Bill Clinton: The Oxygen Destroyer

Anyone who is a ''Godzilla'' fan knows how the huge reptile, bent on destroying Tokyo, was destroyed in his film debut. A Japanese scientist had developed a bomb that would suck all the oxygen out of the water and everything in it, and thus, killing every living thing. This scientist called his bomb ''The Oxygen Destroyer.'' American politics has a similar weapon. It’s called Bill Clinton. Just ask John Kerry how lethal this weapon can be.

William Jefferson Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States, is the secret weapon of the Republicans. The truly wonderful thing is that it costs them nothing--not one red cent. During the last week, every newscast on every network, radio, and television channel, has been talking about Bill Clinton’s book. Bill’s book was coming out. Bill’s book was nearly one thousand pages long. Would Bill’s book talk about Monica? Would Bill’s book talk about Whitewater? Would Bill’s book take a swipe at the present administration?

Then some reporters, breathless with excitement, said that they had seen some small excerpts of the book! Yes, he does talk about Monica. Pre-sales soared when they reported that Monica was in the book. Bill Clinton’s book would be a number-one best seller before it even became available to purchase.

Bill is everywhere. Bill is on ''60 Minutes.'' Bill was interviewed by Dan Rather who nearly has an incontinent-moment just talking about how wonderful Bill’s book is and how the former president will be remembered in history. Bill is blitzing all the morning television shows; he will be on ''Oprah'' peddling his monumental epic that takes the reader from his birth to the end of the Clinton presidency. All in slightly less than one thousand pages of small print.

Now the reviews are coming out as the book is read by critics. A devastating review has appeared in the New York Times. ''Sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull,'' stated the critic. He went on to say that the book was much like Clinton’s presidency--it shows a ''lack of discipline leading to squandered opportunities [and] high expectations, undermined by self-indulgence and scattered concentration.'' The most interesting part of the critic's review was the statement that the book is nothing more than ''one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angle of history.''

Let there be no mistake: Bill Clinton has been trying to re-write history since the day he left office. The most glaring re-write is Clinton’s claim that he warned the incoming president, George W. Bush, that bin Laden and Al Qaeda were the most dangerous threats to American security. Now everyone knows that Bill Clinton lies with remarkable ease. Prior to the attack by bin Laden and Al Qaeda on 9/11, Bill Clinton did everything possible to ignore the growing problem. But this would not look good in the history books, so Clinton began his historical re-write on September 12, 2001. However the written documents, turned over to the 9/11 Commission, show a different story. Those documents mention bin Laden and Al Qaeda less than 10 times in thousands of words. Did Clinton give Bush a verbal warning? Only Bush and Clinton know, but it is highly doubtful that such a grave warning was given. A review of the timeline shows clearly that the attack was conceived and planned under Bill Clinton’s watch.

So, this brings Americans back to the present. What has John Kerry been doing this past week? Does anyone know? Does anyone care? First, Kerry was off the radar for the Reagan funeral and now he is being trampled by the Bill Clinton book-blitz. There have been rumors that Kerry asked John McCain to be his vice-presidential candidate and was rejected. Adding insult to injury, McCain gave his resounding support to Bush’s campaign and is the head of the Bush re-election committee in his home state of Arizona. Now the second choices are being considered. Why would Kerry want McCain on his ticket? Because he thinks that is the only way he can win. Forget the polls. For a far left Democrat to ask a Republican to be his vice-president is an indication that there is silent desperation in the Kerry camp.

Now, Kerry must contend with the oxygen destroyer, Bill Clinton. Bill says that he will do all he can to help Kerry get elected. If Clinton had really meant that, he would have waited until after the election to release his book. The simple fact is this: Bill Clinton thrives on being in the spotlight. He can’t live without it. Bill is Irritated that his wife, Hillary, has had the limelight while he languished in the background. This has been Bill's big chance to regain the needed fix of public adulation. His book, ''My Life,'' will hit the stands on Tuesday, June 22. For the next two weeks, John Kerry may as well take a vacation. America will not hear anything that he has to say. All that Americans will see is Bill Clinton everywhere. His voice will be on every radio. Every store will have Bill’s book prominently displayed. Clinton’s face will be on magazine covers on every newsstand.

Many people will forget the terrorist attacks that prevailed during the eight years of Clinton’s administration. They will only remember the juicy scandals and the false impression of ''peace and prosperity.'' Can John Kerry top all of that? Kerry is painfully dull and totally lacks the charisma of Bill Clinton. John Kerry must feel like a bowling pin and Clinton is the biggest bowling ball he has ever seen. Clinton scheduled a book signing in Boston the same week as the Democratic Convention. The Democratic National Committee had to request politely that he consider canceling it so he would not suck the air out of the entire city as they crown a king of the party.

What everyone knows is that Bill Clinton doesn’t want a new king of the Democratic Party. He wants to remain the king now and always. If Clinton must drop an occasional bomb on Kerry to assure the outcome, he will do so. The outcome isn’t necessarily that Bush be re-elected but that John Kerry does not steal the spotlight and adoration away from Bill Clinton. Even if Kerry were to win in November, Bill Clinton will always be there, lurking in the shadows, waiting for the moment he can step forward, smile, and be the center of attention.

Let me introduce Bill Clinton, the Republican Party’s greatest non-secret weapon: The weapon which once released sucks all the air from the room, the city, and the country. Unlike ''Godzilla,'' Kerry, once he is defeated, will not rise from the depths to fight again. Clinton is John Kerry’s worst nightmare come true. And Bill--he loves every minute of it. All John Kerry can do is smile and thank the flashy ex-president for his support. It almost makes you feel sorry for him. Almost.

About the Writer: Barbara is a registered nurse who enjoys writing about politics and current events. She has a website at http://www.republicanandproud.com/. Barbara receives e-mail at dickens502003@yahoo.com.

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June 20, 2004

BOOKS OF THE TIMES

The Pastiche of a Presidency, Imitating a Life, in 957 Pages

By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

MY LIFE
By Bill Clinton
957 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $35.00.

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.

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