Two new books about Hillary Clinton.

Anything new?

"A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Carl Bernstein, reports that Clinton as first lady was terrified she would be prosecuted, took over her own legal and political defense, and decided not to be forthcoming with investigators because she was convinced she was unfairly targeted. While in Arkansas, according to Bernstein, she personally interviewed one woman alleged to have had an affair with her husband, contemplated divorce and thought about running for governor out of anger at her husband's indiscretions.

"Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr., reports that during her husband's 1992 campaign, a team she oversaw hired a private investigator to undermine Gennifer Flowers "until she is destroyed."...

According to Gerth and Van Natta, even before the Clintons were married they formulated a "secret pact of ambition" aimed at reinventing the Democratic Party and getting to the White House. The authors cite a former Bill Clinton girlfriend, Marla Crider, who said she saw a letter on his desk written by Hillary Clinton, outlining the couple's long-term ambitions, which they called their "twenty-year project."...

The authors report that the Clintons updated their plan after the 1992 election, determining that Hillary would run when Bill left office. They cite two people, Ann Crittenden and John Henry, who said Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer prize-winning historian and close Clinton friend, told them that the Clintons "still planned two terms in the White House for Bill and, later, two for Hillary."

I'm not troubled that a husband and wife would discuss their shared ambitions, but putting a "secret pact of ambition" in writing seems really disturbing. But is it true? Unless I see the document, I'm not going to get any more exercised over it than I already am about the prospect of a President who's already had his two terms getting back into the White House through his wife.

There's some interesting material at the link about Bill Clinton's affairs, which you'd think would be a very tired subject by now. Bernstein writes about Marilyn Jo Jenkins, "a power company executive he fell in love with and almost left his wife over":

Jenkins ... was spirited into the governor's mansion at 5:15 a.m. for a final, furtive meeting with him the day he left for Washington to assume the presidency -- [and] Bernstein's account makes clear her pivotal role.

Bill Clinton wanted to divorce his wife to be with Jenkins in 1989, Bernstein reports, but Hillary Clinton refused. "There are worse things than infidelity," she told Betsey Wright, the governor's chief of staff.

The key question now is what these things about Bill mean about Hillary. It's not a hard question to answer, though, it seems. The narrative is ambition, and Bill Clinton is what he is. On balance, he's quite useful to an ambitious plan. But who knows the real truth? Who knows what the two of them have said to each other? We can't know, and yet we must form opinions about her.