A man in charge

How Bill Clinton's remarkable change in course allowd him to remake his presidency

July 29, 2007|Matthew Dallek

Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency
By Nigel Hamilton
Public Affairs, 767 pp., $32

In 2003, biographer Nigel Hamilton published "Bill Clinton: An American Journey," the first volume of his biography of Bill Clinton, in which he examined what he called the "formation of Bill Clinton's character." Now comes a second installment on Clinton's life, this one covering the president's first term, from 1993 to 1997.

Hamilton, who has written books on British general Bernard Montgomery and John F. Kennedy's youth, attempts in this volume to minimize the focus on character and train the spotlight on Clinton's performance in office. He says he wants to explain how Clinton overcame a series of early missteps and regained his standing with the public in time to win re-election in 1996. He hopes to "penetrate the fog of political war" and explain Clinton's "disastrous" first months in office while also illuminating his "ultimately successful attempt to become a truly modern president."

Hamilton's book strikes several odd, discordant notes. It occasionally uses exclamation points when none are needed, the prose is overwrought, and Hamilton tends to treat serious topics in a whimsical fashion. For example, he describes one crisis moment for the Clintons as a "Black Saturday" that then "became Bleak Sunday . . . in Bleak House." Despite his stated desire to focus on Clinton's public life, Hamilton lingers over instances and allegations of the president's extramarital affairs. He quotes extensively from Arkansas attorney Cliff Jackson, who obsessively flayed Clinton as a scoundrel in the early '90s. He describes Monica Lewinsky as "a luscious fruit in the Garden of Eden, eager to be plucked." On the same page, he refers to her as an "ebullient, plump, and well-endowed" White House intern. The book totals 84 chapters, some of which are so short (four to five pages) that they carom from one issue to the next and fail to tackle complicated political and policy issues in much depth.

But Hamilton does raise a central question about Clinton's first term that future biographers and pundits will need to confront head-on: How do we account for Clinton's initial missteps and explain his remarkably agile comeback and 1996 re-election victory?

Clinton, Hamilton reminds us, was a lightning rod in his first months in office. He urged the military to permit gays to serve openly; appointed his wife, Hillary, head of a secretive, mismanaged White House health care task force; and engaged in chaotic policy deliberations. His White House summarily fired travel-office employees while refusing to release documents related to Whitewater, courting negative press. Clinton had trouble catching a break early on.