Clinton "was much more interested in lesbianism as a political statement than a sexual practice," an anonymous source tells Klein. See also: Sydney Schanberg on Edward Klein: "The dust jacket of the book describes Klein as a "distinguished journalist." It notes that he was once the foreign editor at Newsweek and the editor of The New York Times Magazine. It does not describe the job he has held for the last 14 years: gossip columnist for Parade, under a pseudonym—Walter Scott." more news most popular most commented Liberty: A New Comic Strip Liberty by Aram Sinnreich Home Alone—With Medicaid Fraudsters by Tom Robbins Keeping Jazz Makers Alive by Nat Hentoff The Barely Legal Empire of Tony Alamo by Maria Luisa Tucker City Still Hassles '04 RNC Protesters Runnin' Scared by Graham Rayman Girls Love Gay Male Porn Pucker Up by Tristan Taormino My Boyfriend's Kink Is Getting Fat. What Do I Do? Savage Love by Dan Savage Sex and the City Spoilers: A Sneak Preview of What Really Happens to Carrie and the Girls by Lynn Yaeger Our Favorite Writers Pick Their Favorite Obscure Books Summer Guide by ALEXANDER NAZARYAN The Barely Legal Empire of Tony Alamo by Maria Luisa Tucker NYPD Inaction Over a Missing Black Woman Found Dead Sparks a Historic Racial-Bias Lawsuit (9) Sean Gardiner Devo-Inspired Art in East Williamsburg (8) Maro The Barely Legal Empire of Tony Alamo (5) Maria Luisa Tucker David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal' (4) David Mamet Runnin' Scared: Deep South of Houston: Is a Soul-Food Restaurant Too Black for Soho? (4) Runnin' Scared: Chloe A. Hilliard

"I would say those criticisms are unsophisticated and politically motivated," Klein says, when asked if the text is trying to tell us something about the sexual proclivities of New York's junior senator.

This comes from a man who, 12 pages into his 305-page tome, relays the "water-cooler gossip" among White House staff over the Clintons' sex life:

"Were there any telltale signs on the presidential sheets that they ever had sex with each other? For that matter, did the Big Girl have any interest in sex with a man? Or, as was widely rumored, was she a lesbian?"

Just one page later, Klein is setting up the many contradictions of Hillary. He writes:

"She was a mother, but she wasn't maternal. She was a wife, but she had no wifely instincts. She said she was passionately in love with her husband, but many of her closest friends and aides were lesbians."

Throughout the book, he seems to reach for every last bit of innuendo. On page 62, he describes the "long tradition of lesbianism" that had, uh, influenced Hillary during her Wellesley College days, making a point to note, "At least two women who were close to Hillary . . . would become out-of-the-closet lesbians."

He then quotes an unnamed someone identified as a former Clinton classmate, who claims "the notion of a woman being a lesbian was fascinating to Hillary." The source, according to Klein, continues:

"But she was much more interested in lesbianism as a political statement than a sexual practice. . . . Hillary talked about it a lot, read lesbian literature, and embraced it as a revolutionary concept."

True, Klein does not come out and claim Clinton is secretly gay—if anything, he paints her as asexual. As he tells the Voice, "I came to the conclusion she never was that interested in sex—whether it be homosexual or heterosexual."

And he defends what he has done in his book by saying it wasn't he who invented the speculation that has swirled around Clinton and her sexuality. It was his job to address the underground suggestion that she's a closet dyke, and explain it—how it's been fueled by, say, Clinton's own "spinster" looks, the "mannish" appearance of her female friends, the presence of open lesbians on her staff.

"We're talking about a woman who was virtually called a lesbian by Dick Morris," he says, trotting out the name of the Clintons' onetime pollster and present enemy. "I had to discuss it."

Maybe so, but Klein's critics say he ends up rehashing unfounded junk. David Brock, of Media Matters for America, a nonprofit monitoring the conservative movement, says the dyke-Hillary prattle is "scurrilous, unsupported, and unsupportable tabloid-style gossip." Brock is no stranger to salacious allegations about Senator Clinton. Not only has he read every anti-Hillary book out there, but he penned his own before undergoing a conversion to the left a few years back. Of them all, he says, "I don't believe any crawled this low. The gay-baiting is blatant."

It becomes even more so when you consider the book's ties to the conservative apparatus. Right-wing organs like NewsMax are promoting it, sending e-mails hawking copies two, three, four times a day, while the Conservative Book Club has listed the title as a featured selection on its website.

In this context, Klein's book fits a larger pattern of rumor-mongering that has dogged Hillary Clinton for decades—and not just her, but female leaders generally. Paula Ettelbrick, of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, finds it "amazing" that the lesbian talk surrounding Clinton so exactly parallels what happens to powerful women everywhere. Last March, the commission issued a report, "Written Out: How Sexuality Is Used to Attack Women's Organizing," documenting the way women—from activists to politicians, from Malaysia to the United States—get tagged as "lesbian" in an effort to bring them down. The report highlighted the New York senator, who, it states, "continues to be baited as a public leader" for being "strong, smart, and opinionated and therefore 'not a good traditional woman.' "

"There is a broad-based attack on women to keep them from leadership positions," Ettelbrick says. "We see it whether we're talking about a women's NGO in Malaysia or a potential president of the United States." Continue