Klein - Blood Feud: The Obamas Vs. the Clintons

Copyright 2014 by Edward Klein

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.

First ebook edition 2014

eISBN 978-1-62157-314-2

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Klein, Edward, 1936-

Blood feud : the Clintons vs. the Obamas / Edward Klein.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. United States--Politics and government--2009- 2. Obama, Barack. 3. Clinton, Hillary Rodham. 4. Clinton, Bill, 1946- 5. Obama, Michelle, 1964- I. Title.

E907.K554 2014

973.932--dc23

2014016147

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ALSO BY EDWARD KLEIN

NONFICTION

All Too Human:

The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy

Just Jackie:

Her Private Years

The Kennedy Curse:

Why Tragedy Has Haunted Americas First Family for 150 Years

Farewell, Jackie: A Portrait of Her Final Days

The Truth about Hillary:

What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far Shell Go to Become President

Katie:

The Real Story

Ted Kennedy:

The Dream That Never Died

The Amateur:

Barack Obama in the White House

NOVELS

If Israel Lost the War

(With Robert Littell and Richard Z. Chesnoff)

The Parachutists

The Obama Identity

(With John LeBoutillier)

In loving memory of DeeDee

CONTENTS

I m not sure what Bill and I expected from the Obamas, declared Hillary Clinton, but there was bad blood between us from the start.

It was a sunny afternoon in May 2013, and Hillary was in a corner booth in Le Jardin du Roi, a French bistro in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons have a home. She was dishing the dirt with a half-dozen women, all of them members of the Wellesley College class of 1969.

Forty-four years ago, these women had chosen Hillary Diane Rodham to be the first student graduation speaker in Wellesleys historya speech that won her a write-up in Life magazine and her first brush with fame. Now her classmates were still dreaming of the day she would fulfill her destiny and become the first woman president of the United States.

Surrounded by this trusted band of sisters, and liberated from the constraints of being a member of the Obama administration, Hillary was in her comfort zone. She felt free to speak her mind.

I still wonder if I should have joined Obama as his secretary of state, she said, according to the recollection of one of the women at the table, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. History will be the judge of that. Long after Im gone, historians who are now babies, or who havent even been born yet, will debate it at my presidential library.

The next race for the White House wouldnt begin in earnest for another year and a half, not until after the 2014 midterm electionsan eternity in politicsand Hillary insisted in public that she hadnt made up her mind yet whether she was going to run. However, her reference to my presidential library struck the women as a revealing slip of the tongue, and it set off a round of applause and clinked wineglasses among her classmates.

They were drinking Chteau Hyot Castillon Ctes de Bordeaux and Croix de Basson ros. The wines had been carefully chosen by Roi, the owner of the restaurant, to complement the scallops in an orange vanilla sauce, pat and sausage, mussels, and linguini with bacon and cream. Hillarys friends shared and tasted each others dishes, while Roi waited on Hillary personally and prepared a special vegan dish for her after the former first lady told him that she was trying to lose weight. A waiter stood nearby, refilling their wineglasses, and soon the room was filled with the sounds of mildly intoxicated female laughter.

The women had been planning this reunion for quite some time, but they had been unable to set a date until now, because of Hillarys relentless travel schedule as secretary of state. They were in a festive mood and turned out for the occasion in their best jewelry and handbags. They basked in the reflected glory of their most famous classmate.

For a woman who had recently suffered a concussion and a blood clot on her brain, Hillary looked amazingly well. Gone was the second set of bags under her eyes; gone, too, were some of the extra pounds she had packed on during her million-mile sprint as secretary of state. She had been working out, jogging, and watching what she ate, all of which explained why her pantsuit appeared to be a size too big. She was no longer the haggard, bloated, and burned-out figure who had resigned from office just four months before.

The transformation was so striking that one of her classmates alluded to it when she spoke later in an interview for this book. It had looked to her as though Hillary had some work done.

And that wasnt the only thing that confused this woman. She naturally sought to portray Hillary in the best possible light. She mentioned how Hillary remembered her classmates birthdays and the names of their loved ones; how much fun Hillary was to be with; how she caught a joke instantly and laughed before anyone else. And yet, at the same time and without meaning to, this source described a woman who could be hard to like; a woman who was as coarse as Lyndon Johnson and as paranoid as Richard Nixon; someone who often came across as disingenuous; an irascible woman who found it almost impossible to contain her feelings of resentment and anger.

When her friends asked Hillary to tell them what she thoughtreally thoughtabout the president she had served for four draining years, she lit into Obama with a passion that surprised them all.

Obama has turned into a joke, she said sharply. The IRS targeting the Tea Party, the Justice Departments seizure of AP phone records and James Rosens emailsall these scandals. Obamas allowed his hatred for his enemies to screw him the way Nixon did. During the time I worked on the Watergate case, I got into Nixons head and understood why he was so paranoid and angry with his enemies. Bill and I learned from that and didnt allow ourselves to go crazy bashing people who had anti-Clinton dementia, destroying ourselves in the process.