Blood Feud

Edward Klein “Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. The Obamas” Regenery Publishing, 2014, 281 pp.

The author, Edward Klein, is a former editor at Newsweek and The New York Times Magazine.  He wrote a previous book critical of Obama entitled “The Amateur”.   I read and posted my notes on Hillary’s book “Hard Choices” before reading this, so this book provided balance--if that is the right word.

My first impression of this book after twenty or so pages was that I was reading a tabloid article, much like those I see and scan when checking out at the supermarket.  But, as I read more, I believe much of this book is true although mostly attributed to anonymous sources.  One of the true items concerns Hillary’s severe health problems.  The choice she makes for vice president will be critical to get my vote.

Another important item that I believe is true and important regards Benghazi.  It appears that Ambassador Stevens was in Benghazi arranging weapon transfers to Syrians, in spite of what the public had been told was our policy toward providing arms.  It was a CIA operation and as such it was the responsibility of the CIA to protect him, not the State Department.  Stevens was there because of his contacts and language skills.

Obama is probably the most ill-informed President we have had in recent history.  He is cosseted by advisers like Valerie Jarrett and they filter out any advice that might run counter to their boss’s opinions.  His administration is the least transparent of any.

Other not so important items are quite entertaining.  How about former President Bill Clinton demanding that his wife get a face-lift to enhance her political viability.  When she refuses, he gets one instead.

My Notes:

Pg. 17:  The author characterizes Obama as an extraordinarily skillful Candidate and an incompetent Chief Executive.  Much of the book goes on to document this position.  Basically he sums it up as the office of the president needs experienced politicians of extraordinary temperament, no an amateur.  That sort of expertise can hardly be acquired without deep experience in political office.

The people who make the decisions in the

White House are a small band of loyalists who helped get Obama elected.  They make the decisions in the Oval Office without any of the cabinet members or department heads present, not even the secretary of state or the secretary of defense or the national security adviser. 

Pg. 26:  Some of Hillary’s arguments with the president actually turned physical.  Once, Hillary jabbed Obama’s chest with her finger to make a point.  “It hurt,” he said.

Pg. 100:  Politicians are different from you and me.  Relations among politicians are not about sentiment.  Politicians resemble nation-states: they don’t have friends so much as they have permanent interests. 

Pg. 148:  Two of Obama’s most powerful arguments for reelection were (1) by killing Osama bin Laden, he had won the War on Terror, and (2) by refusing to get involved in Syria, he kept the US out of another war in the Middle East.  If the truth about Benghazi became known, that the attack had nothing to do with a video about Islam and had in fact been a planned terrorists attack, both those arguments for his reelection would be discredited.  Hillary refused to go along, at first, with this fairy tale; hence Susan Rice volunteered to go on TV and lie instead.  Yet Hillary, under orders, put out a statement that implied the video was in fact the reason for the “spontaneous” attack.  Resigning or not doing it would likely spoil Obama’s election prospects and Democrats would never forgive Hillary.

Pg. 151:  Lying had never bothered Hillary.  In a withering 1996 essay, William Safire called Hillary a congenital liar.  Among other things, he cited Hillary’s preposterous explanation for her 10,000 percent profit in commodities trading; her denial that she ordered the firing of White House travel aides; and her concealment of documents following Vince Foster’s suicide.  Hillary even lied when she didn’t have to.  After the ceremony returning the bodies from Benghazi, she approached Charles Woods, whose son, former SEAL Tyrone Woods died in Benghazi, and said they would pursue and prosecute the person who put out the video.

Pg. 193:  Hillary’s aide, Philippe Reines, put out a fabricated story explaining that Hillary had fell and hit her head because of a stomach virus and dehydration.  The true story is that Hillary fainted while she was working in her seventh-floor office at the State Department, not at home, as Reines told the media.  It turns out that Hillary had a blood clot between her brain and skull.  The doctors explained that blood stagnates when you spend a lot of time on airplanes, and Hillary had clocked countless hours flying around the world.  It also turns out, that Hillary had an intrinsic tendency to form clots and faint.  She had fainted boarding her plane in Yemen, fallen and fractured her elbow in 2009, and suffered other unspecified fainting episodes.  Several years earlier, she had developed a clot in her leg and was put on anticoagulant therapy.  However, she had foolishly stopped taking her medicine, which might have explained the most recent thrombotic event.       

Pg. 248:  Obama is strangely oblivious to the wreckage around him: Syria, the debacle of the Obamacare website, and the National Security Agency’s bugging of telephone conversations of world leaders.  He exchanged high-fives with his senior advisers following their victory over the Republicans during the government’s sequester shutdown despite the fact that his reputation suffered almost as badly as the Republicans.  He acted as though his domestic adversaries were babbling fools who had no valid arguments and as though the scandals that engulfed his administration—Benghazi, the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups, the Justice Department’s collection of AP phone records, the monitoring of reporter James Rosen’s phones and emails, “Fast and Furious,” and solicitation by Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, of donations from companies regulated by her department—were false crises created by enemies who were caught up in partisan rancor and motivated by barely concealed racism.