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COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Read Chapter 5 of "Living History"
There are two abiding mysteries about Bill Clinton: Why do some people hate him so passionately? And why do some people adore him so loyally? The recent memoirs by his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and by his intense outrider Sidney Blumenthal focus on the former issue while providing textbook studies of the latter.
Both authors were famous for propounding the theory that the Clinton scandals were the result of what Hillary Clinton called "a vast right-wing conspiracy," dedicated to destroying the progressive agenda. In "Living History" (Simon & Schuster; $28), she repeats the charge, conceding only that the coordinated crusade was so brazen that it might not have qualified as a conspiracy. In "The Clinton Wars" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $30), Blumenthal, whose ornate conspiracy theories earned him the nickname Grassy Knoll, launches into a game of Trivial Pursuit that is filled with half-forgotten bit players (remember David Bossie and George Conway III?) linked to a web of rabid Clinton-haters stretching back to Arkansas's hardscrabble racists. Together, the authors amply prove the old maxim that even paranoids have enemies.
Although the books are scored in different keys--Clinton's generally attempts to be gauzy and warm, Blumenthal's is edgy and cold--their underlying refrain is the same. Both repeatedly delve into what Hillary Clinton calls "the mechanics of what was essentially a sting operation to entrap the President" and what Blumenthal declares was the work of "fiercely partisan Republicans who had embarked on a sexual fishing expedition." Like any fishing expedition, which indeed it was, it could be sustained only if there were a lot of fishy things below the surface, which indeed there were. But where most memoirists adopt an air of mellowed self-examination, these authors are not in the mood to make concessions. Instead, they go on the attack. Their aggressiveness marks an evolution, befitting our times, in the tone and style of memoirs by people who have worked in the White House.
The venerable tradition of the White House memoir goes back to President James Madison's extraordinary young slave Paul Jennings. Jennings's memoir, which he wrote after Daniel Webster bought his freedom, contained most of what we have come to expect from such books, including thumbnail sketches of important players: "Mr. Robert Smith was then Secretary of State, but as he and Mr. Madison could not agree, he was removed, and Colonel Monroe appointed to his place. Dr. Eustis was Secretary of War--rather a rough, blustering man; Mr. Gallatin, a tip-top man, was Secretary of the Treasury; and Mr. Hamilton of South Carolina, a pleasant gentleman, who thought Mr. Madison could do nothing wrong, and who always concurred in every thing he said, was Secretary of the Navy."
Jennings also provided accounts of the policy battles over the War of 1812 ("Colonel Monroe was always fierce for it") and tried to debunk a few myths. "It has often been stated in print that when Mrs. Madison escaped from the White House, she cut out from the frame the large portrait of Washington . . . and carried it off," Jennings wrote. "This is totally false. She had no time for doing it. It would have required a ladder to get it down." (The Gilbert Stuart painting was actually saved by a doorkeeper and a gardener, he said.) Most important,...
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