My Life

My Life Bill Clinton   —   Book product page Rating:

My wife got me an iPod for Christmas. There's an audio edition of Bill Clinton's memoirs read by the author, who happens to be a wonderful speaker. Match made in wonk heaven, right? Sort of.

First of all, I'm not a big fan of memoirs. I'm generally more interested in what people do than who they are. Second, I tend to remember more of what I read than what I hear. There're more senses involved, I guess. Also, I use the little colored Post-It tabs to mark interesting passages. That's harder to do in a linear medium, like audio.

So, having trashed memoirs, I have to say I just finished Madeleine Albright's book and thought it was an excellent read - I'll review it later. And having said I can't remember a word Bill told me about his life, I'll share some impressions I got from his telling.

Young Bill Clinton was brought up in an environment that I've only seen in 50's film noir. His father died soon after his birth, his widowed Mom liked to hang with a wild crowd, and his step-Dad was abusive, self-destructive, and once fired a shot at Bill and his Mom. Young Bill finally had to beat the crap out of his step-Dad to stop him from abusing his Mom. Clinton says he could have turned out pretty bad, but his Mom and Grandparents really loved him and that got him through his early years.

As interesting as his youth and early years with Hillary will be to some, I was way more interested in his experience as President of the United States. Clinton gives a fairly good overview of how he got into politics and how he worked his way to leader of the Democratic Party, but his description of the White House years is pretty sparse and sanitized. That's not to say he's secretive, he's very candid about some events - embarrassingly so at times - but many of his policy decisions are related in a matter of fact way with only a cursory explanation, if that, of the reasoning behind them. Admittedly, the audio version is abridged. So if all the detail is in the book, I apologize.

But while Clinton skips over the wonky stuff, he goes into detail about his failings, both professional and personal, as well as his triumphs: peace in Northern Ireland, peace in the Balkans, positioning American policy to ride the wave of globalization, seven years of peace in Israel, keeping Iraq and North Korea in a box, bringing China into the global community, and strengthening our ties with existing democracies, nurturing new democracies, and encouraging states in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Central Europe to become democracies.

All in all, Bill Clinton has a lot to be proud of. Remember, the Brits ran Churchill out on a rail. Clinton left office with a far higher approval rating than when he got there.