"The boundary between reality and fiction has now been blurred to such an extent by show business, the news business and government alike that almost no shows produced by any of them are instantly accepted as truth. The market for fake news has become so oversaturated that a skeptical public is finally dismissing most of it as hooey until proven otherwise."
Fellow NYT columnist David Carr in a meditation on celebrity coverage, says: "Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, having decided to spend their lives together, felt compelled to share the good news immediately last week in a full-on news conference before cheering journalists.
"Add in Jessica-and-Nick and B-list names too numerous to count, and its apparent that in a mediated age, nothing quite says 'I love you' like a well-managed and potentially lucrative rollout. And while stars have always used the sizzle of romance to add to their own allure, they are no longer dependent on the fickle attentions of the press."
Speaking of celebrities, National Review's Myrna Blyth says that Ed Klein's new book "is a lot more like a juicy celebrity's biography than an analysis of a politician. And the Clintons -- Hill as well as Bill -- can be treated that way by a writer because they have always behaved more like celebrities than your standard-issue politician. Klein previously wrote three books about Jackie Kennedy and also one called The Kennedy Curse. And Jackie as well as members of the Kennedy Clan understood how, occasionally, politics and superstardom can converge.
"The Clintons have always believed in a non-stop public-relations campaign, and have always tried to manipulate the press in order to manipulate the public. I have long thought they secretly relished that their lives were such colorful stories, even when the story was a scandal not exactly to their liking. Bill always knew and Hillary learned that appealing emotionally to the public was the key. And the media today much prefers telling stories than contemplating policy or discussing issues . . .
" 'The Truth About Hillary' will make Hillary even more of a celebrity. It is the perfect beach read. And in the current culture, when the public is buying three million copies a week of magazines with cover lines like 'Angelina Jolie: Her Bedroom Secrets,' that is really the problem."
Maura Moynihan rips the book in the New York Observer:
"Ed Klein, author of the book in question, 'The Truth About Hillary', alleges that New York's late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan 'despised' Mrs. Clinton, that he once hid in a cloakroom to terminate a conversation with her. Nonsense. I think I know Senator Moynihan better than Mr. Klein, because he was my father. Mr. Klein also claims firsthand knowledge of a meeting between my parents and Mrs. Clinton that took place in their apartment in Washington. It was during this meeting that Mrs. Clinton, then the nation's First Lady, discussed the idea of running for the seat my father was about to vacate.
"Mr. Klein puts quotes around statements that were never uttered. I can confirm this because the only other persons present during this meeting were myself and our Tibetan cook, who speaks about 10 words of English. Mr. Klein has now gone on the record to say that he spent 'several hours interviewing Mrs. Moynihan.' Puzzling indeed, in that Mrs. Moynihan--my mother--hasn't seen Mr. Klein in over 20 years. I'd like to see the transcripts or hear the tapes of his on-the-record talks with Mrs. Moynihan. And it would have been difficult for him to interview Senator Moynihan, because he's dead."
How inconvenient.
A number of conservatives are trashing the book, such as the New York Post's John Podhoretz:
"This is one of the most sordid volumes I've ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. Sixty pages into it, I wanted to be decontaminated. And 200 pages into it, I wanted someone to drive stakes through my eyes so I wouldn't have to suffer through another word.
