The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
The review is in
: The NY Times’ Michiko Kakutani delivers a dull blow to Clinton’s kidney (or more like a kick to his balls) with her review of his autobiography:
The book, which weighs in at more than 950 pages, is sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull
Yawn. Well, I’m not going to buy the book, but I would like to know if he apologized to me. He stuck his finger in my face and declared that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman…” and I BELIEVED HIM.
Mr President, just go away. No really. Far, far away.
Bill is saying nothing here about his enemies that hasn’t been said by:
– Hillary Clinton
– David Brock
– Joe Conason
– Gene Lyons
– Al Franken
– Eric Alterman
– Sid Blumenthal
And on and on and on… so pardon us if this stuff is truly tiresome by now.
“Well, duh. What do you want, Michiko, a — pardon me — blow-by-blow description of the affair? Of course, he’s going to devote ink and paper to going after those who went after him; it’s his turn.”
I totally agree. I mean was anyone really expecting someone like Clinton to offer up some interesting insight in to why he did what he did, what it revealed about contemporary America?
No, of course not, he was going to indluge in petty rewrites of history (let’s remember that even in his apology to us he lied – he said that he and Monica had started out as friends and it turned in to something else; if my memory is correct, the first time they meet is a brief introduction and Monica flashes her thong at him, the second time they meet she ends up giving him head…that’s some friendship).
He’s a lazy, incompetent, stupid, lying man who if he hadn’t been president would be the type of guy in the bar all waitresses fear serving coz he always grabs their asses.
Bill Clinton. A small man for small times. Reagan dies and we speak of the Cold War, the end of Communism and the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Clinton writes a book, he and we speak of Monica Lewinski. It won’t change when he dies either.
“Third rate romance, low rent rendevous”.
Ah, the meanderings of a ‘low’ Rhodes Scholar. It appears from all accounts this weighty tome will be the leading soporific of choice for the next several months. I, myself, will wait to buy it in a yard sale (that is if I don’t hear 90% of it excerpted on CNN, CBS, MSNBC, et al), say sometime in August or September.
When Clinton dies, there will be those that will bring up NAFTA and welfare reform — both of which were signed against the wishes of his party, and both of which have been, on balance, good for the country.
Unfortunately, I think Tim is right; most will remember Monica, finger-wagging, lip-biting, and lying directly to the country.
I’m not a big fan of Clinton, but I think this is totally not right.
After listening to WJC lie for 8 years why spend $20 to read a whole book full of lies?
Especially when we hear new presidential lies every day, fresh for the parsing.
Looking at policy alone, I think he had more successes than failures, and as a whole was a very good president.
BUT, you can’t just compartmentalize the personal from the business; I was throroughly embarrased by his frailties and foibles, just disappointed by his lack of judgement in his personal life.
Not that tens of millions of American AREN’T ALSO guilty of infidelity, even (gasp) Republicans and “christians.”
In summary:
-Phooey on Bill, for being an idiot. EVERYTHING comes out in the end. How can you possibly think a slobbering intern would go undiscovered?
-Phooey on everyone else, on Starr and his Republican hypocrits, for wasting 4 years of our lives on this crap.
-Quadruple phooey on the media. I remember the whole Lewinsky era as the time I stopped getting my news from TV. TV is for sports, education, and laughter. Newspapers and the internet are for news.
Michael Isikoff is so gullible in that MSNBC story, writing about how Clinton had to “sleep on the couch.” There are 132 rooms in the White House and Clinton had to sleep on the couch? Please! Everyone who buys this book are the same stupid people who voted for him. Clinton should have spent more time chasing bin Laden than chasing interns.