My Life
by Bill Clinton
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Book Reviews of My Life
Book Review: A Tale of Two Presidents and Their Memoirs
Summary: 1 Stars
Once there was a President with character, honesty, wit and intelligence. No, not the kind of intelligence one gets as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, but in attending a small college in the Midwest. This President too, penned his memoirs, and they were full of hope, pride, and optimism - not for himself, but for the American people.That President's name was Ronald Reagan, and his book was entitled: "AN AMERICAN LIFE" - and it truly was. Readable, Honest, Humorous, and Poignant. A Book all Americans should hand down to their children and grandchildren.
Another President has chosen to pen his memoirs. However, this lenghty tome is self-serving, poor-written, jumps back and forth, and while acknowledging character flaws that unfortunately are now part of the Historical record, this President still doesn't get it, and incredibly sees being Impeached (no, not for sexual harassment, but for lying under oath) as a "badge of honor".
This book is Bill Clinton's long anticipated, lengthy on narrative and egomania but short on substance and honesty memoir "My Life".
While Mr. Clinton does take pride in his accomplishments, and there were a few, he studiously avoids or ignores the people and the failures. For example, he writes chapter and verse about his opposition to the Draft, but contributes only 3 pages about Vince Foster's suicide. He blasts Gingrich and the Republicans for refusing to accept the nomination of Bill Lann Lee as Assistant Attorney General, insinuating that Mr. Lee was rejected because he was of a different color or race; the reality is that Mr. Lee was rejected because he defended radical thugs who had murdered innocent people. He blasts Ken Starr, a man recognized for his integrity by both Democrats and Republicans, and while paying lip-service to his own character flaws, still refuses to get it. (and ladies and gentlemen, character is king for anyone wishing to be President)
The man responsible for Clinton's early success, Dick Morris, who crafted Clinton's image as a "moderate" or "centrist" Democrat is also given short-shrift here, and needless to say so are Paula Jones, Kathleen Wiley, and Linda Tripp. But we are fed a steady diet of Monica - and oh yeah, Hillary too.
Impeachment is NOT a "badge of honor". Remember, while he does recite chapter and verse about his friend Monica, we lost opportunities to put Bin Laden in our gunsights.
Mr. Clinton also bemoans Yasser Arafat's refusal to make peace even when the pliant "puppy" of the Clintonites, Ehud Barak, was prepared to retreat to the 1967 borders and give up half of Jerusalem to the PLO. Mr. Clinton and his policymakers invited Yasser Arafat to the White House 9 times - a man who has the blood of Americans on his hands, and only at the end when Arafat chooses the violence that was part and parcel of his nature does Clinton get angry with him. The failure of the Middle East Peace Talks in Clinton's memoirs reads like a soap opera - and a poorly scripted one at that.
Even when Clinton discusses events, such as the growing crisis in Bosnia, he tends to jump from events and personalities. Colin Powell's resignation is mentioned at the beginning of one chapter, yet then-General Powell can be found a few pages later, still Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in conference with Clinton, Christopher, Madeleine Albright and others.
Indeed, one doesn't have to dislike Clinton to dislike this book. It doesn't have the honesty, the intelligence, the day-to-day events that unfolded in the White House and the good writing that characterized President Reagan's memoir.
This isn't Presidential Memoir calibre writing. It is choppy, inexcusable, and self-aggrandizing.
I did read through Mr. Clinton's memoirs while waiting for a flight. and believe me, it wasn't worth the trouble. Barely worth this one star. Do yourselves a favor - pick up a copy of the Memoirs of Ronald Reagan instead.
Book Review: Excellent, refreshingly candid- whether you like Bill or not
Summary: 5 Stars
Whether you like the Clintons or hate them, they make for fascinating reading. This is a presidential memoir that lives up to the hype, plain and simple. Anyone expecting and hoping for a candid and exhaustive analysis of his successes and failures as president will not be disappointed. However, if you are hoping for the president to take swipes at former enemies, forget it. Clinton takes the high road - about as close as he gets is when he describes Newt Gingrich as entertaining when he gets all worked up into a frenzy. For this, Clinton deserves plenty of credit - he certainly has many reasons to take a run at plenty of people on the right. In rare instances in the book where he does take some shots, such as his words about Kenneth Starr, he does it with tact, class and dignity.
Some people have complained about the length of the book - I'm not one of them. Clinton does spend approximately 300 pages detailing his early life, but he obviously found it necessary to describe those years in detail to best understand him, and I'm happy he wrote the book that way.
The first half of the book - his early years and his years as governor of Arkansas, were refreshing and informative - these are the years most of us typically don't hear about now - the press focuses on his presidency. But, these years shaped the man and his presidency. However, the second half of the book - his presidential years, is written a little too much like a diary. But, it's a minor complaint - Clinton still brings readers the details about his presidency that I expect most would want to read about.
One other minor complaint - the president doesn't offer many thoughts about the many players in his administration. For instance, Sidney Blumenthal wrote a definitive account of his experiences on Clinton's team during his second term; George Stephanopoulos wrote a not-altogether-flattering tome of his experiences during the '92 election and his time with Clinton during his first term, etc. We get virtually nothing about Blumenthal and a mere paragraph about Stephanopoulos's departure. Dee Dee Myers, the first female White House Press Secretary in history, is given a paragraph or two. Madeline Albright, the first female secretary of state, isn't written about much, nor is Janet Reno. Certainly Clinton should have had more to say about these people, especially Stephanopoulos and Blumenthal, since they had so much to say about him.
Most importantly, Clinton writes at length about the impeachment proceedings, and his indiscretions with Monica Lewinsky. Those words must have been painful to write, but he did, and he deserves credit for being so candid and forthright.
As big of a fan as I am of Clinton, I didn't hang on his every word and believe everything he wrote. For example, he writes that he was always a big supporter of NASA and the shuttle program. No, he wasn't, and his budgets toward NASA bear this out. He also writes that the Supreme Court decision in the Paula Jones case, for her lawsuit to go forward during his presidency, was one of its worst decisions in years. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that (especially in light of the Bush v. Gore case in 2000, which is among the worst SC decisions in HISTORY), but a president is not above the law. Even though her case was ridiculous and baseless and funded by the GOP-backed Rutherford Institute, the Supreme Court was probably correct in allowing the lawsuit to go forward. The law played itself out and the right thing happened - the case was thrown out of court as groundless and without merit.
Whether you were are fan of Clinton or just want to read about his perspective during his years in office, I recommend this book highly. Some criticize him as trying to defend his legacy, but what presidential memoir DOESN'T try to do that?
Book Review: His life, so far
Summary: 5 Stars
The most thoughtful review I've come across for this book so far
is Hendrik Hertzberg's extended essay in the New Yorker, available on-line at the New Yorker site.
This is a long and detailed book, which, as Clinton acknowledges, would have been twice as long without his editor's help. It certainly gives a clear impression of his general approach and way of viewing the world. Clinton is a very intelligent man with a broad range of interests, who revels in dealing with the details of policy issues. He is aware that this creates a problem of focus. I once suggested to a colleague of mine that he was spreading himself a bit thin, and he replied by giving me a list of his various activities on one page, and asking what exactly I would cut out. Clinton gives much the same response - everything he dealt with was, in his view, too important to ignore.
What we have here could easily have been five different books, one dealing with his childhood, one with general political philosophy, and so on. In fact there are entire books, and interesting ones, dealing with matters he covers in a page, such as the Dayton accords.
Clinton is a strong believer in centrist politics, accenting the positive and avoiding sharp attacks. This has worked relatively well for him, though as he acknowledges has given some of his adversaries the impression that he is a soft target. It is not a strategy that can easily be adopted by others; one gets the impression that it is easier to adopt the tone than the substance of his approach.
In any case, it is undeniably interesting to see the business of running the country (and dealing with a wide range of international issues) from the point of view of the man then in charge, particularly as he actually understood the issues and did not simply rely on his subordinates for direction. He acknowledges a number of mistakes, both political and technical.
The book would be better if it covered about half as much, in slightly greater detail.
The very long initial section on his early life is probably worth having, as it helps one understand not only what his political philosophy is, but how it came to be that way. No doubt it could have been cut back considerably with no substantial loss, or indeed published as an independent volume for those who are more interested in the personal side of things.
Equally to the point, his early political experiences in national politics, such as the McGovern campaign, help explain what one might call his "extreme centrism", whose basis he articulates rather well.
The other day I heard a rumor that Clinton has set his sights on the Secretary Generalship of the United Nations.
An interesting thought.
At the moment there are a number of interesting political books around dealing with the issues of the day: "Against All Enemies",
"The Price of Loyalty", and a whole raft of others (as well as more polemical texts). In the short term, these are more immediately informative than Clinton's text, and more concise, but I would add Clinton's biography to the list as well worth reading. And among older books, I think Holbrooke's "To End a War" is exceptionally interesting, and more interesting than Clinton's biography. To my taste, a detailed look at a well-defined subject tends to offer more than a very broad survey, though both have their place. One will not learn much about the sordid (from any point of view) Starr affair from Clinton's book; he refers for more detail to the considerably more revealing (and much angrier) book by Joe Conason, "The Hunting of the President", which is indeed quite interesting within its limited terrain.Book Review: THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL FORUM-STICK TO A REVIEW
Summary: 5 Stars
Before I bought the book I decided to read some of the reviews on Amazon as they have served me very well in the past. This time, I was disappointed. I think readers of this book are confused. This is not a forum for a political debate on Democrats vs Republicans or Bill Clinton vs George Bush. This is specifically designed to give a review of the book and its contents not express political views, likes or dislikes. If you have read the reviews, you will notice that 1) most Democrats loved the book and Bill Clinton and 2) most Republicans hated the book and Bill Clinton and think that he is the greatest liar of our generation.
I like Bill Clinton despite his flaws and thought that he was a good President and that is why I decided to buy the book (by the way, those who are whining about how they wasted their valuable money buying this "trash", too bad,,,no one put a gun to your head and forced you to buy it). I haven't finished the whole book but what I have read so far is excellent. You get to know a whole other side of Bill. You get to know him as a son, husband and father and not as the President who ruined our country because he slept with another woman.
I like his attention to detail and in reading him describe his childhood and how things that were said to him as a child or people who touched his life as a child, it is if I am reading about my childhood. Throughout the course of the book, you will hear Bill describe an event that is significant but at the moment it occurred he did not know it. Personally, I can relate to that. Many things happen and our said throughout our childhood and at the moment it is said, it might not have an impact but as you grow older and you mature, some of those things come to memory and it is as if a light bulb is turned on. You suddenly realize the impact of some off-hand comment made by a stranger when you were 13. Reading about Bill's childhood is like remembering some of my childhood.
Bill writes the story in an abstract sort of way, not keeping to a timetable, its as if he is writing as it comes to his head. The weird part is that it makes sense. Many people feel that he goes into too much detail but I don't feel that way, I want to learn as much as I can about a man who was our President. Many people feel that this book is his way of justifying his mistakes and blaming others but I feel that he is writing the events as they happened not trying to put a "spin" on events or mistakes.
People want to judge him for his mistakes but I agree with Bill in his opening statement, God is the only person to judge. Also many readers call Bill the biggest liar ever and while it may be true that he was caught in some lies and it was made public -- how can anyone call anyone else a liar. To call someone a liar is to know that person and have lived with that person and grown up with that person. People who say he is a liar should look back on their lives and see how many lies they told or how many mistakes they made -- the only difference between us and Bill is that his deeds were made public because of who he was. Being a President means running the country and those who were looking for an exemplary figure to emulate should look higher above as no one is perfect except GOD.
I think he was a good President and after reading some of this book, I think he is a good writer and a good human being.
With that being said, go and buy the book and place yourself in Clinton's shoes and I dare you to say that having been in his shoes, you would have not made some mistakes.
Book Review: Sad Without Meaning To Be.
Summary: 2 Stars
How can he explain it? He had such great potential: a good mind, energy, charisma, leadership qualities, and, doggoneit, people liked him. He was a Rhodes scholar, and with only one reversal he breezed his way through Arkansas politics, and was tapped early on as a man of destiny. He then unseated a sitting president, and successfully convinced most Americans that he represented a new age in American life. Yet he now stands as one of only two American presidents to have been impeached; as only one of two chief executives to have to make a legal deal to keep from being prosecuted upon leaving office, and as the ONLY president to humiliate himself and country by first having a "third-rate romance" in the Oval Office with a much younger woman who, to make things worse, was serving as a White House intern (try to imagine Harry Truman doing that!) and then lying about it under oath - forcing his country to endure the ordeal of impeachment with attendant speculations about his sexual proclivities. Clinton is not a fool; he knows in his heart that once the immediate partisan loyalties evaporate (Calvin Coolidge was hugely popular too in his time let's not forget), he will be judged among America's worse presidents with Harding, Grant, Buchanan, and Carter. He knows he left office with his country more bitterly divided than anytime since the late 1960s. He knows, for all the rhetoric, that he left the economy sliding into a recession. He knows he also left us vulnerable to attack. Finally,he knows that he has no major achievements to his name except those of the Republican Congress (balanced budget and welfare reform) that he keeps trying to co-opt as his own with only indifferent success.
So how can he resolve this conflict between his potential and his actual record? Sadly, in "My Life", instead of confronting his own demons, and admitting his own moral and character failures, he seeks to mythologize. It was the right-wing's fault, that's it; they so frustrated him (I guess by working with him on welfare reform etc.) that he had insufficient energy and will to either control himself or to achieve his lofty intentions. I know this sounds silly, but that is essentially what Clinton attempts to put over here. While paying lip service to his own failings (which he is certain are no worse than anyone else's), he just keeps refusing to accept responsibility for his own actions. Does he really not understand that every president faces an organized conspiracy to unseat him (it is called the opposition party), or that other presidents have faced far worse lies and distortions designed to destroy them politically (Just look at the New York Times completely fabricated headline story about Bush, Iraq, and the linkage to 9/11 as determined by the 9/11 Commission)? Can he not comprehend that just maybe he could be wrong once in a while? Apparently not, for to do so, again, is to have to take the major portion of blame for his own massive failures.
In MY LIFE, Bill Clinton reveals more than he intends; he shows himself to be a man whose many gifts have been undermined by his flaws of character, who is haunted by insecurity married to arrogance, compassion married to narcissism. In short, he shows himself to be a very sad person indeed, who seems to be at a loss to find among all of his life's frantic activities any enduring meaning at all. He remains a person who has never understood (or wanted to understand) what truth is about, and who still apparently doesn't know what the word "is" means. He is to be pitied as are his other victims - the American people.