New Book Suggests Hillary Clinton Is No Fan Of President Obama
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton let her hair down about President Barack Obama during a reunion dinner with college classmates last year, according to a new book.
AS CBS 2 Political Reporter Marcia Kramer reported, the new book indicates that Clinton's assessment of Obama was anything but flattering.
Obama and Clinton may have sat down with Steve Kroft for a joint interview on "60 Minutes" last year. But the new book "Blood Feud" by author Edward Klein indicates that they were anything but close confidants.
The former secretary of state apparently thinks her former boss is incompetent and a joke.
"She's very critical of him," Klein said.
Klein's book says Hillary Clinton had dinner with a bunch of her Wellesley College class of 1969 girlfriends. Wine was on the menu, apparently paired with a course of Obama flambé.
"She was saying that as far as she was concerned, the problem with the Obama administration is there's no hand on the tiller – Obama is aloof; he's not engaged; he's not managing things," Klein said.
Klein spent two years on the book and has shelf after shelf of interviews with Clinton and Obama intimates. He said Bill Clinton is hardly an Obama fan either.
"Bill Clinton has said that there's no one in the world – no man in the world – whom he hates more than Barack Obama," Klein said.
CBS 2's Kramer asked Klein if he thought the Clintons' friends were talking to him as part of a strategy to help her possible 2016 presidential campaign – so as to distance the former secretary of state from her former boss who is unpopular with some.
"The Clintons are very clever people," Klein said. "I wouldn't put anything past Bill Clinton."
Klein offers an example of how clever – according to the book, former President Clinton has talked with his wife about the seriousness of his heart disease, and has given her very specific instructions about what to do if he dies before she runs for president.
"(He said), "I want you to put on your widow weeds, dress in black – it will be worth at least a couple million votes," Klein said.
The book also dishes about the Obamas, claiming that Michelle Obama is obsessively jealous.
Klein said Michelle Obama thinks her husband would like to be a ladies' man like President John F. Kennedy, and pulls tricks like busting into meetings with women to see if she can catch him.
Klein also said President Obama gets so fed up that he encourages his wife to take vacations without him.
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