Bill Wants Hillary to Take On 'Amateur' Obama: Book

Bill Clinton considers Barack Obama such an "incompetent" president that he begged Hillary last summer to quit the State Department and run against him in 2012—or at least, that's the story a new, unauthorized Obama biography is telling. "Barack Obama is an amateur," Clinton is quoted as telling his wife in an excerpt from Edward Klein's new book, which appropriately is titled The Amateur. Hillary protests that she wants to make her mark on the State Department. "The country needs you!" Clinton counters. "The country needs us!"

"I eat breakfast with the guy every Thursday morning. What about loyalty Bill?" Hillary reportedly said. Bill's response? "Loyalty is a joke. Loyalty doesn't exist in politics." Klein sources the conversation, which was quoted extensively in today's New York Post, to anonymous guests at a Clinton get-together last August. But the Clintons are vehemently denying the account. A spokesman for Bill called the excerpt "totally and completely false," decrying Klein as "a known liar." Klein's previous book, The Truth About Hillary, was widely criticized for its salacious claims and anonymous sources. (More Edward Klein stories.)