Hell to Pay; The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton

[8], 344 pages. Illustrations (many in color. Notes. Index. DJ has minor wear and soiling. Presentation copy inscribed by the author which states "Susan, I hope this book offers a unique look into the politics of HRC. I spent two years as a Congressional investiagator--and all roads always led to Hillary. Enjoy! Barbara Olson". Barbara Kay Olson (née Bracher; December 27, 1955 - September 11, 2001) was an American lawyer and conservative television commentator who worked for Fox News, and several other outlets. She was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77 en route to a taping of Bill Maher's television show Politically Incorrect when it was flown into the Pentagon in the September 11 attacks. Olson's support in 1991 of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas led to the formation of the Independent Women's Forum. Olson and friend Rosalie (Ricky) Gaull Silberman started an informal network of women who supported the Thomas nomination to the Supreme Court. Olson, who had worked under Thomas at the EEOC and was a close friend of Thomas, spoke out on his behalf during his contentious Senate confirmation hearings. This work is an examination of the scandals of the Clinton presidency and Hillary Clinton's relentless drive for power. In 1994, Olson became chief investigative counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In that position, she led the Travelgate and Filegate investigations into the Clinton administration. Extract from a review found on-line: Hell to Pay is a book on Hillary Rodham Clinton, this time from a conservative lawyer who served as the Republican chief counsel for the congressional committee investigating the Clintons' involvement in "Travelgate" and "Filegate." Barbara Olson contends that Mrs. Clinton is someone with dangerously liberal, even radical, political beliefs who "now seeks to foment revolutionary changes from the uniform of a pink suit." (Each chapter of Hell to Pay begins with quotes from Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, which influenced the young Hillary Rodham.) There are some interesting new observations presented throughout the book, like the fact that after law school Hillary Rodham tried to become a Marine Corps officer but was turned down; or that she told her high school paper her ambition after high school was "to marry a senator and settle down in Georgetown." Olson, attempting to dissect the mystery of the Clinton partnership, writes, "Most self-respecting women would have left" after Clinton's repeated infidelities. "Hillary chose to stay. She behaves as both a desperate lover, and like a frantic campaign manager protecting a flawed candidate. Hillary, it seems, long ago accepted Bill Clinton as someone who could advance her goals, as a necessary complement to her intellectual cold-blooded pursuit of power." As the Clinton presidency draws to a close, that pursuit has taken her beyond the White House toward a bid for her own U.S. Senate seat. Olson predicts the Senate won't be enough, just the next step toward becoming the first woman president: "Hillary Clinton seeks nothing less than an office that will give her a platform from which to exercise real power and real world leadership." While Olson admits that "Bill Clinton has always excited the greatest passion not among his supporters, but among his detractors," the same could certainly be said of his wife--whose supporters will probably consider Hell to Pay a too-familiar story, but whose detractors will no doubt savor every page. --Linda Killian.…