Posted on 06/21/2004 8:05:33 PM PDT by hole_n_one
Clinton book gets off to a bad start
Washington: Former US President Bill Clintons much-awaited book, My Life, had got off to a bad start with the countrys most influential newspaper, the New York Times, giving it a scathing review.
Michiko Kokotani, the reviewer, while crediting Mr Clinton as being capable of soaring eloquence and visionary thinking, also calls him being equally capable of numbing, self-conscious garrulity. She compares his book to his speech at a presidential nominating convention in Atlanta which was so long-winded and tedious that the crowd cheered when he finally reached the words In closing .... She goes on to call the book sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull - the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history. She says in many ways, the book is a mirror of Mr Clintons presidency: lack of discipline leading to squandered opportunities; high expectations, undermined by self-indulgence and scattered concentration.
According to Ms Kokotani, This memoir underscores many strengths of Mr Clintons eight years in the White House and his understanding that he was governing during a transitional and highly polarised period. But the very lack of focus and order that mars these pages also prevented him from summoning his energies in a sustained manner to bring his insights about the growing terror threat and an Israeli-Palestinian settlement to fruition.
My Life that Dan Rather of CBS has compared to the celebrated memoir of the American Civil War by President Ulysses S Grant, the reviewer argues has little of that classics unsparing candour or historical perspective. Instead, it devolves into a hodgepodge of jottings: part policy primer, part 12-step confessional, part stump speech and part presidential archive, all, it seems, hurriedly written and even more hurriedly edited. In fact, My Life reads like a messy pastiche of everything that Mr Clinton ever remembered and wanted to set down in print; he even describes the time he got up at 4 a.m. to watch the inaugural ceremonies for Nigerias new president on TV. There are endless litanies of meals eaten, speeches delivered, voters greeted and turkeys pardoned. There are some fascinating sections about Mr Clintons efforts to negotiate a Middle East peace agreement (at one point, he suggests that Yasir Arafat seemed confused, not fully in command of the facts and possibly no longer at the top of his game), but there are also tedious descriptions of long-ago political debates in Arkansas over utility regulation and car licence fees . There are some revealing complaints about missteps at the FBI under Louis Freehs watch , but there are also dozens of pointless digressions about matters like zombies in Haiti and ruins in Pompeii.
While pointing out that the former president confesses that his affair with Monica Lewinsky was immoral and foolish, the reviewer adds that Mr Clinton spends far more space excoriating his nemesis, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, and the press. He writes at length about his awareness that terrorism was a growing threat, but does not grapple with the unintended consequences of his administrations decisions to pressure Sudan to expel Osama bin Laden in 1996 ... or to launch cruise missile attacks against targets in Sudan and Afghanistan in retaliation for the embassy bombings in 1998 ... Part of the problem, of course, is that Mr Clinton is concerned, here, with cementing - or establishing - his legacy, while at the same time boosting (or at least not undermining) the political career of his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Ms Kokotani while acknowledging that Mr Clinton admits how damaging his affair with Ms Lewinsky was, accuses him of spending far more time on assailing right-wing enemies for his woes over Whitewater, the Paula Jones case and impeachment. In the end, he says, what brought him and his wife back together was weekly counseling sessions and their shared determination to fight off the right-wing coup. He sheds little new light on his relationship with Mrs Clinton, simply noting that he always admired her mix of idealism and practicality, and that she initially hesitated over his marriage proposal, knowing that being married to me would be a high-wire operation in more ways than one. In another passage, Mr Clinton tries to characterise his impeachment fight as my last great showdown with the forces I had opposed all of my life.
According to the reviewer, in comparison to these self-serving, often turgid attempts to defend his reputation, Mr Clintons account of his youth in Arkansas possesses a pleasing emotional directness. Looking back on those days of living with a violent, abusive stepfather, Mr Clinton writes like someone familiar with therapeutic tropes. He writes that seeing his stepfather angry and drunk, he came to associate anger with being out of control, and determined to keep his own anger locked away. He writes about experiencing a major spiritual crisis at the age of 13, when he found it difficult to sustain a belief in God in the face of his familys difficulties. And he writes about the coping mechanisms he developed ... where he walled off his anger and grief to get on with his daily life.
Te review concludes by observing, The nations first baby-boomer President always seemed like an avatar of his generation, defined by the struggles of the 60s and Vietnam, comfortable in the use of touchy-feely language, and intent on demystifying his job.
And yet the former Presidents account of his life, read in this post-9/11 day, feels strangely like an artifact from a distant, more innocent era. Lies about sex and real estate, partisan rancour over character issues (not over weapons of mass destruction or pre-emptive war), psychobabble mea culpas, and tabloid wrangles over stained dresses all seem like pressing matters from another galaxy, far, far away. khalid hasan
Clinton Book Hype Reaches Climax
I'm beginning to detect a theme.
I've heard this "soaring eloquence" rap before. Any examples? His speaches would have put me to sleep, were I not yelling at the TV.
The arrival of boxes of his books at a downtown D.C. bookstore led off the 11 p.m. news. They were playing up the "growing crowd" of people waiting until midnight to get their grubby hands on a copy. I felt like throwing up.
Famous Clinton quotes:
but I didn't inhale.boxers!
That depends on what the meaning of "is" is.
I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinski.
Bubba's book is media driven and not cause people flock to the guy.
They discount all best-sellers 40%. And this *will* sell big - that's not to say that it will be *read* though...
Libraries as well as bookstores should place it in their "Fiction" section.
How about this one? Clinton Book Hype Reaches Climax
Amazon discounts everything.
That's because our side will NOT buy the book and his kneepadded,drooling sycophants CAN'T read!
An eyewitness report had hundreds of people lined up tonight at Politics & Prose for the midnight release. I figure they're consumed with pent up Reagan envy.
The line is swelling......
Psyche!
lol!
"I figure they're consumed with pent up Reagan envy."
I saw a poll on CNN tonight that indicated that Americans view Reagan as a more effective President than Clinton by a margin of 69% to 29%. I would not have guessed that it would be by more than 2 to 1.
I drove by Politics and Prose on upper CT Ave at about 9:40, and there was one TV van with escalated antenna and some twelve homely, sulking types perched like fat pigeons along the storefront.
If the crowd since grew to 100, I'd say it was more to do with the presence of the TV crew than with any anticipation over a BOOK YOU COULD BUY ANY AND EVERY WHERE tomorrow whenever it is you choose to get your pathetic behind out of bed.
I so wished I had a camera with me. When I passed, it was truly an event waiting to happen. Any "event" that has become of it is life imitating art, not the other way around... or maybe that, too... it's all so pathetic, especially the Amazon.com spam I got tonight that discounts the book to 21 bucks.
Gee, it's gonna take more than a few or more million copies sold at that discount to pay back that advance.
950 pages...lets get real. 98 percent of the US has never read a book over 400 pages in their life. It would take most folks at least 3 months to wrap up this literally piece. I doubt if they have the patience by the end to finish it. Its the National Enquirer in Bill's format.
The book, which weighs in at more than 950 pages, is sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history.
In many ways, the book is a mirror of Mr. Clinton's presidency: lack of discipline leading to squandered opportunities; high expectations, undermined by self-indulgence and scattered concentration. But the very lack of focus and order that mars these pages also prevented him from summoning his energies in a sustained manner to bring his insights about the growing terror threat and an Israeli-Palestinian settlement to fruition.
"My Life" has little of classic's unsparing candor or historical perspective. Instead, it devolves into a hodgepodge of jottings: part policy primer, part 12-step confessional, part stump speech and part presidential archive, all, it seems, hurriedly written and even more hurriedly edited.
At least he got a book out of it.
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