A "juicy and gossipy" book about the Clintons, written by Weekly Standard online editor Daniel Halper, was leaked over the weekend by a mysterious distributor, sabotaging plans for a splashy release July 22,
The Daily Beast reported Monday.
But the rogue rollout of
"Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine," may have backfired, the
Washington Free Beacon reports, because the book is attracting praise – and publicity.
Broadside Books, the conservative imprint of HarperCollins, told The Daily Beast that it didn't know how the 317-page, 12-chapter book got out from under wraps and into emails blasted out to dozens of top-drawer media types.
"It certainly didn't come from the publicity department," HarperCollins publicity manager Joanna Pinsker told The Daily Beast.
Broadside's top editor Adam Bellow said the leaker, "Robert Josef Wright," had the private email of "top political and media reporters," including NBC News President Deborah Turness, Fox & Friends co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck and CNN's Jake Tapper.
The Daily Beast quoted one unnamed publishing source as speculating that the leaker "wants to come across as a conservative, but in a way it seems like they're trying too hard."
The report speculates that the book's release may really be an elaborate and sophisticated public relations ploy.
The book, unlike Ed Klein's
"Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas," "is juicy and gossipy, yet scrupulously researched, drawing on numerous on-the-record conversations (as well as many not-for-attribution interviews) with prominent Democrats and Clinton insiders, past and present," The Daily Beast reports.
According to the report, Bill Clinton comes off as "selfish and coldly calculating," Hillary Clinton seems "warm and caring, albeit charmingly transactional for political gain, particularly with her Republican colleagues in the Senate," and daughter Chelsea is portrayed as "scarred by life in the political fishbowl" yet "the entitled beneficiary of both her parents' feelings of guilt ove the weirdness of her upbringing."
BuzzFeed Editor-in-chief Ben Smith tweeted that the leak is doing more to promote the book than blow it up:
The Free Beacon adds that the book has already gotten priceless coverage from Entertainment Weekly, Politico, Fishbowl DC and the Huffington Post.
Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton, told the
Huffington Post that the Clinton camp is in the dark about the leak.
"No clue, but it's sad to see Daniel Halper join the discredited and disgraced ranks of Ed Klein and Jeff Gerth, all for the sake of making a quick buck," Merill emailed.
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