But the legacy he is most intent on lauding is of course the Clintons'. This is a book in which "the Democrats roared" while "the Republicans silently glowered." It's one in which the first lady's running for the Senate from New York "could not but flatter New Yorkers' self-conception." It's one that compares President George W. Bush to Benjamin Harrison and Rutherford B. Hayes, meanwhile asserting that "just as the presidents of the late 20th century operated in the shadow of F.D.R., those of the first part of the 21st century will stand in the shadow of Clinton."
Speaking of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "The Clinton Wars" begins with a visit by President Clinton's entourage to the Roosevelt home in Hyde Park, N.Y. While Mr. Clinton looks at his predecessor's desk, Mr. Blumenthal sounds a wistful note. Those were the days when the press was too respectful to mention the president's wheelchair.
Mazel tov to 59-year-old Fox News star Geraldo Rivera -- who will wed his 28-year-old girlfriend, television producer Erica Levy, at New York's historic Central Synagogue on Aug. 10, The Post's Christine Haughney reports.
"You can't be my age and getting married and not be an optimist," Rivera, the son of a Jewish mother and Puerto Rican father, told us yesterday. He noted that he had been to the altar four times previously and had four children to show for it.
"I don't know, maybe there will be one more with Erica," he said. He added that "hundreds of people" -- including Bill and Hillary Clinton, former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a top Palestinian official, the foreign minister of Afghanistan and various U.S. military commanders from Iraq -- have been invited to the Reform Jewish ceremony and the reception at the Four Seasons restaurant.
"I was not only bar mitzvahed; I was confirmed. But this is actually my first 'church' wedding, as opposed to some hippie thing in a back yard," Rivera said. "I'm making a conscious decision to take this whole Judaism thing seriously. I think the Jews need me right now." WashPost