Two Hillary Clinton biographies create gossip storm in Washington

Dueling biographies

Dueling biographies

click to enlarge

WASHINGTON — Two new books about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) offer a wealth of fresh details that reinforce her reputation as a shrewd, ambitious and calculating political figure, but campaign observers raised doubts Friday that the accounts would set back her presidential chances.

Both books, by veteran journalists, cover the broad swath of Clinton's life and political rise, digging back into the heavily mined controversies over President Clinton's dalliance with Monica Lewinsky and the Clintons' Arkansas finances and stretching into her Senate years.

One is written by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr., investigative reporters who wrote about the Clintons for the New York Times; the other is by Carl Bernstein of Watergate reporting fame.

The first political shudders from the books' approaching publication were set off Friday when the Washington Post unearthed much of the juiciest contents. The most immediate controversy flared up over passages in Gerth and Van Natta's "Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton" that reported the Clintons had secretly fashioned a "20-year project" to send them both to the White House.