Book Review: Hillary Clinton in the News: Gender and Authenticity in American Politics, by Shawn J. Parry-GilesHillary Clinton in the News: Gender and Authenticity in American Politics. Parry-GilesShawn J.Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014. 272 pp. $90 hbk. $27 pbk.

Hillary Clinton in the News: Gender and Authenticity in American Politics. Shawn J. Parry-Giles. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014. 272 pp. $90 hbk. $27 pbk.Timing is (almost) everything. Coinciding with Monica Lewinsky's article in Vanity Fair and Hillary Clinton's memoir Hard Choices, the publication of Hillary Clinton in the News: Gender and Authenticity in American Politics puts Shawn J. Parry-Giles at the right place at exactly the right time.Parry-Giles, professor of communication at the University of Maryland, combines an understanding of the public's interest in political celebrity with a compelling historical, political, and social sensibility. Hillary Clinton in the News follows The Rhetorical Presidency, Propaganda and the Cold War (1945-1955), a 2001 study of the Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower administrations and the ways they institutionalized propaganda as a presidential tool. Parry-Giles also coauthored Constructing Clinton: Hyperreality and Presidential Image-Making in Postmodern Politics (2002) and The Prime-Time Presidency: The West Wing and U.S. Nationalism (2006), both with Trevor Parry-Giles.Director of the Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership, Parry- Giles balances her previous book about Bill Clinton as a postmodern media phenomenon with a provocative exploration of Hillary Clinton's rise to prominence. Her study serves as an exploration of the ways media help to construct the public persona of women in politics. Hillary Clinton in the News is at once a sprawling study that employs theories of nationalism, feminism, and media practice and a systematic, carefully organized, chronological examination of the definitions of womanhood and the expected behavior of first ladies. Parry-Giles is concerned with social constructions that inhibit a woman's authentic voice and impede other women interested in running for public office. Pulling no punches, Parry-Giles writes,Yet, while Clinton's own defiance was awe inspiring and precedent setting, the magnitude of the disciplining and rhetoric of violence that she faced served as a cultural warning for other women who might dare to enter the political arena and violate the protocols of authentic womanhood. Clinton, privileged by her celebrity, political connections, whiteness, economic status, and heterosexuality, possessed the means by which to challenge the political patriarchy. Even for women of privilege, the didactic lessons gleaned from Clinton's life story functioned as a warning that they too could face similar authenticity scrutiny, public humiliation, and threats of violence should they follow in Clinton's political footsteps.Charges of inauthenticity have pursued Hillary Clinton from the moment she stepped into the political spotlight, Parry-Giles argues, and the U.S. media created news frames that defined her, beginning with Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and continuing through her 2008 presidential bid. The introduction, which provides historical context for Hillary Clinton's life in the political sphere, is followed by four chapters and a conclusion: "Hillary Clinton as Campaign Surrogate: U.S. Presidential Campaigns-1992 and 1996"; "Hillary Clinton as Legislative Activist and Legal Defendant: Health Care Reform and the Whitewater Investigations-1993-1995"; "Hillary Clinton as International Emissary and Scorned Wife: Diplomatic Travel and the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal-1995-1999"; and "Hillary Clinton as Political Candidate: U.S. Senate Campaign-1999-2001." The conclusion focuses on "lessons learned," specifically, those learned by the public, the political machines that control elections, the media, and the candidate herself.Parry-Giles studied more than 1,200 television news broadcasts ("ABC World News Tonight," "CBS Evening News," CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, "NBC Nightly News," and morning news programs). She examined news texts that chronicle key moments in Clinton's political career, focusing specifically on the 1992 presidential campaign, health care, Whitewater, international travel as first lady, the Bill Clinton- Monica Lewinsky affair, her New York campaign for the U. …