I just finished reading Joe Klein’s book The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton. The book is billed as an important work of political history, being the primary chronicle of Clinton’s eight years in the White House, but in reality it is neither. It is a slight volume — barely 220 pages of primary material — and many topics are glossed over. The book is really an expansion of several magazine articles Klein wrote (primarily for The New Yorker) about the Clinton Administration, and it reads as such — not a whole lot of corroboration, little rigorous journalism, a lot of breezy narrative. Still, the book serves a purpose well: it at least provides the outlines, in broad strokes, of the 42nd President. Klein’s take is that Clinton is a man of extraordinary gifts and talents who, while accomplishing a great deal, never was able to really mold his achievements into greatness and who allowed his own personal failings to nearly derail him completely. Klein tells us a lot about the President, but ultimately the book still leaves Clinton as a somewhat foggy figure. A criticism that dogged Clinton from the time he entered the 1992 Presidential campaign is that one never could be sure just what he really believed, and after reading Klein’s book that charge still stands as fairly accurate. (Particularly frightening is the fact Klein cites that the Clinton Administration spent more on polling than every previous administration combined. Many conservatives used to complain that Clinton governed by the public opinion poll, a charge that was not entirely without merit.) Those interested in the political history of the 1990s will find a good starting point here; but the truly definitive work on that decade is still in the offing.
Search
Elen síla lúmenn’ omentielvo!
SITE PAGES
SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER!
Dispatches from the Forgotten Stars: An occasional journal of ideas, essays, acts of fiction, news updates on various projects, and who knows what else! Subscribe! SUPPORT!
CONTACT
Email:
kelly AT forgottenstars.net
Emails assumed publishable
unless requested otherwise.-
Previously
- Tone Poem Tuesday October 3, 2023
- Wake October 2, 2023
- The collection grows…. October 1, 2023
- Why write bad reviews? September 30, 2023
- Look at your photos, photographers! September 29, 2023
- Something for Thursday September 28, 2023
- Robert John Guttke, 1952-2023 September 27, 2023
- Tone Poem Tuesday September 26, 2023
- In our neighbors’ yard… September 25, 2023
- A vicarious adventure September 24, 2023
Recent Comments
- Roger on Wake
- Roger on The collection grows….
- Roger on Tone Poem Tuesday
- Roger on Something for Thursday
- Roger on A metamorphosis, completed
Categories
- A Very Public Service Message
- Amongst the Stars
- and General Matters of Style
- Born On This Date
- Commentary
- Fandom
- Fashion
- Guest Posts
- Life
- Meta
- music
- Newsletter Announcements
- Occasional Fiction
- On Bib Overalls
- On Books
- On Buffalo and The 716
- On Cats and Cat Life
- On Character
- On Clothing
- On Dogs and Dog Life
- On Exploring Photography
- On Food and Cooking
- On general matters of WTFery
- On History
- On Memories
- On Movies
- On Nature
- On People
- On Pies In Faces
- On Science and the Cosmos
- On Song
- On Sport
- On Tech
- On Teevee
- On Things I Find Funny
- On Tools of Various Trades
- On Travels and Adventures
- On Visual Arts
- Orion's Huntress
- Passages
- Photographic Documentation
- poetry
- Random Linkage
- Reading
- Seaflame!
- Stardancer
- The Chilling Killing Wind
- The John Lazarus novels
- The Song of Forgotten Stars
- The Wisdomfold Path
- Uncategorized
- Writers
- Writing
Tags
- "National Poetry Month" (30)
- A-to-Z 2013 (27)
- Anger and Rants (92)
- Bad Joke Friday (168)
- books (261)
- Buffalo (184)
- Burst of Weirdness (358)
- Comics (68)
- Daily Dose of Christmas (298)
- Daily Life Stuff (448)
- Events of the Day (229)
- Fantasy (97)
- Fiction (42)
- Food (166)
- Football (98)
- From the Books (45)
- Geek Stuff (265)
- Lazy Linkage (38)
- Meta-blog (271)
- Movies (306)
- Music (237)
- overalls (145)
- Passages (172)
- Photo Posts (448)
- Pie in the Face (62)
- poetry (86)
- Politics (116)
- Quiz-Things (135)
- Saturday Centus (69)
- Saturday Symphony (69)
- Science (88)
- Sentential Links (380)
- Skiffy (228)
- Something For Thursday (651)
- Space Opera (139)
- Sport (77)
- Star Trek (30)
- Star Wars (157)
- Teevee (149)
- Thirty Day Challenge (31)
- Tone Poem Tuesday (289)
- Unclassifiable (74)
- Unidentified Earth (90)
- Wednesday Dichotomy (303)
- writing (224)
Archives
Meta