central thesis is that Hillary Rodham Clinton is power-hungry and self-serving at one and the same time and that she should be stopped from pursuing higher office.

Alan Gottlieb is not a historian but a writer whose background is in nuclear engineering and the study of comparative political systems, at least as far as his education is concerned. His writing experience seems to be largely in promoting the outdoors and the right to bear arms. He is a member of the National Rifle Association and a National Director of the American Conservative Union. Based on his book, he decides issues on the basis of his political philosophy and not on the kind of evidence a journalist would need. This book is as close to a self-published work as it can be while still coming from a publishing house that publishes other works given that Gottlieb is also the head of Merril Press.

The central characters in this book are Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, Bill Clinton, and the author sees Bill as affable but weak, while he sees Hillary as the real power in the family, a power working through her husband to that time. The author actually seems to have an antipathy toward any powerful women or seemingly powerful woman, and Hillary's greatest sin in his eyes is that she does anything but be a wife, more the quiet woman in the background. Gottlieb also has a jaundiced view of Arkansas and of anyone who has any political success in that state, seeing them as necessarily corrupt and venal. In these terms as well, Gottlieb sees Hilary as the controlling power for the duo, noting again and again that she handles the finances and that she is able again and again "to maneuver politics to suit her needs and in her shrewd financial sense" (93).

Gottlieb attributes powers to the Clintons that are simply impossible to believe unless doing so fits with a preconceived notion of how truly manipulative and criminal the Clintons are. He talks about various deaths in Arkansas and elsewhere and again and again implies Clinton involvement even if no such involvement can be demonstrated. One way of doing this is by making reference to unnamed pesons who "believe" that there might be such involvement. When a state trooper's wife commits suicide, for instance, Gottlieb writes that "many suspected she had been silenced because she knew too much about how he [her husband] had helped the president in his womanizing activities" (117). Apparently, for Gottlieb, the fact that someone he does not name "suspects" something is sufficient to include it and let the reader suspect the same. He speculates more about this particular suicide-based o one medical examiner's belief that women do not commit suicide in this fashion and on speculation from others about what might have happened.

Gottlieb writes this book not just as a Clinton hater, though he is that, but as a conspiracy theorist who finds links to an unknown and unproven conspiracy virtually everywhere. Several members of the Maine Corps who had ridiculed Clinton die in a helicopter crash after three had flown with Clinton to the Roosevelt in the Potomac: "Definitely a far cry from conclusive evidence, but certainly a very intriguing coincidence" (117). That type of hint with no evidence is how conspiracy theorists build a vision of what they believe but cannot prove, and the fact that there is no proof becomes proof that someone is keeping anyone from finding the truth.

One of the other hot buttons for right-wing conspiracy theorists is the town of Mena, Arkansas, a town with an airport once used by the CIA to send material to the Contras and later used for smuggling cocaine into the country. Gottlieb cite another conspiracy theorist author, George Carpozi Jr., who finds the death of pilot Barry Seal to be a murder to cover up other activities. The provable crimes taking place in Mena were being committed by Republicans supporting the contras and smuggling drugs as well, and Gottlieb links this to Clinton largely because when a state representative wanted to investigate, "Mr. Clinton did not seize on the issue and offer support" (133). This fact is taken as a demonstration that Clinton was involved in drug smuggling, which is not even a sensible way to reach a conclusion.

Gottlieb has a way of implying guilt without actually saying so, as when he wites about a series of deaths he says are suspicious, though the suspicion comes largely fro the way he links widely disparate events as if they are connected because he can find a tenuous connection. He then writes,

None of the deaths or acts of violence mentioned here can be directly pinpointed to either of the Clintons. They all seem unrelated, but when taken together, it seems impossible that they could be mere coincidence (107).

That is an absurd way to level a charge of murder at two people, but Gottlieb is doing just that even if he professes not to be. He even cites Carpozi again who "relates an intriguing series of deaths -- perhaps murders" (107), again leaping to unwarranted conclusions and finding a way to link them to the Clintons.