In ‘Hard Choices,’ Hillary Clinton is seen as hesitant to take big risks

“Hard Choices” begins and ends in the empty voice of a campaign speech. But in between, it contains a clear and at times riveting account of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s four years as secretary of state.

This is a careful book, written tactically to burnish friendships and avoid making enemies. Perhaps that’s inevitable for an autobiographer who is considering running for president, but there are times when the reader feels he is being “spun” rather than enlightened. It’s well known, for example, that Clinton and former national security adviser James L. Jones clashed bitterly over the role of her Afghanistan adviser, Richard Holbrooke. But you would barely realize that from the anodyne account she provides in “Hard Choices.”

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