Book Review: 'The Seduction of Hillary Rodham' (1996)

The big surprise in The Seduction of Hillary Rodham is that David Brock doesn't do the conservative hatchet job on Hillary Rodham Clinton that he did on Anita Hill (in his first book, The Real Anita Hill). Instead, he claims that the controversial First Lady has deflected assaults that should have been aimed at her corrupt, shallow husband. According to Brock, Hillary's unlikely alliance with '''the greatest seducer who ever lived''' has stymied her legal career and sullied her political identity. What could have actually been a rather poignant biography of a fascinating woman is marred by Brock's heavy reliance on previously published accounts, his leaden prose, the constant sense that he's proselytizing against Bill Clinton, and his naïveté about marriages in general and presidential ones in particular. D