Bill and Hillary

I have begun Nigel Hamilton's "Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency" for my fun weekend-reading. One reason I bought the book some months ago is that it looked like the Clinton story would be going on for some time, though that now seems less likely as Hillary has fallen well behind Obama. Nevertheless, the main reason why I got it is that Hamilton offers a detailed, quasi-diary account of Clinton's first term, and the nineties has a special place in my heart. Here's a promising excerpt from the first day, Clinton's inauguration, when Bill and Hillary arrived late in meeting the outgoing First Family:

As a White House FBI agent recalled, one of the reasons for the tardiness "was because Vice President Gore had just found out that the West Wing office usually reserved for the vice president was instead going to be occupied by the first lady." The resultant uproar caused by this discovery had been witnessed by network television cameras "trained on Blair House." These had "recorded a glimpse of the president and the first lady screaming at each other."

The FBI agent was not the only one to be amazed by the tempest. "A shocked park police guard later reported that Clinton had referred to his wife as a "fucking bitch," Hillary's biographer Joyce Milton recorded, "while she came charging out the front door calling him a 'stupid motherfucker.'" "Sources I consider very reliable affirm that Clinton told Hillary that if she didn't back off from her plans to unseat Gore, Gore would go public with his anger and perhaps resign," the White House FBI agent recalled. Hillary merely shouted at her husband "that as far as she was concerned, they had a deal - a deal that dated back to the campaign, when Lloyd Cutler had convinced her to stand by Clinton despite the allegations that he'd had an affair with Gennifer Glowers. The matter had already been decided, she said, and she had no intention of backing off; Gore was bluffing."

Amozonian reviews say that this book merely glorifies Clinton and should come with presidential kneepads, but going just by this excerpt from the opening pages, that doesn't seem fair. It looks like a fun read to me. :)

Bill and Hillary

I have begun Nigel Hamilton's "Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency" for my fun weekend-reading. One reason I bought the book some months ago is that it looked like the Clinton story would be going on for some time, though that now seems less likely as Hillary has fallen well behind Obama. Nevertheless, the main reason why I got it is that Hamilton offers a detailed, quasi-diary account of Clinton's first term, and the nineties has a special place in my heart. Here's a promising excerpt from the first day, Clinton's inauguration, when Bill and Hillary arrived late in meeting the outgoing First Family:

As a White House FBI agent recalled, one of the reasons for the tardiness "was because Vice President Gore had just found out that the West Wing office usually reserved for the vice president was instead going to be occupied by the first lady." The resultant uproar caused by this discovery had been witnessed by network television cameras "trained on Blair House." These had "recorded a glimpse of the president and the first lady screaming at each other."

The FBI agent was not the only one to be amazed by the tempest. "A shocked park police guard later reported that Clinton had referred to his wife as a "fucking bitch," Hillary's biographer Joyce Milton recorded, "while she came charging out the front door calling him a 'stupid motherfucker.'" "Sources I consider very reliable affirm that Clinton told Hillary that if she didn't back off from her plans to unseat Gore, Gore would go public with his anger and perhaps resign," the White House FBI agent recalled. Hillary merely shouted at her husband "that as far as she was concerned, they had a deal - a deal that dated back to the campaign, when Lloyd Cutler had convinced her to stand by Clinton despite the allegations that he'd had an affair with Gennifer Glowers. The matter had already been decided, she said, and she had no intention of backing off; Gore was bluffing."

Amozonian reviews say that this book merely glorifies Clinton and should come with presidential kneepads, but going just by this excerpt from the opening pages, that doesn't seem fair. It looks like a fun read to me. :)