Unrequited Love.(The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton)

The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton, by Joe Klein (Doubleday, 230 pp., $22.95)

Joe Klein's latest book is wrong from the very beginning. Usually a title page does not trigger an argument, but who can agree even with the title of this maudlin and boring memoir of the Clinton years? There was nothing remotely natural about Clinton and his presidency, nor was he misunderstood. In fact, with the possible exception of Klein himself, Americans quite clearly understood his lack of character by the end of his torrid terms in office.

How can Klein call this politician -- who cost his party control of Congress for at least eight years, led it to innumerable defeats in gubernatorial and state legislative races, and cost it the presidency in 2000 -- a "natural"? If by "natural" he means that Clinton survived his 1996 reelection campaign, he seems to ignore the fact that the retroactive slogan of that victory might well be Apres ceci, le deluge.

Bill Clinton was not natural at anything. He was the exact opposite: a contrived, artificial, highly scripted, poll-driven politician whose warm empathy with strangers in public was in stark contrast to his moody, self-involved crankiness in private. He is a man of abysmally low personal character who regards the truth -- with splendid impartiality -- as merely one of several options to consider before he speaks.

Klein does not add anything new or interesting to the public debate about the Clinton presidency. For the most part, his book is a hodgepodge of stories from earlier books and articles. Also included -- as if it mistakenly landed here -- is a disconnected 20-page analysis of the effects of Watergate.

The writing is uninspiring, lacking in new insights, and -- too often - - skewed to favor the agendas and reputations of his self-aggrandizing sosources. Hence we are subjected to pages of fluff about Ira Magaziner and Sandy Berger; these encomiums to the author's sources are littered throughout the book like ads in a dinner program.

The book also suffers from a disproportionate focus on the first two years of the Clinton administration: By the time Klein reaches the end of 1994 the book is more than half finished. He devotes barely a paragraph to impeachment amid an almost cursory glance at the second Clinton term. Perhaps Klein started to write a book three or four times its length but, in anticipation of the reader, lost interest midway.