Your Thoughts Exactly

Bill Clinton wrote his bio “My Life,” without the assistance of a ghostwriter, which may or may not have been a good thing. Clinton is too enamored with himself, and attempts to bring you into his world in a way that can be a little grating. For example, he consistently refers to his mom as “Mother,” throughout the book, rather than “My Mom,” in an attempt to personalize his life story. Rather than personalize the story, his use of the term of endearment had me recalling “Psycho,” and the computer from “Alien.” He is a politician to the end, he uses his childhood to show how he shaped his political philosophy (racism in his hometown seems to have had the greatest effect on him,) and of course, has to remind everyone of how his policies were for the “people.” He also spends 400 pages on events before 1992, which is about 250 too many. He didn’t live an interesting enough life up until that point to make me care…

So I skipped ahead to the 92 election. I started there to compare 1992 Clinton to Kerry, to see what he did right to what Kerry may or may not be doing wrong. The greatest difference between the two campaigns is this: in 2004 Terrorism and the War on Terror is an issue big enough to override the domestic policy differences between the two candidates. Clinton was able to bash Bush Sr. on Deficits, Jobs, and Welfare and Healthcare (and other capitalized issues.) This is impressive because Bush Sr.’s record was no where near as bad as his son’s. Clinton was also greatly aided by Perot stealing votes from Bush.

Then there are about 500 pages of Clinton as President. What did I garner from this? Well there was a general distinction between the way Clinton governed and the way Bush does that shows a difference in philosophies. Clinton tried to push many little accomplishments, especially after the Republicans came into office in 1994. Normalize relations with Vietnam. Put more police on the streets. Pushing for peace in the Balkans and Middle East. Clinton’s government and policy is a lesson in subtlety; an attempt to push the country in the right direction step by step based on smart political and economic philosophy; balancing the budget and saving money, getting people off welfare, encouraging free trade, protecting civil liberties. Bush goes for the grand and wordy: “The Tax Cut,” “No Child Left Behind,” “The War on Terror,” “The PATRIOT Act.” Creating a false sense of heroic accomplishment is the only way to keep himself in power, and that’s what his administration concentrates on. That and protecting their buddies.

Whoops sorry, that degraded into a partisan rant awfully fast. Let’s get to the most important part of Clinton’s legacy: The Sex. Who was he banging and when? Well this book isn’t the tell-all steam-fest I was hoping for. Too bad. Bill admits he and Gennifer Flower had an “inappropriate encounter,” in the 1970s (he sneaks that in there after bashing her character for two pages, which some will find repulsively sleazy, and I find hilarious.) As for Monica? Well during the government shutdown of 1995, Bill notes that there weren’t a lot of people around, since they had been sent home. Bill was frustrated by those nasty Republicans, his falling polls, and the shutdown. So as Dave Chappelle pointed out, “he did what busy men do, he fucked who was close to him.”

Ahhhhhh…but they didn’t fuck. Bill say they engaged in a “relationship” for six months in the winter of 95-96. So let me get this straight, he was getting his dick sucked without reciprocating in any way for six freakin months? That’s the most impressive act of oral sex dominance since a certain…no wait cant offend the readership.

Clinton really doesn’t like Ken Starr and the right-wing Republicans, and for good reason. The witch hunt against him and Hilary was pretty awful and ridiculous. However, he did prove that if you can take the heat and stick to your gunz, you can end up winning even against the most powerfully wealthy. That’s why I admire Clinton. I admire Hilary even more, first for the crap she had to take over the sex scandal, second over the crap she has to take for being an “empowered woman,” which is simply men showing their fear of her. Utterly pathetic. She comes across as the hero of this book.

Clinton’s biggest regret is not finishing the Middle East Peace Process, which was a lot closer than most of us realized back then. Israel had peace deals in place with both Syria and the PLO, probably the two most important dominoes to be knocked down. Looking at the area today it’s damn hard to imagine that. If anything, he proved that there was a peaceful solution to the Middle East turmoil, which is not something the current administration seems willing to consider. In the end, the failure to seal the deal comes down to some political failings by Israeli leaders, and some hubris from the ruler of Syria at the time, President Assad, and, most importantly, the failure of Yasser Arafat to suck it up and accept the deal. He just didn’t want it bad enough. He could have gone down in history as a peacemaker, despite his past. But he just couldn’t seal the deal. Sad, when you consider the quagmire that the Middle East has become in just a few years.

On other foreign policy measures, I noticed that Clinton harps on the fact that terrorism and Al Qaeda became a much greater concern throughout the presidency; evidently several attacks were thwarted throughout Clinton’s career, including several on New Year’s Eve 2000, and they knew there were terrorist cells in North America. In fact, the one discussion Clinton had with W Bush, he says he told him that Bush’s greatest foreign policy challenge would be dealing with Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, and global terrorism, while Bush was more concerned about Iraq and Russia. Clinton’s anti-terror strategy was to try and kill Bin Laden with cruise missiles (remember there were some attacks in 1998 on supposed Al Qaeda bases,) but faced the challenge of dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan, who at the time was training militants. Overall I was impressed with Clinton as a statesmen; really much of the President’s job as a leader is to meet with various foreign leaders and push them in the right direction on various issues to keep the global community safe. Clinton did a good job building a relationship with Yeltsin and Putin, being buddies with all the European leaders, and not neglecting South America or Africa. Has Bush done this? You be the judge

There are some great quotes throughout the book, both from Clinton himself, from his aides, and that Clinton uses to inspire himself. In a conversation with Dick Armey in 1995, Armey threatens to shut down the government and end Clinton’s presidency if he won’t pass the Republican budget. Clinton says “I don’t care if my polls go down to 5 percent, I’m not cutting these programs.” Funny stuff. Clinton is inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote “No one can make you feel inferior without your permission. Do not give them permission.” I wrote that one down.

The book is overly long, and many people find Clinton a creep. But if you like the man, or you are interested in how politics works, and what a President actually does, this book is incredibly revealing. 81/100