Posted on 06/19/2004 11:43:23 AM PDT by AM2000
As his celebrated 1993 speech in Memphis to the Church of God in Christ demonstrated, former President Bill Clinton is capable of soaring eloquence and visionary thinking. But as those who heard his deadening speech nominating Michael Dukakis at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta well know, he is also capable of numbing, self-conscious garrulity.
Unfortunately for the reader, Mr. Clinton's much awaited new autobiography "My Life" more closely resembles the Atlanta speech, which was so long-winded and tedious that the crowd cheered when he finally reached the words "In closing . . ."
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. This memoir underscores many strengths of Mr. Clinton's eight years in the White House and his understanding that he was governing during a transitional and highly polarized 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.
Certainly it's easy enough to understand the huge advance sales for the book. Mr. Clinton would seem to have all the gifts for writing a gripping memoir: gifts of language, erudition and charm, combined with a policy wonk's perception of a complex world at a hinge moment in time, teetering on the pivot between Cold War assumptions and a new era of global interdependence. Add to that his improbable life story — a harrowing roller-coaster ride of precocious achievements, self-inflicted slip-ups and even more startling comebacks — and you have all the ingredients for a compelling book.
But while Dan Rather, who interviewed Mr. Clinton for "60 Minutes," has already compared the book to the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, arguably the most richly satisfying autobiography by an American president, "My Life" has little of that 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.
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 Nigeria's 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. Clinton's 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 license fees . There are some revealing complaints about missteps at the FBI under Louis Freeh's watch , but there are also dozens of pointless digressions about matters like zombies in Haiti and ruins in Pompeii.
Mr. Clinton confesses that his affair with Monica Lewinsky was "immoral and foolish," but he 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 administration's decisions to pressure Sudan to expel Osama bin Laden in 1996 (driving sent the al Qaeda leader to Afghanistan, where he was harder to track) or to launch cruise missile attacks against targets in Sudan and Afghanistan in retaliation for the embassy bombings in 1998 (an act that some terrorism experts believe fueled terrorists' conviction that the United States was an ineffectual giant that relied on low-risk high technology).
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. He does a persuasive job of explicating his more successful initiatives like welfare reform and deficit reduction, but the failure of his health care initiative, overseen by Mrs. Clinton, is quickly glossed over, as is the subsequent focus of his administration on such small-bore initiatives as school uniforms and teenage smoking.
Mr. Clinton takes more responsibility in these pages for his affair with Ms. Lewinsky, his lies about that affair and the damage those actions inflicted on his family and his presidency than he has in the past. But he still spends a lot of time — like his wife did in her book — 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 characterize his impeachment fight as "my last great showdown with the forces I had opposed all of my life" - with those who had defended segregation in the South, opposed the women's and gay rights movements, and who believed government should be run for the benefit of special interests. He adds that he was glad that he had had "the good fortune to stand against this latest incarnation of the forces of reaction and division."
In comparison to these self-serving, often turgid attempts to defend his reputation, Mr. Clinton's account of his youth in Arkansas possesses a pleasing emotional directness. His portraits of life in the raffish Hot Springs and the more sedate Hope (towns that would became the polestars of his Janus-faced personality, what political guru Dick Morris once called "Saturday Night Bill" and "Sunday Morning Clinton") may lack the raw energy of his mother Virginia Kelley's reminiscences, set down in her 1994 book "Leading With My Heart," but he does provide the reader with some telling snapshots of his awkward childhood: a fat, self-conscious boy dressed in a new Easter outfit every year — including, one year, pink and black Hush Puppies and a matching pink suede belt; breaking his leg trying to jump rope wearing cowboy boots; devouring books about Geronimo and Crazy Horse at the local library.
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 family's difficulties. And he writes about the coping mechanisms he developed — including learning to live "parallel lives" where he walled off his anger and grief to get on with his daily life.
Many events recounted in this book have been chronicled before —- not just by the dozens of reporters and biographers who have swarmed over Mr. Clinton's life, but by people close to the former president, including his wife, his mother, his brother Roger, Ms. Lewinsky, and former members of his administration like George Stephanopoulos and Robert Reich. For the most part, the self-portrait that emerges from this book is not all that different a Bill Clinton from the one the public has already come to know: tireless, driven, boyish, self-absorbed and optimistic, someone riven by contradictions but adept at compartmentalizing different parts of his life.
Mr. Clinton once remarked that he saw character as "a journey, not a destination," and at the end of this book, he cites "becoming a good person" as one of his life goals. Still, the seeds of his adult self can be glimpsed in an autobiographical essay he wrote in high school: "I am a living paradox — deeply religious, yet not as convinced of my exact beliefs as I ought to be; wanting responsibility yet shirking it; loving the truth but often times giving way to falsity." It is only because Mr. Clinton was president of the United States that these excavations of self — a staple of celebrity and noncelebrity memoirs these days — are considered newsworthy.
The nation's first baby-boomer president always seemed like an avatar of his generation, defined by the struggles of the 60's and Vietnam, comfortable in the use of touchy-feely language, and intent on demystifying his job. And yet the former president's 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 rancor 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.
"The White House does not do book reviews."
I am leaving and am SO PLEASED I saw you post the WH response before doing so. I leave with a spring in my step and a smile on my face.
:)
You know, she could have summed it all up in one phrase: diarrhea of the mouth.
It's B.S. that never quits.
Well what do you expect of Dan Blather. He thinks lieing under oath is ok
"And he writes about the coping mechanisms he developed — including learning to live "parallel lives" where he walled off his anger and grief to get on with his daily life."
'It's called being a phony, a hypocrite, a fake, a fraud, a liar. It's called carrying a Bible to church for the cameras and hurrying back to the White House to get a B.J. the same morning.'
Or, like raping someone but being a "Feminist."
Same thing...
This comment struck me as odd. In fact, character is a moral foundation, from which one's choices are made and one's life evolves. Clinton's life has shown quite clearly that his character was deeply flawed, probably as a result of very early experiences that, to be fair to him, he had little control over. He is in fact a tragic figure. I could feel sorry for him were it not for the great damage he caused our republic.
Nine hundred fifty pages. Surely he doth protest too much.
Enjoy!
Ditto.
Worth repeating bump.
Please tell me your spelling was a joke that I'm not privy to ;)
 (viewing movie requires Flash Player 6, available HERE) |
|
|
|
I love it! Thanks for the ping!
Oops, mea culpa. Spelling is very good, typing moderatately so, spell-checking forgotten and time before running out the door non-existent. (In this case only, I promise ;)
Oops, I'm sorry... I just realized that I pinged you to a duplicate of this thread.
Tamping down enthusiasm for clinton can only help Kerry.
I suspect you are CORRECT! Thanks for the ping.
No problem...thanks for alerting me to the other thread. I always enjoy reading the different replies.
The thought of those people having a cow makes me happy all over :) Dan Rather compared the book to the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant... That's bad, but at first I read it to mean that he compared the Impeached One's writings to the book Ulysses, and about fell over LOL
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.They seem surprised at this, that micro-managing "policy wonk" activist do-gooders keep failing. Similarly, they are stunned that a "limit the task, set the tone, and delegate responsibility" leader like Ronald Reagan somehow got lucky enough to be around for the end of the Cold War.
They cannot see because they will not see.
Totally unexpected! It must stink like Bubba to get a review like that from the Times. Maybe he DID write it himself!
Mark Twain said it is easier to tell the TRUTH
then you don't have so much to remember....
That goes along well with your quote....
"it takes more words to craft a lie than just telling the truth"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
