His pals call him 'Telephone Bill'
Friends of Bill Clinton better start screening their calls. The former President is feeling chatty. For weeks, Clinton has been holed up in his Chappaqua home as he and Knopf editor Robert Gottlieb saw and chisel the 900-page autobiography titled "My Life." The book is apparently going through its final buffing this week, and the former Oval Officer has been reaching out to pals to give them tastes of his prose.
They never know when he'll strike. Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.) was sound asleep at 6:30 a.m. this week when the phone rang. It was Sen. Hillary Clinton.
"She was very apologetic about calling me at home," King tells us. "She said the President needed to check some facts."
King, one of four Republicans who voted against Clinton's impeachment, had heard from the ex-President a few weeks earlier. "He called me on the House floor. He was very serious - shuffling papers, like some editor was watching over his shoulder."
But during this wakeup call, King says, Clinton was "in a more expansive mood. He was pumped."
"He didn't seem like he needed to check facts so much as try out what he'd written on somebody. He was like a guy with a new Cadillac," says King, who worked with Clinton on the Northern Ireland peace initiative.
"[Clinton] said, 'That sounds good, doesn't it?' I said, 'Yeah, it sounds great.' ... It sounded just like him. He certainly was proud of it."
King, who has written two novels, added, "He's going to be the best book promoter the world has ever seen." Ny Daily News, 5/21/04
"He's going to be the best book promoter the world has ever seen."
That's the problem. Most likely the book stinks.