Two Terms of Chaos, Comebacks and Crises - NEW CLINTON BOOK

NY Times ^ | 5/31/05 | MICHIKO KAKUTANI

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

"Do you know who I am?" Bill Clinton asked his adversary Newt Gingrich during the government shutdown of 1995-96. He answered the question himself: "I'm the big rubber clown doll you had as a kid, and every time you hit it, it bounces back." The harder you hit me, he added, "the faster I come back up."

In a new book, the Washington Post reporter John F. Harris, who covered the Clinton White House from 1995 through 2001, focuses on the Comeback Kid's "survivalist ethic" - his ability to continually bounce back from adversity, his ability to make it to the end of two terms in the White House despite the ravages of impeachment proceedings, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Whitewater investigations and a noxious atmosphere of vociferous partisanship in Washington.

There is nothing terribly new about Mr. Harris's assessment of Mr. Clinton in this book. Nor are there insights into his presidency that haven't been served up many times before - in books by reporters like Bob Woodward, Joe Klein, Elizabeth Drew and John Brummett, in memoirs by former aides and administration members like George Stephanopoulos and Robert Reich, and in the reams of newspaper and magazine articles written about this most psychologically dissected of presidents.

Once again, we are told that Bill Clinton is tireless, charismatic, smart, driven, boyish, disorganized, self-absorbed and self-pitying...

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

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[digger48]

I was just going to go take some Metamucil, but I believe this post mighta done the trick!

[digger48]

I was just going to go take some Metamucil, but I believe this post mighta done the trick!

[evolved_rage]

Clinton is savvy. He had to comeback from genuine self-inflicted scandels, W has only had to come back from scandels made up by the MSM.

[digger48]

I don't know HOW I did that! Sorry for stuttering.

[Deetes]

There is nothing terribly new about Mr. Harris's assessment of Mr. Clinton in this book.

Well that tells me what I needed to know ...

[lexington minuteman 1775]

Drudge has some stuff up on this new book by Harris.Bill Clinton actually swore and Hillary accused some of his aides of being wimps. Boy I am shocked I tell you./sarcasm on.

[Bossy Gillis]

BJ doesn't look so hot on that picture.

[Enchante]

"I'm the big rubber clown doll"


Well, he's right about that much - he is kinda like a bozo doll.... they need to be deflated rather than merely smacked. Only when a liberal is deprived of their hot air do they become more manageable....

[martin_fierro]

"I'm the big rubber clown doll you had as a kid, and every time you hit it, it bounces back."

A premise worth testing.

[lawdude]

Bill Clinton is in the final months, perhaps years, of a life that has been a cartoon of the man himself. From slob to slob. He has fooled the public into thinking he is something he is not now nor ever was.

He will pass and then a host of indiscretions will come forth but the media will continue to overlook the facts and perpetuate the lies.

He is a perverted rapist with no conscience or ability to confront HIS weaknesses.

What a loser.

[DeweyCA]

BJ Clinton was able to continually bounce only because the MSM was on his side. If not for the loving MSM, his political "genius" would have shown for what it really is (Only a Machiavellian realization of how much he could get away with because of a sympathetic press.).

[Coldwater Creek]

Not everyone was fooled!!!!!!!!!! I have seen thru Clinton for the past 25 years, and so has a lot of other people, we just couldn't do anything about it.

[Thebaddog]

It was always about him. If he had had a third term, we would be a Muslim state by now and he would be declaring victory.

[Maynerd]

I am thrilled Clinton squandered his eight years and was a zilch domestically. However, his myopic foreign policy has cost the country dearly.

[Leo Carpathian]

BJ Clinton was able to continually bounce only because the MSM was on his side.

Mabeee more like destroying his critics and anyone who dared to expose him? Look at the trail of death around him.

He got away with Monicascrewgate (where is she?) making it Monicasuckgate. Where is MSM investigating this obvious escapade?

[sarasotarepublican]

BJ Clinton was able to continually bounce only because the MSM was on his side.

Absolutely true!

[CT]

.....his ability to make it to the end of two terms in the White House despite the ravages of impeachment proceedings, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Whitewater investigations and a noxious atmosphere of vociferous partisanship in Washington

What he does not say: the ever-present and over-the-top support offered up by MSM to defend and obfuscate countless lies, crimes, and acts of treachery and treason.

[The Electrician]

But it is the differences between the two men that stand out most starkly: Mr. Clinton's efforts "to capture the center while trying to tame the more ideological elements of his party," in contrast to Mr. Bush's efforts to appeal to his party's ideological base;

That passage is one of many that underlines Harris' inability to separate truth from fiction. Clearly Harris has fallen for the smoothly-spoken big lie, time after time after time. No doubt Harris sincerely believes that Clinton honestly meant it when he stated that "the era of big government is over". But the conclusions of a credulous author so totally divorced from reality are not likely to have much merit.