Hillary Clinton's "Hard Choices" has failed to meet sales expectations and been criticized roundly by commentators on the left and the right.
But in perhaps the cruelest turn of fate for the presumed presidential hopeful, her new memoir lost its No. 1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list after just two weeks, falling to No. 2 on the July 13th list behind -- of all titles -- Edward Klein's "Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas."
In Klein's book, the author, who has published previous titles critical of both Ms. Clinton and President Obama, writes of the heated political battle between the Obamas and Clintons that has simmered since their 2008 Democratic presidential nomination fight.
Klein paints an unflattering image of both the Clintons and Obamas as conniving, dishonest, cynical political families/machines, who seek nothing less than each other's destruction in their respective quests to erect political dynasties through which they can control the Democratic Party for years to come.
Many of Klein's revelations in the book on topics like Benghazi and Bill Clinton's strategy to help Hillary Clinton win the White House are centered on re-created dialogue that could only have been gleaned from sources incredibly close to the Clintons and Obamas, which -- along with questions from both the left and right on Klein's previous works -- has led to skepticism on his book.
The left has been highly critical of Klein, with Media Matters referring to the author as "a self-promoting smear peddler" and "conspiracy theorist."
Sources like Politico are also more than skeptical of Klein's work, with Politico's media reporter Dylan Byers penning a post titled, "Why we're not talking about Ed Klein," in which he cites a critical examination of "Blood Feud" from The Week.
Despite the media criticism of Klein, challenges on the credibility of his work have not seemed to have impacted sales. Nor have they impacted the author's provocative claims, including the revelation in a piece published by Klein in the New York Post on Sunday July 6 that President Obama has promised Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren his support if she runs for president in 2016.
This claim dovetails with Klein's assertion in "Blood Feud" that President Obama, according to Klein's sources, is looking for a relative political unknown with a similar ideological bent and personal appeal to throw his support behind in 2016, in the face of a Hillary Clinton run for the Democratic nomination.
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