Posted on 06/22/2004 10:57:17 PM PDT by kattracks
So Bill Clinton has written a 957-page book about his life. It appears to be the literary equivalent of the movie "Airplane!" in which the main character, Ted Striker, kept trying to bore captive passengers with his life story, as they all killed themselves rather than listen to him drone on and on and on.
Luckily, nobody actually has to read the entire Clinton memoirs. Nobody should, given Clinton's fathomless credibility problems. Millions of Clinton fans will buy it, and maybe one or two of them will even finish it. But let's be clear about this book. It's an opportunity to recast Clinton's deplorable legacy in a more favorable light. It explains his life with all the cobwebbed Clinton-era spin lines, stale reruns of the Evil Ken Starr and the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
The only surprising take is that Clinton sounds like he now really believes that getting impeached was one of his most honorable moments. Time's Joe Klein, the ex-president's most servile journalistic shoeshine boy, reported Clinton is seeking "not just to discredit Starr, but also to make the war against the ultraconservatives a significant part of his presidential legacy." Klein buys the snake oil, too. He claims Clinton was "more sinned against than sinner."
The Clinton book launch is already creating waves of media hypocrisy in its wake. Anyone who lived through the Year of Our Intern can remember the endless chorus from Clinton and the Democrats and the liberal media of "let's move on." The left-wing group Moveon.org was founded as a get-past-Lewinsky lobby. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann was whining about the "dry heaves" he was vomiting over having to cover Monica nightly. Over and over, night after night, the media in 1998 expressed the belief that America was sick of Monica sex. So why is Lewinsky the primary focus of the Clinton book tour? Easy. Sex sells. It sold in 1998, and it sells now. It wasn't the Republicans who were hopelessly fixated on the issue. It was -- and is -- the press.
Indeed, conservatives maintained all along that all the other Clinton scandals were far more important than the adultery. The Clintons tried to enrich themselves in Arkansas through shady real-estate partners and sleazy cattle-futures trades. That wasn't about sex.
They fired career employees of the White House Travel Office and replaced them with Clinton relatives, and directed travel business to their crony Harry Thomason. That wasn't about sex.
They requested confidential FBI background files on hundreds of employees of previous Republican administrations. That wasn't about sex.
They secretly urged the Iranians to arm the Bosnian Muslim fighters, going around a U.N. arms embargo, an Islamic Iran-Contra affair. That wasn't about sex.
The list of non-sexual scandals and outrages goes on, with enough data to fill another book of 950 pages. But nobody remembers in the ratings-obsessed media, because it wasn't about sex.
But the press is just uncritically echoing Clinton's boast about how he "beat" Ken Starr and that man's obsession with sex, and leaving out the perjury issue. Dan Rather mentioned perjury only once in his fawn-a-thon, as he described Clinton's videotaped August testimony: "His testimony was tortured. And he used careful legalistic language to avoid perjuring himself."
Hit the rewind button to January 2001. It all ended with a Clinton surrender. As lawyer Mark Levin has noted, Clinton did not challenge Judge Susan Webber Wright's contempt of court holding for misleading testimony. He did not challenge the U.S. Supreme Court when it ruled him unfit to practice law before it. He did not challenge the Arkansas Supreme Court's five-year suspension of his law license. But now, Clinton says he won.
In Time magazine, unctuous Joe Klein didn't even mention the P word, even as the magazine excerpted without comment this ridiculous nugget from Clinton's book, in which he even lies about his lying: "Since 1991, I had been called a liar about everything under the sun, when in fact I had been honest in my public life and financial affairs, as all the investigations would show."
Instead, Klein's story focused, just like his hero, on Clinton's enemies. Clinton's case against Starr is "a lawyer's case, careful and powerful." Starr was "unseemly and irresponsible," and the press "was way too credulous" of Starr's allegations. Which planet did Joe Klein live on? Within three days of his appointment in 1994, Dan Rather was suggesting Starr was "a Republican partisan allied with a get-Clinton movement."
The media were never soft on Starr. They promoted this self-indulgent president all the way to the top, and supported him endlessly, even as he took the country all the way to the bottom. They still do today. They will tomorrow. It's a good thing most Americans won't buy the old spin of this boring book of bunk.
Brent Bozell is President of Media Research Center, a Townhall.com member group.
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
From hearing excerpts of the numerous interviews with Billybob ,I would conclude Billybob is one confused and pitiful, narcisistic individual.
Pathetic, shameful, I can't wait till this guy disapears forever.
And that stupid accent, he pours it on sounding like a cartoon hillbilly.
I bet those books are flying off the shelves. Ya think he will buy them himself?
Hahahaha! The Book Of Bunk!
Report from western MD:
HAGERSTOWN, MD- Across the country, political junkies are lining up to be some of the first to read former President Bill Clinton`s memoirs.
As NBC25`s Amanda Mallonee reports, the excitement isn`t quite as fever-pitched here in the four-state.
In New York, people waited hours to pick up their copy of Clinton`s book, titled My Life. Some of that excitement extended into Hagerstown. "I`ve been looking forward to it from the day I heard it was going to be written and published," said democrat Gary Fuhrman of Eldersburg.
In fact, Fuhrman plans to read all 900 pages in one week. However, at least on a local level, the buzz surrounding the former president`s memoirs isn`t stacking up against Hillary`s book.
"I remember that it seemed to be a little more impressive upon the public, and they came out, not in droves, but more than we`re seeing today," said Andy Wallace, an inventory manager at Borders.
Several borders` customers said they`re looking forward to comparing the Clinton`s separate accounts of their time in the White House, and not just when it comes to Monica Lewinsky.
"It`s not so much the affairs as much as the prospect of the perspective that he might have versus Hillary in that same context of being in the White House," said Marty Gallagher, a registered independent from Hagerstown.
Despite moderate local sales, My Life is already number one on www.amazon.com. Managers at Borders said they began Tuesday with about 140 copies of My Life, and so far they`re not worried about running out.
After having read the tome, I have to agree there's nothing in it that would make people say, "this fellow was a great President." No, its fiction from start to finish. And the only reason Bubba's getting noticed is cause he was the star of his own self-inflicted soap opera. Its that's simple.
The Bosnian Muslim fighters cut off Serbs' heads. Local Muslims, such as Naser Oric and his Srebrenica crew did this too. Both the foreign and homegrown Muslims videotaped and photographed some of these atrocities - very proud of their deeds - all the while the liberal press kept saying the Muslims were so innocent and unarmed.
I note there are so many scandals listed above that the recounting of the non-sexual ones does not even get around to Waco, fund-raising, Chinese Army-Loral, TW800, and other cover-ups -- probably for lack of space.
And the endless pardons of scumbags like Marc Rich.
I love it!
*Snicker*
The NYT has written a second, more favorable review of Bill's book.
Those FBI files have certainly come in handy for the Clinton's.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1158999/posts
The New York Post is reporting that clinton is already in negotiations for 2 more books.
Just think, most of the people who buy the book will never read it, but they will drag the massive tome around with them for the rest of their lives hoping it gets to be worth something. A ball and chain for Democrats, fitting.
Why, pray tell? They're both pathological liars!!!
Two more "eye crossingly boring" books might be three too many. LOL
They probably also like to watch other folks try to out-lie each other on Judge Judy.....;)
Truly, I have no idea why.
The little gal who regularly works the counter when I'm there at my usual time asked me if I wanted to reserve my own copy of "True Lies" and I burst into the worst laughing fit.
Her befuddled and bewildered look just made it harder to stop giggling and pay for my PC magazines, especially with Willy Wanker's HUGE bulbous snout poster cheerfully beaming at me, pig-eyed, from behind the counter.
[oddly enough, she tries to avoid waiting on me now...go figger]
More of the same:
[note the inadvertant "joke" Sanni makes]
Wednesday June 23, 2004
Clinton memoir reaches shelves
by WANDA T. WILLIAMS
Washington County - Copies of Bill Clinton's memoir "My Life" were prominently displayed at the entrances of several area bookstores as the book went on sale Tuesday.
Unlike at bookstores in New York, there were no long lines, just a slow but steady flow of customers trickling in to purchase the autobiography, area bookstore managers said.
Chambersburg, Pa., advertising executive Mike Sanni reserved his copy June 2 at Borders Books Music & Cafe in the Centre at Hagerstown.
Sanni was one of 65 customers who will receive a 40 percent discount off the $35 retail price as a bonus for reserving his 957-page copy early, said Borders' Sales Inventory Manager Andy Wallace.
"That's fantastic," Sanni said as the cashier rang up his book.
Sanni, a Clinton fan, said "My Life" will be a great keepsake.
"I liked President Clinton. I think he'll be one of the best presidents to go down in history," he said.
Sanni joked that the current President Bush's memoir probably would be much shorter.
At Waldenbooks in Valley Mall, Assistant Manager Karen Cook said she hoped Clinton's Tuesday appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" would pay off big in book sales.
"I'm hoping to have a great response. She (Oprah) can sell some books. Usually when she has an author on, we get calls from viewers before the show is over," Cook said.
For avid book readers like Ruth Sklencar of Boonsboro, not even an appearance with Oprah will get Clinton out of the dog house after the Monica Lawinsky scandal.
"His personal choices are a part of who he is," she said as she purchased two other books instead.
Clinton's promotional book tour will take him across the country, but not without opposition. Citizens United, a conservative lobby group, purchased advertising time during Clinton's Sunday night interview on "60 Minutes" and accused him of failing to fight terrorism. Conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has said the book should be called "My Lie."
Although reviews have called " My Life" self-serving and dull, Clinton maintains global popularity. A Mack Trucks consultant in town from Paris, France, said he purchased a copy of the book at the local Waldenbooks.
"We like him (Clinton ) very much in France," said Benjamin Trampoglieri. "I want to know about the life of a man who was a very young president."
Sales were much slower at Book Cellar at Prime Outlets at Hagerstown, where some customers like Dave Hummel of Huntingdon, Pa., barely noticed the display. He said he wasn't a big Clinton fan.
"I'm sure he's learned from his mistakes, but maybe he wants to explain some things," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
HAH! That's the best analogy I've heard yet!
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