Books, Arts & Manners: It Takes a Whitewash

The Seduction of Hillary Rodham, by David Brock (Free Press, 452 pp., $26)

DAVID Brock is in much the same position as the author of a brilliant first novel: after The Real Anita Hill, a courageous book that devastated a liberal icon, everything else will seem a letdown. Part of the disappointed conservative reaction to his latest book surely stems from its failure to meet the inflated expectations aroused by his first—from the fact that it reveals no new scandals or other information embarrassing to the First Lady. But this is a strange, and unfair, standard by which to judge a book.

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Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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The Seduction of Hillary Rodham, by David Brock (Free Press, 452 pp., $26)

DAVID Brock is in much the same position as the author of a brilliant first novel: after The Real Anita Hill, a courageous book that devastated a liberal icon, everything else will seem a letdown. Part of the disappointed conservative reaction to his latest book surely stems from its failure to meet the inflated expectations aroused by his first—from the fact that it reveals no new scandals or other information embarrassing to the First Lady. But this is a strange, and unfair, standard by which to judge a book.