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 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. "
Does ANYBODY really believe that Dan Rather actually read this tome?
Prediction: This will be the largest (and heaviest) bestseller that NOBODY ever reads.
The Clinton Presidency will be seen as a pimple on the but of history.
The fact that this "memoir" is so long is an sad and pathetic attempt to equate "hysterical" length to historical greatness.
Enjoy your millions, Bill, cause you can buy NOTORIETY but you sure can't buy GREATNESS.
He must like em big. Maybe that's why he liked Monica.
Okay, so he likes zaftig women. Besides, its time to move on... ;-)
Not necessarily -- didn't Hillary prattle on for pages about nonsense nobody cares about? And she had at least three ghostwriters!
"I hope Michiko is polishing up her resume...."
That was exactly my thought after just a few lines in.
"Gennifer Flowers has written that Bill liked to cavort in her pink nighties...."
Is that true, Rogue? I'm not questioning your veracity, but it just seems so incredible. I never heard that. Holy cow.
Michiko Kakutani...Pulitzer Prize winner 1998
http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1998/criticism/bio/
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.
To #12 I agree. Anyone who was around in the early days of the Clintons' life in Arkansas, has seen the two of them lie and cheat their way right up to the present day. The infamous 60 Minute episode cooked up and edited by Don Hewitt was really painful to watch, and so many were completely gullible and believed it.
Let us hope that this current flurry over a stupid book will soon pass. Kaycee
I know Bubba was getting into Gennifer's pants for a good long while...but as big a fat-ass as Bubba was and is, I think that was in the figurative sense rather than the literal one.
Clinton ruled like a dictator - through executive orders. His crap would never fly in Congress so he circumvented the political process by rewarding his Marxist friends with power by a stroke of a pen. Clinton is the most disgusting person ever to occupy the oval house. No, he didn't occupy the office, he infested it and delivered a Marxist plague on my country.
His war on rural America devasted local economies. He joined forces with the eco-fascist movement and stole more than 1 million acres to create de facto government nature preserves. And not one property owner received a penny.
Clinton was a fascist thief who robbed property owners. I could've wrote a book about Clinton, but it would have contained only one word - "Scum!"
FRom Merriam Webster Online Dictionary
prattle ..
to utter or make meaningless sounds suggestive of the chatter of children
to say in an unaffected or childish manner
The mind numbing inaneness of the book can only be imagined if this is the NY Time's review.
Pass this book out to prisoners that we want to torture.
I don't believe ANYTHING I read in the NYT...think I better buy this one !
"...Bill liked to cavort in her pink nighties..."
The image that has always disgusted me MOST...that of Slick, 2000 Demo convention, strutting through hallways to something similar to "Saturday Night Fever"...has just been replaced with him in [bleeeech!] PINK NIGHTIES!!!
Thanks ever so much...
Not sure what they are up to, but they are up to something, maybe trying to lower expectations is the only reason.
I assume from your post that you won't be purchasing a copy of Slick's book.
the NYT slams the toon
"Gennifer Flowers has written that Bill liked to cavort in her pink nighties...."
"Is that true, Rogue? I'm not questioning your veracity, but it just seems so incredible. I never heard that. Holy cow."
My bad. It was not Gennifer, but, Sally Perdue. And the nightie was black, not pink.
And he was snorting cocaine.
Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard, " Women of the Clinton Scandals " :
"Besides, as of late, no one's seen much of Sally Perdue (the former Miss Arkansas who was threatened after disclosing the ugly particulars of her affair with Clinton—such as his "wearing my black nightgown, playing the sax badly")
The American Enterprise on line , "This is Fun ," Ralph Reiland :
" Or worse. Sally Perdue, a former Miss Arkansas, contends a Democratic operative in Illinois warned that her "pretty little legs" might be broken if she continued to speak publicly about Clinton’s dancing around her apartment in one of her nightgowns, playing his saxophone and snorting cocaine. "
Telegraph, Jan 23, 1994," The Threats That Followed My Fling With Bill Clinton, " Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
"When I see him now, President of the United States, meeting world leaders,
can't believe it . . . I still have this picture of him wearing my black nightgown, playing the sax badly;"
Clinton's Book - a mediocre finale to a rather mediocre life of a mediocre man who by some accident of history wound up in the White House. Eight years of imbecilic,disastrous foreign policy, carried out by the most moronic cabinet in 100 years; failure after failure in the foreign policy arena, absolutely no shining successes in domestic policy; loses both houses of Congress to the Repubos in '94 because of utter ineptness; impeached for lying under oath; disgraced for a tawdry near affair with an intern (is a BJ a real "affair"? SOB couldn't even do that right!);saved from a possible charge of treason by Matt Drudge publishing the Lewinsky scandal a week too early. The bastard squandered 8 years in the White House and in the end, hopefully, has scarred the RAT party for the next 20 years.
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