From a Bill Clinton biographer:

[babylonsister]

Just the thought of dealing with him again gives me the dry heaves...:puke:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/01/25/bill_clinton_the_one_man_steamroller/

snip//

In 1980, having unwisely raised state motor vehicle taxes, the youngest-ever-elected governor of Arkansas lost to a happy-go-lucky creationist more in tune with local Southern sentiment. "When the news came in he was really very upset, in tears" recalled his friend Jim Blair. A babysitter coming to the mansion found him on the floor, kicking, screaming, and bawling like a baby. "After he lost the election he didn't want to take all that responsibility for it. He wanted to blame it on Jimmy Carter," Blair remembered. As for Clinton's refusal to consider switching career to gain experience outside of politics, Blair said, "He looked me in the eyes, and he said, 'There's nothing else I want to do.' I thought, Man! You're a sick butt!"

But the butt persevered - and won back the governor's mansion in 1982, to hold it five times. Similarly in New Hampshire when draft-avoidance and the Gennifer Flowers scandal seemed to doom his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, he responded with renewed determination - combining inspirational rhetoric with tough political tactics in destroying rivals, by whatever means he could, especially negative advertising.

"He wasn't a nice man - but nice men don't win wars," was an epithet said of the British general, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, who commanded the successful D-Day armies - and this could well have been said of Clinton's maturation as political leader.

Faced with the Newt Gingrich-led Republican avalanche in Congress, he didn't despair as president; he summoned a Republican, Dick Morris, to X-ray Republican intentions and weaknesses, and proceeded to give a masterly demonstration of presidential firmness, bringing the civil war in Bosnia to a close while simultaneously defeating Gingrich's shutdown of the US government.

The lesson? Here is a man, a born politician, who can never admit to himself or the public he is wrong, but equally, who never lets up - and never stops crafting his next step, his next battle, his next victory by learning from defeat.

more...

[eleny]

1. Sis, I feel as you do

I wish I didn't but that's the way it is.

[ShortnFiery]

4. Yes, part of me wishes that I didn't know NOW, what I didn't know THEN.

:(

[eleny]

11. How well said!

I know she's quite qualified but I'm tired of them. Plus the dismal facts of Nafta. She won't get us out.

[jasmine621]

16. And a "biographer's word is gospel because....?" nt

[ccpup]

2. if it's that bad for you, you should leave

I heard Canada's nice.

[Clintonite]

3. Yeah head to Canada and maybe you can find happiness!

[ShortnFiery]

6. And here people claim that there's a difference between the RNC and The Clintonian DLC?

:crazy:

Vote in The Clintonian DLC for their 3rd Executive Branch Term or LEAVE this country. :thumbsdown:

[goldcanyonaz]

7. Our dollar is worthless in Canada, Mexico might be the better choice.

[durrrty libby]

9. This place is overrun with Bill Clinton hate threads. Every one

started by an Obama supporter. Coincidence? I think not

Bill must be speeding down the right track
:rofl:

[MethuenProgressive]

5. "biographer" = author of ''a sleazy new low in the chronicling of presidential lives'' (says NYT)

After ''Bill Clinton: American Journey,'' the first of a projected two-volume biography, took a critical pounding in 2003 (Michiko Kakutani, writing in The Times, called it ''a sleazy new low in the chronicling of presidential lives'') it was an open question whether Hamilton would again feel moved to give up after one book.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E2D61231F93BA25750C0A9619C8B63
----------
Your blind hatred of "Billary" has clouded your mind, Babylon.

[ShortnFiery]

8. Sounds reminiscent of the BushBots? Don't listen to detractors, they're *all* merely Clinton-Haters!

Now is about the time you are supposed to follow-up with challenging my patriotism/party loyalty/sanity/"fill in the blank." :crazy:

[MethuenProgressive]

10. Short, unlike the OPer, I looked into who was writing the hitjob to see who it was.

Obviously the OPer doesn't care, just as long as she can post her quota of anti-Clinton headlines.

[ShortnFiery]

14. MP, just because the person writing the article is not of *our* party doesn't make it untrue.

I'm sorry but, IMO, this "Party is Everyting" mentality is not what our beloved country was founded upon.

We know each others poltical bent, so let's not either one of us take "the high road?" ;) :hi:

[MethuenProgressive]

15. Who knows what Party? All I know is his Clinton book was called "a sleazy new low" by the Times.

Something that BS probably knew too.

[hfojvt]

18. you make a good point by questioning the author

Certainly there has been enough negative crap written about the Clintons for political reasons. I picked up a book from the discount table about Hillary. One which claimed to be investigative and truthful. When I got it home and looked at it more closely, it looked too much like a hit piece to bother reading. Ironically, I think it was by David Brock.

Some of that, though, is verifiable if we had sources like Lexis-Nexis.

Is this true, for example:

"he responded with renewed determination - combining inspirational rhetoric with tough political tactics in destroying rivals, by whatever means he could, especially negative advertising."

Did Clinton "destroy his rivals by whatever means he could"? I cannot remember the 1992 primary. Searching google, I find this account

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/candidates/democrat/clinton/campaign.92.shtml

"The showdown between Brown and Clinton came in New York, which held its primary April 7. The campaign was brutal. Clinton attacked Brown's proposed 13 percent flat tax as "the biggest rip-off in American politics" because, he said, it would increase taxes on the working poor and the middle class. Brown claimed Clinton was "unelectable" because of all the negative stories about his past."

It says the campaign was "brutal" but then it says that Clinton attacked, not Brown, but Brown's flat tax proposal, and I certainly cannot fault him for that.

It also says this:

"On April 7, Clinton won with 40.5 percent of the vote. Brown finished third with 26 percent, behind non-candidate Paul Tsongas who took 28.8 percent. Clinton also won primaries in two other states (Kansas and Wisconsin) and a beauty contest in Minnesota the same day."

Which is really ironic, because I was living in Wisconsin then and do not remember a primary contest at all. Maybe I just did not like any of the choices Clinton or Brown, since Tsongas had already quit by then. A "choice" between Flat-tax Brown and Economic-growth Clinton must have made me wish there was a Democrat running in the primaries even.

[mod mom]

12. Count me in this category. "who can never admit to himself or the public he is wrong"

Hmmh....who else does that description describe?

I'm sorry but there are just too many connection to Republicans and especially the Bushs for my taste:

Stephens Inc. was founded by Witt Stephens, a state legislator's son who parlayed a Depression-era belt-buckle, Bible, and municipal-bond business into an immense personal fortune. After his retirement in 1973, the company was run by his shy younger brother, Jackson (a classmate of Jimmy Carter's at the Naval Academy). Witt Stephens and Stephens Inc. did much to create the economic paradox that is modern Arkansas: a desperately poor state with a scant 2.3 million inhabitants that is nonetheless home to a number of wealthy companies. Without the financial assistance of the Stephens brothers, Sam Walton might have ended his days as the most innovative merchant in Bentonville. Stephens money was also important to the fortunes of enterprises as various as Tyson Foods and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, the television producer and reigning First Friend. Stephens Inc. is an important client of the Rose law firm, whose chairman, C. Joseph Giroir, made Hillary Rodham Clinton a partner. And back in 1977, Stephens assisted BCCI's infiltration of the American banking system by brokering the latter's purchase of National Bank of Georgia stock held by Bert Lance, former President Jimmy Carter's friend and disgraced budget director.

Jackson Stephens (who turned over the reins to his son, Warren, in the late eighties) and his firm were both substantial contributors to the campaigns of Presidents Reagan and Bush (to the tune of at least $100,000 in 1980 and 1989), but they have been closer still to Bill Clinton (whom Witt Stephens had been known to call "that boy").

On two occasions, once when Clinton was running for reelection in Arkansas in 1990 and again in March 1992, when his battered presidential campaign was broke, the Stephens family saved Clinton's bacon with an infusion of money. Indeed, it may not be too much to say that their Worthen Bank's emergency $3.5 million line of credit saved the presidential campaign from extinction. --L.J.D.

-snip

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1993/11/davis.html

[jasmine621]

17. Sorry, but I have (and you have too) heard Bill admit to being wrong about

several things: Welfare reform - he didn't like the bill he signed and thought there would be time to fix it but the Monica shit hit the fan and we know the rest. The Congress was Repuke contolled after that.

Rwanda: he admitted not going in was the biggest mistake of his presidency

He actually admitted the Monica scandal was a mistake and he took full responsibility for his actions and the hurt he caused his supporters and his family.

I'll pull up a bigger list when I have time.

It's pure bullshit that Bill never admits to being wrong.

[mod mom]

19. What about East Timor? What about East Liverpool OH? What about NAFTA? The Telecom Act of '96?

[InvisibleTouch]

13. You assume that this drivel is the pure unvarnished truth.

I haven't read the book, but just from this small exerpt it's clear that this is an opinion piece, not a catalog of facts. It's one person's take on events - one person who seems to have a pre-conceived bias from the start. Haven't we learned by now from watching the rethugs that it's possible to spin almost anything to one's own liking? Careful whose opinions you accept as your own.

Disclosure: I am an Edwards voter (as of last night, with DK out of the race), but I'm thoroughly tired of seeing the Clintons held up as some kind of ultimate manifestation of evil.

[babylonsister]

20. One person who's done a lot of research. I haven't read it either,

but I hardly think it's a hit piece. The whole article isn't entirely negative, but does give me pause about Bill's unchecked ambition, which we're seeing in full force, regardless of whether the party suffers.

Nigel Hamilton, a biographer of Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, is a fellow at the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at UMass-Boston.