More Democrats 1
Sustaining a Theme 1
Now that I have reviewed several books on JFK and his brother Bobby, I suppose it would be no surprise if I were to review several books about and by President William Jefferson Clinton. I also got to listen to this great American leader in College Green on December 1, 1995 where 80, 000 people listened attentively and with occasional cheers as he addressed the citizens of Dublin from a platform outside the Bank of Ireland, that is the old parliament building directly opposite Trinity College. The link for this writer here is that in June 1963 William Jefferson Clinton as a 17 year old student (when he had been elected as the Arkansas representative to the American Legion's Boys State) met his hero President John F. Kennedy who was also, as I have stated in the post immediately before this one, an Irish hero, on a par in the then Ireland of the early 1960s with the Pope in Rome. There is even a famous photograph of the young future president shaking hands with JFK, his idol. Hence, in the footsteps of the Kennedys, Clinton was to become a hero in the Irish psyche. So, in that sense, this is a biased review as I'm reviewing books from my own library, some of which have lain for several years on my shelves, but not unread, I hasten to add, because as a Kennedy supporter, Clinton has always appealed to me as an intellectual and charismatic leader on a par with my heroes JFK and RFK. In other words, I would often have consulted these volumes from time to time to check out one historical fact or another. My reading material very seldom takes me into the political arena, preferring as I do works from the creative, philosophical, theological, spiritual, psychological and personal development fields. Therefore, only subjects of charismatic appeal awaken my interest in politics. The books I intend reviewing briefly here are (i) David Maraniss's First In His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1995, (ii) Sidney Blumenthal's The Clinton Wars, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 2003, (iii) Bill Clinton's My Life, Hutchinson, London, 2004 and (iv) one of the former president's latest books, Giving: How Each Of Us Can Change The World, Hutchinson, London, 2007.
Let me start with the fourth book in the above list as it is the most recent of the clutch of four books that I possess on William Jefferson Clinton, and also its title is an age-old and ageless one really. One could really say that there's nothing new in that title or indeed in the contents of the book itself, but that would be far too cynical a comment. After all, it is a basic Christian principle to give to others, especially to those who are in need of our help. I have heard this message over and over since I was a small boy, but like all messages of importance they have to be repeated again and again. Now that I am significantly older I believe that I have probably learned many of these messages and have integrated them into my way of being and acting in this world, or at least I believe I have so done. The pity is that every new-born human being has to learn these lessons from scratch. Hence, repetition is at the heart of all cultures and at the heart of all lessons. In that sense, we have to keep learning over and over again our moral lessons. Moreover, human beings tend not to be overawed by the collective wisdom of cultures until they are somewhat older.
The tragedy, of course is, that we humans are incredibly stupid morally as we continue to make the same mistakes over and over again as we can see from all the wars and international disputes we partake in. Clinton says that he wrote this book as he believed that everyone can give something to the less fortunate: money, time, things and skills, inspiration and even forgiveness and reconciliation from time to time. If politics is about anything, I believe it is about achieving changes both in the statutes of any country and in its internal and international relations that will enhance the well being of its citizens. This approach to politics is very much in line with one of JFK's sentiments: "Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future." In other words politics is about doing the truth in justice for all citizens. The American columnist Cal Thomas says somewhat cynically, and unfortunately there is some truth in his statement, that one of the reasons people hate politics is that "truth is rarely a politician's objective. Election and power are." Another quotation comes to my mind here and it's one from Plato which runs: "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Anyway, somewhere between these three observations the reality of politics lies.
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| My copies of these two books |
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| My copy of Giving |
The tragedy, of course is, that we humans are incredibly stupid morally as we continue to make the same mistakes over and over again as we can see from all the wars and international disputes we partake in. Clinton says that he wrote this book as he believed that everyone can give something to the less fortunate: money, time, things and skills, inspiration and even forgiveness and reconciliation from time to time. If politics is about anything, I believe it is about achieving changes both in the statutes of any country and in its internal and international relations that will enhance the well being of its citizens. This approach to politics is very much in line with one of JFK's sentiments: "Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future." In other words politics is about doing the truth in justice for all citizens. The American columnist Cal Thomas says somewhat cynically, and unfortunately there is some truth in his statement, that one of the reasons people hate politics is that "truth is rarely a politician's objective. Election and power are." Another quotation comes to my mind here and it's one from Plato which runs: "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Anyway, somewhere between these three observations the reality of politics lies.
In any case, my heroes at least had the courage to run for office, achieve that office and bring about many wonderful things for their country and for others. That, like all heroes, they also showed themselves to have had feet of clay at times, in their indulging in and covering up their extra-marital affairs, I will forgive as I do not know quite how any human being can be faultless. And yet, we are right to demand the highest of standards from our leaders and our heroes as we should. (It is very interesting to ponder the fact that both JFK and Martin Luther King as well as Bill Clinton had extra-marital affairs. Being somewhat politically naive, perhaps, I believe that these peccadilloes had no adverse effects on their running of either their country or their campaign. Of course, other more politically astute individuals may argue otherwise.)
I would also argue, with Clinton, that giving oneself in the service of one's country, or in the service of some other noble cause is a major aspect of giving. It has been my experience, as it has been of all people who give of themselves, that it is in giving that they truly receive.(see the Prayer of St Francis.) And, as Clinton points out, no matter how little of the earth's goods we may have, we can all still give something. He also points out that, like in any other human endeavour, it is never too late to start.
He acknowledges the influence of his local Baptist Church on his understanding and appreciation of giving. Like we all do in school today, Clinton started out with the "usual volunteer work associated with school activities and helping the needy around Thanksgiving and Christmas" (op. cit., p. xii) During his last two years of college, both at Oxford and Yale he became "obsessed" with politics and gave "very little time or money to anything else." (ibid., p. xii). Throughout the book, he underlines the importance of example and of engaging in volunteerism, whether in politics or in non-government-organisations (NGOs), that is at the very heart of giving. He also praises his wife Hillary's commitment to many causes throughout both her college and professional life, such as child protection and health issues and women's issues more generally. He also highlights the rewards in "human impact" on oneself and others. Clinton puts his message succinctly: "There's so much to be done, down the street and around the world," and he finishes his Introduction with the well-selected words of Martin Luther King: "Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve." (ibid., pp. xiv-xv)
In Chapter 1, Clinton gives many examples of very rich people who all have given money to huge international causes like the fight against the HIV/AIDS virus. However, I love this statement from Chris Hohn who founded the Children's Investment Fund in London in 2004. When Clinton asked Chris why he was giving money on such a vast scale to charity, here is how he answered: "Beyond a certain point, which we'd reached [he and his wife], money has no further value. It can't bring happiness, but it can save and transform many lives."(Quoted., ibid., p. 21). Clinton, like the Hohns, believes that he has "a moral obligation to balance the scales." (ibid., p. 21-22) Those of you readers with a Christian education, will know that this is a principle dear to Jesus Christ who says somewhere in the Gospels: "From him, to whom much has been given, much will be expected." There are many inspiring stories of givers of money in this chapter and the reader will delight at their recounting.
In Chapter 2 on giving time, Clinton recounts the story of "one of the world's greatest full-time givers," Dr Paul Farmer (pp. 33 ff). This man gives high quality medical care to the poor in Haiti and Rwanda. His story is truly worth reading. Chelsea Clinton calls Farmer "our generation's Albert Schweitzer." (ibid., p. 37). There are others, of course, whose lives of sacrifice, Clinton recounts, but I will leave those to the reader to find out.
We all have our dreams, as I have said so many times in these pages, and it is to the dreams of those young 17 year old boys, some 100 of them, 50 per bus as they headed down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House in June 1963 that I now turn. This, dear readers, is the opening scene of David Marannis's unofficial biography of William Jefferson Clinton, the book to which I now turn my attention. Marannis tells us immediately that his title "First In His Class" does not literally mean that, as Clinton had never so been, even if he did manage to be in the top ten players for that title. Rather, his title is meant to grab the reader's attention as all those 100 boys were representatives of the brightest and best of young manhood in the USA of the Post World War II era. Anyone of them could have become a future president, and this book seeks to outline why Clinton was so destined to become. This is Maraniss's first book, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist (The Washington Post) uses his well-honed writing skills to produce a good book which outlines the events of Clinton's life from childhood until the day he declared for the Presidency of the USA in October 1991. All in all, Marannis interviewed some 400 people, all of whom spoke on the record. The result is a balanced account of Clinton's enormous intellectual, personal and political strengths, and indeed of his weaknesses. The author gives us a rich and interesting narrative, crammed with much detail and some good interpretative analysis. However, thankfully, this is not a book to which anyone would go to search out any lurid details of Clinton's sex life, a topic with little or no real bearing on a politician's role and effectiveness as a law-maker for the community. Like most major politicians Clinton is a complex individual, and certainly no one survives in politics without being either strong or complex, and so this book depicts Clinton fairly as "considerate and calculating, easygoing and ambitious, mediator and predator.''
The pictures in this fairly objective biography, which did not receive Clinton's blessing (a feature I reckon that adds to its objectivity), tell the story of the book in wonderfully clear images: from a picture of the president at a mere four years of age with his usual winsome smile in Hope, Arkansas in 1950, to his picture in the middle of the two Arkansas Senators John McClellan and J. William Fullbright, the latter who was his first political role model, from the famous picture of himself shaking the hand of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 to another one showing him in his band uniform (he played tenor sax and still does - and rather well at that, I believe), from pictures of various electioneering drives to one with other Rhodes scholars, from the very poignant one with his room-mate and fellow Rhodes scholar Frank Aller in Oxford 1969 (this latter brilliant gentleman would commit suicide in 1971 at the young age of 24) to the many campaign pictures. Marannis argues, and rightly, that Clinton was "never more in his element than on the campaign trail. Every hand he shook, every corner store he stopped in, every pie supper he attended, helped him transform his image from the long-haired Rhodes scholar and law professor into a young man of the people." (Caption to picture 16) All in all, an interesting read, but one that will send the current reviewer to do a little research on the whole sad affair of the Vietnam War, to read about those who held the official line on the one hand and those who, like the tragic Frank Aller, protested against its legitimacy on the other. It only goes to show the sheer capriciousness and arbitrariness of life. (See this link on such unpredictability Most Likely To Succeed).
(I will discuss the other two books in my next post. Posts that are too long are draining both on the writer and the reader. In short, they are tiresome)
We all have our dreams, as I have said so many times in these pages, and it is to the dreams of those young 17 year old boys, some 100 of them, 50 per bus as they headed down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House in June 1963 that I now turn. This, dear readers, is the opening scene of David Marannis's unofficial biography of William Jefferson Clinton, the book to which I now turn my attention. Marannis tells us immediately that his title "First In His Class" does not literally mean that, as Clinton had never so been, even if he did manage to be in the top ten players for that title. Rather, his title is meant to grab the reader's attention as all those 100 boys were representatives of the brightest and best of young manhood in the USA of the Post World War II era. Anyone of them could have become a future president, and this book seeks to outline why Clinton was so destined to become. This is Maraniss's first book, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist (The Washington Post) uses his well-honed writing skills to produce a good book which outlines the events of Clinton's life from childhood until the day he declared for the Presidency of the USA in October 1991. All in all, Marannis interviewed some 400 people, all of whom spoke on the record. The result is a balanced account of Clinton's enormous intellectual, personal and political strengths, and indeed of his weaknesses. The author gives us a rich and interesting narrative, crammed with much detail and some good interpretative analysis. However, thankfully, this is not a book to which anyone would go to search out any lurid details of Clinton's sex life, a topic with little or no real bearing on a politician's role and effectiveness as a law-maker for the community. Like most major politicians Clinton is a complex individual, and certainly no one survives in politics without being either strong or complex, and so this book depicts Clinton fairly as "considerate and calculating, easygoing and ambitious, mediator and predator.''
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| That inspirational handshake!! |
The pictures in this fairly objective biography, which did not receive Clinton's blessing (a feature I reckon that adds to its objectivity), tell the story of the book in wonderfully clear images: from a picture of the president at a mere four years of age with his usual winsome smile in Hope, Arkansas in 1950, to his picture in the middle of the two Arkansas Senators John McClellan and J. William Fullbright, the latter who was his first political role model, from the famous picture of himself shaking the hand of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 to another one showing him in his band uniform (he played tenor sax and still does - and rather well at that, I believe), from pictures of various electioneering drives to one with other Rhodes scholars, from the very poignant one with his room-mate and fellow Rhodes scholar Frank Aller in Oxford 1969 (this latter brilliant gentleman would commit suicide in 1971 at the young age of 24) to the many campaign pictures. Marannis argues, and rightly, that Clinton was "never more in his element than on the campaign trail. Every hand he shook, every corner store he stopped in, every pie supper he attended, helped him transform his image from the long-haired Rhodes scholar and law professor into a young man of the people." (Caption to picture 16) All in all, an interesting read, but one that will send the current reviewer to do a little research on the whole sad affair of the Vietnam War, to read about those who held the official line on the one hand and those who, like the tragic Frank Aller, protested against its legitimacy on the other. It only goes to show the sheer capriciousness and arbitrariness of life. (See this link on such unpredictability Most Likely To Succeed).
(I will discuss the other two books in my next post. Posts that are too long are draining both on the writer and the reader. In short, they are tiresome)
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