Clinton goes for wordy, not gritty

"My Life" by Bill Clinton; Alfred A. Knopf, hardback, $35

By Bob Minzesheimer
USA Today

Associated Press

Clinton followed that advice. Among his most important goals, he notes in his memoir, "My Life," out Tuesday, was to "write a great book."

"My Life" (Knopf, $35) is not a great book. It's not even a good book, but like its author, it has its moments.

It is Clintonesque: frustrating and fascinating, more exhausting than exhaustive.

Readers looking for an intimate portrait of his marriage to Hillary Rodham Clinton will be disappointed. So will readers wondering what Clinton was thinking during his "encounters" (his word) with Monica Lewinsky.

"My Life" is more likely to appeal to readers who want to celebrate a president who rose from modest roots, survived an abusive, alcoholic stepfather and developed an insatiable intellectual curiosity.

It describes the self-education of a politician whose only ambition, as he tells it, was to improve the lives of ordinary Americans despite powerful, conservative interests out to destroy him.

At 957 pages, it's short on personal revelations but long on every campaign Clinton waged, from Boys Nation to the White House. Everywhere he goes, he makes friends and learns valuable lessons.

His writing style is a touch of down-home Arkansas polished by Georgetown and Oxford, where he was educated. Has any other president identified so closely with what sociologists call high and low culture?

He rates the films of Elvis Presley (his favorite: "Love Me Tender") and credits his daughter, Chelsea, with teaching him to appreciate the intelligence and alienation of rap and hip-hop.

"My Life" is occasionally funny but rarely brief. Its wisdom depends on your politics.

Clinton describes growing up among great storytellers, including his resilient mother and his uncle Buddy who "taught me that everyone has a story." But does Clinton have to tell them all?

With Lewinsky, however, he avoids details. He labels his behavior "immoral and foolish" and attributes it to "old demons." The closest he comes to an explanation is that as a boy, whose family's policy for dealing with problems was "don't ask, don't tell," he learned to lead "parallel lives, an external life that takes its natural course and an internal life where the secrets are hidden. ... It was dark down there."

He repeatedly argues that his impeachment had nothing to do with morality and everything to do with a right-wing grab for power. As angry as his wife was with him, he writes, she was angrier at Special Prosecutor Ken Starr.

He also writes that "in politics, if you don't toot your own horn, it usually stays untooted."

There's much tooting here, from Clinton's deficit reduction and job creation to the warning he describes giving President-elect Bush about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida and other security threats.

Clinton adds, "He listened to what I had to say without much comment, then changed the subject to how I did my job."

I haven't listened to the abridged 6 1/2-hour audio, read by Clinton, but suspect that with skillful editing, it could be better than the overwritten book.

The unabridged audio, all 51 hours, will be released in July, narrated mostly by a professional reader. Apparently, it's too much for even Clinton.