Unlikeable by Edward Klein Read Free Book Online Page B

Hollywood and beyond believed that Peltier had been wrongly convicted, and Geffen was joined in his appeal for a pardon by Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama as well as by such smooth operators as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
    Clinton ignored Geffen’s request.
    And as anyone in Hollywood could tell you, you didn’t cross David Geffen without paying a price.
    The Dowd interview was Geffen’s payback.
    â€œMarc Rich getting pardon?” Geffen scoffed. “An oil-profiteer expatriate who left the country rather than pay taxes or face justice? Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in. Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”
    When that phrase —“they do it [lie] with such ease, it’s troubling” —appeared in black and white in Dowd’s column, it ricocheted from coast to coast and instantly became part of political lore. It was a reminder of William Safire’s famous opening sentence about Hillary in a 1996 Times column:“Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady—a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation—is a congenital liar.”

    By early December 2007, Barack Obama had captured the lead in the Iowa polls, and Oprah Winfrey was drawing record crowds at Obama campaign rallies.
    Panic broke out among Hillary’s donors. Rumors began flying of a shake-up in her unruly and famously unmanageable staff. Reporters started writing eulogies for Hillary’s campaign.
    Hillary responded by calling in the cavalry: Bill Clinton.
    With the presidential caucuses just two weeks away, she and Bill started making joint appearances at coffee shops and diners all across Iowa. She dropped her objection to using her mother, Dorothy, and daughter, Chelsea, in TV commercials. And just before Christmas, she embarked on what a New York Times headline writer with a droll sense of humor described as a “Likability Tour.”
    This is how the Times played it:“Mrs. Clinton has embarked this week on a warm-and-fuzzy tour, blitzing full throttle by helicopter across Iowa to present herself as likable and heart-warming, a complement to her ‘strength and experience’ message that the campaign felt a female candidate needed first.”
    After Hillary lost to Obama in Iowa (she came in third after Obama and John Edwards), she mused about the outcome of the campaign.
    â€œMaybe,” she said, “they just don’t like me.”
    There was no maybe about it.

    When Hillary got to New Hampshire, the site of the first primary in the nation, she reverted to form. She was spitting mad over her loss to Obama in Iowa, and she was eager to demonstrate that she wasn’t intimidated by Obama’s Chicago-style brass-knucklespolitics. As her mother, Dorothy, might have said: “There’s no room in this campaign for cowards.”
    During their final debate in the Granite State, Hillary came across as defensive and angry—her old default expression when speaking in public.
    â€œMaking change is not about what you believe, it’s not about a speech you make,” she said, taking a shot at Obama, a first-term U.S. senator who, she believed, was riding on a smile and a shoe-shine and a lot of hot air.
    The moderator caught Hillary’s negative vibes and asked about her “personality deficit.”
    How would she respond to voters who thought Obama was more likeable than she was?
    â€œWell,” she replied, “that hurts my feelings, but I’ll try to go on.”
    Then she turned to Obama and added, “He’s very likeable. I agree with that. I don’t think I’m that bad.”
    But Obama wouldn’t let Hillary off the hook.
    â€œYou’re likeable enough, Hillary,” he said, throwing her some