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TIMESTAMPS
The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/all/20060325201948/http://www.whatbooks.com/2004/bill_clinton_mylife.php
Hardcover Description:
An exhaustive, soul-searching memoir, Bill Clinton's My Life is a refreshingly candid look at the former president as a son, brother, teacher, father, husband, and public figure. Clinton painstakingly outlines the history behind his greatest successes and failures, including his dedication to educational and economic reform, his war against a "vast right-wing operation" determined to destroy him, and the "morally indefensible" acts for which he was nearly impeached. My Life is autobiography as therapy--a personal history written by a man trying to face and banish his private demons.
Clinton approaches the story of his youth with gusto, sharing tales of giant watermelons, nine-pound tumors, a charging ram, famous mobsters and jazz musicians, and a BB gun standoff. He offers an equally energetic portrait of American history, pop culture, and the evolving political landscape, covering the historical events that shaped his early years (namely the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK) and the events that shaped his presidency (Waco, Bosnia, Somalia). What makes My Life remarkable as a political memoir is how thoroughly it is infused with Clinton's unassuming, charmingly pithy voice:
I learned a lot from the stories my uncle, aunts, and grandparents told me: that no one is perfect but most people are good; that people can't be judged only by their worst or weakest moments; that harsh judgments can make hypocrites of us all; that a lot of life is just showing up and hanging on; that laughter is often the best, and sometimes the only, response to pain.
However, that same voice might tire readers as Clinton applies his penchant for minute details to a distractible laundry list of events, from his youth through the years of his presidency. Not wanting to forget a single detail that might help account for his actions, Clinton overdoes it--do we really need to know the name of his childhood barber? But when Clinton sticks to the meat of his story--recollections about Mother, his abusive stepfather, Hillary, the campaign trail, and Kenneth Starr--the veracity of emotion and Kitchen Confidential-type revelations about "what it is like to be President" make My Life impossible to put down.
To Clinton, "politics is a contact sport," and while he claims that My Life is not intended to make excuses or assign blame, it does portray him as a fighter whose strategy is to "take the first hit, then counterpunch as hard as I could." While My Life is primarily a stroll through Clinton's memories, it is also a scathing rebuke--a retaliation against his detractors, including Kenneth Starr, whose "mindless search for scandal" protected the guilty while "persecuting the innocent" and distracted his Administration from pressing international matters (including strikes on al Qaeda). Counterpunch indeed.
At its core, My Life is a charming and intriguing if flawed book by an equally intriguing and flawed man who had his worst failures and humiliations made public. Ultimately, the man who left office in the shadow of scandal offers an honest and open account of his life, allowing readers to witness his struggle to "drain the most out of every moment" while maintaining the character with which he was raised. It is a remarkably intimate, persuasive look at the boy he was, the President he became, and man he is today. --Daphne Durham
Average Customer Rating:
Worst president (good public speaker) who can't write
Clinton, the worst president of my lifetime, can't seem to fully acknowledge all his mistakes (Black Hawk Down, Rwanda, Haiti, oh yeah Monica). Sadly, he will go down in history as a great president, although he had zero accomplishments. Good public speaker, though, allowed the ignorant to adore him, but he is and was a disgrace to America. Hopefully, we won't see him in the future (with Hilary as president) and he can fade away. So basically, we have a million killed in Rwanda b/c he chose not to intervene, people dead from withdrawing too early in Mogadishu, and cheating on his wife. Yes sir, what a great president indeed! If only there were more like him!
A political propaganda from a past president
Comment on "My Life" by Clinton (2nd Volume)
On the positive side, this is book is quite informative, especially about foreign affairs in Clinton years. The descriptions on affairs in Ireland and Middle East are consistent, systematic and interesting. The book also talked about efforts of containing terrorist groups, especially Bin Laden. Unfortunately the accounts for North Korea were somewhat sketchy, especially about how North Korea broke the agreement and what was done about it.
The book also offers a glimpse of the lives of the elites. It's fascinating to imagine rubbing shoulders with the great minds of the world as daily business.
I admire Clinton a lot for his success in life. Coming from a humble background, it must have taken a tremendous effort and a lot of luck to reach what he has reached. Unfortunately in the second volume, this side of the story was not told so much.
Now, some negative comments. In summary, I don't think Clinton has been honest about many issues around his presidency. It is disappointing because I expected that as a retired president, his book would have some historical value. Instead, the book is more like a campaign white paper.
Clinton is a whiner about "conservative media", etc. He portrayed himself as a naïve victim of the media bias: a lot of good achievements went unreported. All criticisms were fabrications or distortions. He said many times "good work, bad publicity". Well, this cannot be always true. After all, the president commands certain resources in the media, such as press releases and the weekly radio reports. Even if Clinton himself was novice about public relations, he had the whole Democratic Party machinery behind him. Note that his senior advisor, George Stephanopoulos became an ABC political correspondence. (Later he became the anchor person of ABC weekly news show "This Week".) So the relationship between the Administration and the media could not be too bad.
Clinton talked about his scandals, the Pola Jones case and the Whitewater as a complete setup against him and his wife. According to him, all accusations were groundless, and all damaging investigations were improper or even illegal. But he never talked about how he, and the Democratic Party, fought back or defend himself. It sounded like he was a helpless, innocent victim of a long term, systematic smearing campaign operated by the Republicans. Well, if this had been true, perhaps he would not be qualified as a capable President anyway. If the President, who was an avid lawyer, can be abused like that, how do we common folks feel safe in this country, under his leadership?
Another interesting thing is that when Clinton talked about decisions and rulings for the judges involved, any decisions in his favor proved his innocence. Any decisions not in his favor proved that the whole charge was a right-wing scandal: even the judges were ultra-right and were abusing the law.
When Clinton talked about the Monica Lewinsky story, he went beyond self-victimizing, to almost self-pity. When describing the events, Clinton left out several important episodes of the story, such as when he said on TV "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms Lewinsky." and the material evidence (the infamous "stained dress") that forced Clinton to finally admit the affair. He also portrayed it as an isolated "laps" in his life, rather than a pattern of his behavior. Well, now I can better understand why Star would make such painstaking efforts to give the details of the affairs, to show the nature of Clinton's behavior. Clinton cleverly separated the Lewinsky issue in two parts. The first is his infidelity. He admitted that part. However, it is something between two consenting adults, and is not against the law. It's really as Clinton said and the time: "its between my family members and our God". The second issue is his lying to the grand jury and the American public. This he did not admit. And this issue is actually what the impeachment was about. So while forced to admit his "moral laps" (and touting his "come back"), Clinton still consider himself a victim of the "right wing Republicans". Clinton also described in detail the support he got from everywhere: Republican congressmen who voted against the impeachment, scholars and past presidents who voiced opposition to the impeachment, ordinary citizens who wrote or called to support him, and foreign leaders who gave him warm welcomes during the crisis. I am sure these were very touching to Clinton at the time. However, that's just one side of the story. There are also many who were outraged by his deceit and disloyalty. In fact, even after the failed impeachment, many Democrat politicians (including, to some extend, Vice President Al Gore) distanced themselves from Clinton in the 2000 campaign.
Clinton tried to put a humanity side to the stories in his book. He referred to many foreign leaders and U. S. political figures as "friends". However, he failed to really describe those people as human beings. They still sounded like one-dimensional politicians. His best narration of personalities was about Ron Brown, his secretary of commerce who was killed in a plane crash. He made some moving comments about the man. However, there were no facts or anecdotes to support it. This is particularly interesting because, according to what CBS anchor person Bob Schieffer described, Clinton has the capability that "when he shakes hands with you, you would feel that you are the most important person in the whole world in his mind at that time".
Clinton's account of his achievements sounds more like a campaign speech than an honest historical reflection. For example, any legislations he managed to pass in Congress was an achievement, no matter how controversial it was, and what the result would be. On the other hand, any legislation that failed was a victim of Republicans playing politics. There was never anything wrong with the legislations or policies themselves.
The only case Clinton analyzed in detail is the welfare reform bill. He talked about the portions he supported and against. And he commented on the positive outcome in his first term concerning welfare reform: welfare roll is reduced by 60%, etc. When talking about posterior achievements, he said that welfare reform was a center piece in his 1992 campaign promise. However, he did not mention that the bill was not passed during the first 2 years of his presidency and a Democratic Congress. And he did not mention that welfare reform was also part of the "contract to America" from the Republicans and that particular bill represented the Republican's position.
Clinton talked about deficit reduction and elimination over and over and over. But he did not mention that the Republicans forced him to take a more aggressive goal and approach than his original plan, although he criticized a lot on the bills passed by the Republican Congress that reduced funding on some programs that he liked.
The whole book is like a running diary, without a unifying thread. For the few matters highlighted, most are foreign affairs (financial aid to Mexico, helping the Ireland peace process, involvement in Middle East peace negotiations). I don't think many American people care too much about those events.
Interesting excerpts:
*When talking about their 20's wedding anniversary, "after so many years of ups and downs, we are still deeply engaged". Note that he did not mention "love" here. Somewhere else in the book, he said that Hilary was a tough woman, and "that's why I loved her so much". Note the past tense.
*He talked about a Navy admiral who committed suicide. The cause was that he was accused of wearing some ribbons he did not earn. Clinton said the critics were not fair, because it shouldn't be such a big deal for an otherwise outstanding person: "It's one thing if you are told you are not good at your job; it's another thing if you are told you are not a good person." Apparently to Clinton, wearing an undeserved medal or ribbon is not a sign of "not a good person".
*He mentioned one incident in his state of the union address: he brought forward a federal worker who saved a few co-workers during the Oklahoma bombing. This won a worm applause and standing ovation from members of both parties. Then he pointed out that the same worker also worked without pay during the Government shutdown, which was caused by the budget battle between the Congress and White House. He said: "On behalf of the Mr. so and so, I ask you never to shut down the Government again!" Clinton described the Republicans at this point as "fell into the trap". He further relished the moment by talking about how they prepared the address and accounted for all the effects. This, to me, sounds like a cheap shot, and an insult to the hero he brought to the event by using him for political gain.
*When talking about the Democrat illegal contribution scandal of 1996, Clinton said that his campaign always held a high standard regarding contributions, and he was "angry" with the DNC over the "oversight". Wasn't he the leader of the Democratic Party as a sitting President?
*When talking about her daughter going to Stanford, Clinton said that "because of her excellent grade and test scores", she was accepted into all the colleges she applied for. That sounds like "there is no 300 oz of sliver buried here".
*Referring to George Stephanopoulos' memoir "All Too Human", Clinton said "I had no idea how hard he was on himself, and on me." I don't quite know what it means. Clinton made this remark when talking about the stressful jobs for the White House staff. But this sounds like a response to Stephanopoulos' criticism to the President.
The Abridged Version Works Well As a CD
The CD format works well for this type of material. It is 6 CDs made from an abridged version. Clinton tends to be exceedingly long-winded, but that's okay if you're listening to it and doing homework or leave during the boring parts to go to the bathroom or whatever. I never had the urge to rewind to get something I missed.
The problem with this type of material is that it was written for Clinton's peers in politics (political scholars and people into political and legal tactics) and it was also written for people like me who are not the least bit interested in politics but are interested in people and in causes.
So you struggle through the background information that he gives so that you can understand the context. And you struggle through the reiterations of his presidential accomplishments. They WERE awesome. On the whole I'm glad I survived to the end. It's sort of like listening to someone who's gone through a 12 step program or something to solve problems. It can be enlightening because his situation is so different from the rest of ours. It can also get a little dull at times, because the most interesting part is not the part he would want to sensationalize. But frankly(besides being exceedingly entertaining), the man did do a good job as president.
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DVD's
Worst president (good public speaker) who can't write 
A political propaganda from a past president 
The Abridged Version Works Well As a CD 
