-
sponsorship
Data point No. 856 on the weirdness of Hillary and Bill Clinton's marriage: In Game Change,
the new book on the underside of the 2008 campaign, John Heilemann and
Mark Halperin report that Hillary “couldn’t bear to confront her
husband directly” when he went after Obama like a crazy man in South
Carolina. She had to ask her aides “to implore him either to leave the
state or to pipe down.” (Quotes are in the NYT review.) In another new book on the campaign, Notes from the Cracked Ceiling,
Anne Kornblut resurrects the question of whether young women didn't
vote for Hillary because she's Hillary or because they're not
feminists. Answer: because she's Hillary and because he's Bill.
-
sponsorship
Jess, Emily and Dayo, I saw Tina Brown's column on Hillary through a slightly different lens. Brown is writing The Clinton Chronicles, a book about Hillary and Bill, reportedly due out in 2010. The subject makes sense after Brown's terrific, dishy bio of Lady Di. The Clintons, after all, are our messy royalty. (The book deal was announced in January 2008, back when it must have seemed like Hillary would still be crowned our next Commander in Chief.)
Given this, Brown probably has some inside dope on what the Clintons are really thinking. She could be channeling Bill's thoughts about his wife. (Maybe The Big Dog is tired of being muzzled.) She could also be trying to raise Hillary's profile in advance of the book. Or, maybe Brown is just trying to do Hill a favor, by casting a little deserved limelight her way. (Read more in Double X.)
Photograph of Hillary Clinton by Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images.
-
sponsorship
Hanna and Dayo: I, too, was interested to read the lengthy profile of Bill Clinton in this weekend's New York Times Magazine,
but I had a very different reaction to it. I found the profile fawning
and thin, the reportage of an obedient dog happily following close on
the heels of a once-powerful leader, and I felt like the story behind
the story, which shadowed its every word, was left embarrassingly
untouched. Aside from a short aside, which is vague to the point of
hilarity, almost nothing is mentioned in regards to... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)
-
sponsorship
Alongside all the finger pointing about bank failures and the collapse
of the US housing bubble has come the slow puncturing of the legend of
consequence-free 1990s economic growth. Peter Baker's fantastic New York Times Magazine piece takes a good, hard look at the maker of that world: Bill Clinton. Like Hanna,
I find the portrait both honest and poignant. The meat of the
article—which follows Clinton on various travels, speeches, meetings,
and duties related to the Clinton foundation—is naturally the
substantive, frank, and reflective conversation between Bill and Baker
with respect to the Clintonian economy. David Leonhardt, also of the Times, parses the back and forth, wherein Bill admits that he "should have raised more hell about derivatives being unregulated"... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)
-
sponsorship
We spend so much time dissecting First Ladies living in the shadow of their husbands that this portrait of Bill Clinton as First Man is startling, and so poignant. New York Times
reporter Peter Baker addresses how little access Clinton has in the
Obama administration, but the story succeeds mainly as a character
sketch. Clinton is a Philip Roth character somewhat restrained, trying
to explain his outbursts during the campaign, coming to terms with the
indignities of aging, and of being eclipsed by a younger, more vibrant
man... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)
-
sponsorship
Just when you thought it was safe to channel surf, it turns out HBO is making a movie out of the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal of yesteryear. The title? The Special Relationship. Special, indeed. The casting is just plain odd. Dennis Quaid is Wild Bill. Hillary Clinton? Julianne Moore. Apparently, the film focuses less on Slick Willy's hijinks and more on the president's relationship with Tony Blair (played by Michael Sheen), which devolved purportedly due to the sex scandal. Peter Morgan, who scored with Frost/Nixon, wrote the screenplay and is set to direct. Supposedly, Quaid beat out some actual A-listers for the role—Russell Crowe, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins. I wonder if he truly eclipsed them or if the actors were steered away from taking the part of a man tasked with running the country who couldn't keep his hands off the help. Who'll play Lewinsky? Mia Kirshner? Megan Fox? Jessica Simpson? Nope. "Morgan has decided to use only archive footage of her culled from TV news bulletins and video of her closed-door testimony to Congress." Well, maybe the real Lewinsky will sell a few handbags out of it.
-
sponsorship
If Bill "the First Black President" Clinton was the segue to our first actual black president, maybe Barack "This Is What Feminism Looks Like" Obama will make way for our first female one? That'd be super!
-
sponsorship
Well, I never wanted the Clintons to divorce on our account and don't think they ever will split up, either—for one thing because she would get all of the art and all of the friends while he would get the "art'' and be stuck with the "friends.'' (B: "No, you take Terry McAuliffe.'' H: "No, darling, you.'') But as fantasies go, Emily, it is fun to imagine her throwing him out because she can and because she might just take up with that 24-year-old Sharon Stone broke up with after losing her custody battle. (You know, the one in which her ex accused her of suggesting that their 8-year-old son use Botox to fight foot odor.) Now that it's official for Hillary as secretary of state, I do want her to do well there. And to enjoy this moment, with or without the Mr.
-
sponsorship
Isn't it time for Hillary Clinton to get a quickie divorce from Bill (it can be done; it took about 20 minutes for Madonna to dissolve her marriage) before her confirmation hearings start? The New York Times reports that over the last few weeks of negotiations between Obama's representatives and Bill, he has agreed to various restrictions on his business and philanthropic dealings to keep Hillary from getting mired in a bunch of scandals and conflicts. He promises to "submit his future personal speeches and business activities for review by State Department ethics officials and, if necessary, by the White House counsel’s office." Yeah, that should work, because if we know anything about Bill Clinton it's that a) He responds well to being on a short leash, and b) He's really good at filing timely paperwork.
Surely Hillary will not have trouble getting confirmed, but her hearings will be all about Bill—Sen. Richard Lugar virtually promises that. As her presidential campaign made clear, not only does Hillary not need Bill anymore, he has turned into a liability (except financially, and she would come away with a big settlement). And just think, if she divorced him, it would be the first time that their relationship made sense.
-
sponsorship
So as I'm reading how Bill Clinton is making himself all kinds of amenable so that Hillary can say yes to running the State Department, it at long last occurs to me that Obama's job offer to her might not be the total madness I took it for: See here in the New York Times, where it quotes former Clinton White House counsel and Obama supporter Abner Mikva? The way Mikva puts it is that for this thing to go forward, "There would have to be FULL [caps mine] disclosure as to who ALL [me again] were contributors to his library and foundation." Which is not quite the same as the former president's reported willingness to "release the names of some major donors,'' is it? So maybe Obama has reason to believe that in the end, Hubby Bubba can't open all the books for all the world to see? And if that's the case, then instead of being a chump he's making the world's most magnanimous gesture at absolutely no cost to himself or the country.
-
sponsorship
Ann, don't you love how we've all turned into headhunters for Hillary, eager to pitch in and help her locate just the right job? State wouldn't be the best possible platform for her diplomatic and managerial skill set. But Hillary as war czar isn't quite the ticket, either. (Because nearly everything reminds me of a scene from a musical, what I'm thinking is "May God bless and keep the czar ... far away from us.'' In the Senate, for example.) Obama has created a problem for himself by dangling a major cabinet post as an option; if he doesn't offer it to her now, her partisans won't be happy. But it would be even worse to begin his bright new day in Washington with a confirmation hearing starring all the ghosts of Clinton scandals past. And Defense doesn't work as a Hillary landing pad any better than State does; her initial and lingering poor judgment on Iraq wasn't a plus in any way. Where did rewarding those who were wrong about the war ever get us? Truly, I never followed the '04 reasoning of those who argued that since Bush made the mess, he should be the guy on cleanup. During the run-up to the war, I remember talking to a top Clinton foreign policy person who patiently explained to me that, in fact, the Clinton and Bush administration's views vis-à-vis Saddam and invading and coalition-building were just not that different: "Together if we can, alone if we must.'' Which is why Clinton at DoD would not be different enough for me.
-
sponsorship
Melinda and Emily, you're probably right that somebody should have whispered to Obama, "Wait, you'll be sorry," before he summoned Clinton for a Chicago chat about the State department slot. But either no one did, or he didn't listen, so now what's he going to do? Offer her secretary of Defense. The cons are all the same (and who knows, he may be counting on her to consider the prospect of filling out all those forms, and decline). But here are some fresh pros. For him: It wouldn't hurt to have someone who voted for the Iraq war in charge of handling the withdrawal, and she's been a member of the Armed Services Committee for years. He wouldn't be unleashing another globe-trotting Clinton when Bill is already out there, and it would ratchet down her hobnobbing with world leaders. Pros for her: Here's Clinton's chance to be a first and break the brass ceiling. State would be so been-there-done-that.
-
sponsorship
Melinda, I wonder if the Obama administration would waive the 63-item questionnaire all potential administration officials are required to fill out before naming Hillary secretary of state. There are so many questions that might be troublesome, from No. 6, concerning "whether you or your spouse" ever received money from any foreign entities (See Bill's amazing Kazakhstan adventure), to No. 8, asking for a description of the "most controversial matters you have ever been involved in," to No. 12, "Please identify all speeches you have given" to my favorite, No. 13, in which the candidate is asked to describe any electronic communication they have ever sent that might be "a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-Elect." There isn't enough bandwith in the world for Hillary to attach all the documents that answer these questions. The larger issue is that it would be kind of nutty for Obama to appoint her. He surely doesn't need her sucking away attention and power. He surely would like to avoid the daily conflicts of interest inherent in Bill's international business and philanthropic activies. And wouldn't Hillary be happier and more effective building her own power base in the Senate?
-
sponsorship
In Rachael's battle between who is speaking more truth to power--Elaine Lafferty or Christopher Buckley--I think the real winner may be Tina Brown. Both articles by Lafferty and Buckley, which have inspired a lot of Web chatter, appeared in Brown's new Web site, the Daily Beast (named after the news outlet in Evelyn Waugh's novel Scoop.) Brown, of course, famously saved or ruined The New Yorker, depending on your point of view, in the early 1990s, after she created the still-successful formula for Vanity Fair. I worked at The New Yorker, briefly, during her reign and was among those who felt she was often unfairly maligned because of her sex. Rosa's insight--that pretty women are typically more successful than their less attractive counterparts but also punished more harshly when they fail--seemed to apply a lot to Brown at the time and may explain why she was eventually drawn to the subject of Diana, Princess of Wales (and is now working on a book about Hillary and Bill). In fact, many of the writers that define the current New Yorker are ones Brown hired and first brought to national prominence: among them, Lawrence Wright, Anthony Lane, John Cassidy, Malcolm Gladwell, Phillip Gourevitch, Larissa MacFarquhar, and David Remnick himself (who became her successor). One of my personal favorites of Brown's discoveries was Nancy Franklin, then a staff editor at the magazine. Previous male bosses had overlooked Franklin's considerable talents. Brown, however, saw a natural wit and born writer and promoted Franklin to critic, a post she still winningly occupies.
Brown had a keen appreciation of the sexism that surrounded her--especially the ways women were expected to work like dogs (as Brown did) while many of the men got to lounge around being "intellectuals." Upon learning I grew up in Texas, she once joked to me that she loved Texas men because unlike most of her male literary peers in New York, they were still man enough to flirt with her. In today's political vernacular, Texas men were "dudes," unintimidated by a woman who is both attractive and powerful. Brown's quip offered a brief glimpse into how sexually isolating it can be to be a fiercely intelligent woman. (I think this explains, in part, why otherwise seemingly smart women, especially of Hillary's generation, sometimes ended up with the Bills of the world: Bill was probably the first guy sexually acquisitive enough not to be put off by Hillary's own brains and star power.) I wonder if, at the Daily Beast, Brown hasn't found her natural home. She's surrounded by a younger generation of web-savvy male and female editors more used to smart, assertive women, and she always did love the outrageous, counterintuitive piece on which blogs depend. I, for one, am glad to have her back, mixing it up.
-
sponsorship
Rachael, I don't guess I know that many people who think of themselves as intellectuals—or would say so out loud, at any rate, no matter how much they love kicking around ideas. (My mom described me that way once, in anger, and it was soooo not a compliment. "Who died and made you Lionel Trilling, missy?'' was the drift, and doubtless with good reason.)
I did work for an intellectual at one point—and I know this because he spoke of it constantly; in fact, he talked so much about his own heapin' helpin' of smarts that one wondered, as he would have said, how wide-ranging his great thoughts really were.
Public intellectuals in recent political life? Obama would be the first in the White House since ... Woodrow Wilson? (Or can a rip-roaring racist ever qualify as such?) Otherwise, we've had Pat Moynihan, by any standard, Al Gore, as a great prophet and popularizer of science and technology he was quick to grasp the significance of, Bill Bradley in his own mind, thanks to John McPhee, and uh ... not Bill Clinton, though he is definitely 10 kinds of smart. I guess no Republicans spring to mind because they've been running against the Ivory Tower crowd for as long as I can remember.
What does it even mean to be living the life of the mind in this moment of the body/age of the Internet/time of the more, faster, ruder, and right now? I had a French boyfriend—yes, this was after the war—who defined an intellectual as anyone compelled to "passer des nuits blanches'' for the sheer pleasure of it, in the grip of a book. But to then brag about it? Pas sexy, even in France. And in this country, our challenge seems to be to find that middle ground—your favorite spot, Rachael—between pride in mediocrity and pointless showing off. Aspiring to know more should be a given and shared goal rather than, as you say, just another way to divide us into haves and (ha-ha, you down there) have-nots.
-
sponsorship
Maybe, Emily, I didn't see Bill Clinton's speech the way you did because I actually expected him to do Barack Obama some good tonight. But then, that I expected better of him is an old, old story.
History was made in the Pepsi Center this evening, when William Jefferson Clinton arrived on schedule. I would not say that Michelle Obama twinkled at the sight of him ... and could not say whether Hillary did, because there was a lady waving a flag standing in front of her. But before too long, I was remembering why I voted for Ralph Nader in 1996. Back then, Clinton had the political capital to get a much better welfare reform bill but cared more about himself than all those down-on-their-luck Americans he was always biting his lip over. Tonight, he had the chance to make a much better pitch for Barack Obama. But again, instead, forever and what else is new, talked about how much better things were when he was president.
Who was it again that he was referring to when he said Obama "has the intelligence and curiosity every [emphasis his] successful president needs''? Or helpfully pointed out that he and Hillary have made Obama the candidate he is today: "The long primary tested and strengthened him.'' Oh, and not to worry because "he will continue and enhance our nation's commendable global leadership in an area in which I [emphasis his again] am deeply involved—the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.''
Though every word he said about how much better off we were when he was president was true, of course, I hadn't realized that burnishing his legacy was the point of the exercise. He had the crowd going bananas before he ever opened his presidential beak, and one of the lines they loved best was, "People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.'' Woohoo, true again. But how that moves one voter to Obama I'm sure I don't know.
"America can do better'' than it has under Bush. "And Barack Obama will do better.'' Really? That is one weak offense, Bubba. And the old hound dog did not exactly rip John McCain's head off, either, going on and on about how his wife's former drinking buddy loves this country and sure suffered in Hanoi. The best I could give him would be a gentleman's "C''. But at the moment, I am too mad to manage it.
-
sponsorship
Bill, the original stickler for exact language, manages to give a roaring, inspiring endorsement of Obama without entirely selling out his wife: "Barack Obama is the man for this job."
[Emphasis mine. Just sayin'.]
-
sponsorship
Wow. I have spent these many months—years?—gnashing my teeth over Bill Clinton, ruing his narcissism and practically forgetting the good he did as president. And there he is tonight, showing us his best side: the commanding, masterful framer of Democratic goals and values vs. Republican ones, and repeatedly bringing the choice back to this presidential election, this Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. It wasn't just "He is ready to lead" and "They say he's too young and inexperienced ... sound familiar?" (I'm paraphrasing.) It was the weaving of Obama with real policy of the future and the best of the Clinton past. And what a great new twist on his signature line about hope. Maybe it's all about defying expectations. Whatever—it doesn't really matter. Bill, you nailed it.
-
sponsorship
"If anything, the country shows every sign of yearning for Clintonism as a governing idea now as much as it ever has."
-- Mark Penn, today in Politico
So I guess the Politico called Mark Penn and said hey, cowboy, we've got some rope over here that would look real good around your neck if you're up for one of those do-it-yourselfers...and of course, he couldn't resist. The result being this piece, Clintonism Lives, which I'm fairly sure was not intended as self-parody. But the fact that the guy who masterminded Hillary Clinton's campaign into a ditch still doesn't get that this is not the week for an apologia should be a cautionary tale for other Clinton fans: They will be judged on the extent to which your grudges are on display in Denver - which is why I fully expect the Clintons themselves to be gracious if it kills them. Yes, Bill is out there grousing that he's not sure how to sell Obama as commander-in-chief. But by Wednesday, I'm sure he will have figured it out.
What Hillary Nation has to think about is: Even on an it's-all-about-you basis, if John McCain wins in November, are you so sure that vindication of Hillary's prediction that Obama wasn't electable will be the result? It's just as likely she'd be blamed for such an outcome, which the Clintons know. That's why she will hit every mark and then some. And why, if he goes so much as cocks an eyebrow off message, we can safely assume he really has lost his last political marble.
-
sponsorship
McCain's new ad "Passed Over" urges Hillary voters to see the fact that she wasn't chosen as Obama's running mate as a fresh betrayal—and evidence that he's just too wimpy to countenance a strong, truth-telling woman: "She won millions of votes,'' a female announcer says, over a montage of various flattering campaign-trail shots of Hillary, "but isn't on his ticket. Why? For speaking the truth. ... The truth hurt. And Obama didn't like it.'' It's a great ad, cynical in the extreme, and likely to be so effective that I can't wait for the follow-up featuring the greatest hits of all the things Bill Clinton has said about Obama. Only, if McCain is such a Hillary fan, and they have so much in common as a couple of straight-talkers, what's to stop him from showing that ability to reach across the aisle he's always talking about? McCain-Clinton—now that says maverick.