Like the Fabians, whose insignia included a wolf in sheep's clothing, Mrs. Clinton seeks to camouflage her collectivism. The back cover of It Takes a Village displays a photograph of Mrs. Clinton surrounded by children, and its contents are written in the same faux -domestic prose which clutters Mrs. Clinton's syndicated column. Each chapter begins with a treacly epigram and a personal reminiscence, and some of the book's points are illustrated by cartoons. By design, the volume is as cloying and unsubstantial as cotton candy - but it is a confection laced with strychnine. But once the state has infiltrated the home, it does not confine itself to child abuse prevention.
Women come to have their babies examined, to get medical advice, and to exchange information.
A large poster-board chart notes the method of birth control each family is using, so that the women can compare problems and results. Nowhere in the book does she acknowledge the possibility that government may more often be a malefactor than a benefactor. There's the same imperious gleam, the same lust to improve the human condition until it conforms to the wretchedly constricted vision of freedom that gave us social-worker liberalism, otherwise known as therapeutic policing. Like most collectivists, Mrs. Clinton has few compunctions about apropriating the fruits of a productive person's labors - in this case, the labors of a ghostwriter. However, Simon and Schuster announced in April 1995 that Georgetown journalism professor Barbara Feinman would write the manuscript of the book based on audiotapes of interviews with Mrs. Clinton.