Hillary Clinton spins political attacks into moneymaker

Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University, said Clinton attracts a higher degree of examination primarily because of her record in a number of high-profile positions. “This ... has opened her up to a level of scrutiny that is exceptionally intense,” he said. “It is a problem in that the story has taken up much of her first weeks of campaigning and will continue to reappear since the book and the story have been taken up by respected news outlets.” Zelizer compared her with President Richard Nixon, noting he “had been a controversial legislator, vice president and ran for governor of California, (so he) was also a pretty well-known commodity by the time he ran in 1968.” But like Rendell, Zelizer said he does not think many people outside of politics pay attention to the campaign right now. For those who have paid attention to American politics for a couple of decades, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Charles Krauthammer told the Tribune-Review: “There is a lot of Clinton fatigue. You wonder, how many times does the country have to go through this psychodrama?”