Yesterday I
finished Bill Clinton's autobiography "My Life". He covered the time
from his birth to when he left the White House in January 2000 with a
few paragraphs afterward. Naturally the bulk of the book covers his
political life, from Attorney General of Arkansas (for a year or two)
to Governor of Arkansas (for about 12 years, 10 of them consecutive),
to his two terms as President of the United States.
It's remarkably well written. Clinton does tend to ramble a bit and he
has a great recollection and puts in perhaps too much detail into the
various anecdotes. In particular he seems to name just about anybody
who affected his life and usually writes a paragraph or two about each
person giving a little capsule biography.
It's hard for people to be self-critical. I think most of it is that if
you thought something was truly bad you wouldn't have done it in the
first place. And really the only big "mistake" that people remember
about Clinton is the whole Lewinsky thing which, although it was really
important, was only a small part of what was happening during that time.
From his writing, Clinton doesn't hate anybody. Even some nasty
political enemies like former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich he
generally compliments on the good things Gingrich did (good from
Clinton's point of view). At best he doesn't understand the hate other
people seem to have had for him or he deplores the hate tactics other
people use. But in the end Clinton seems to be at peace with himself.
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I really liked
reading about the political process. Running a campaign to get elected
is a game, a year-long game with strategies and tactics. Doing it while
staying true to your beliefs is the hard part. And I do like Clinton's
political beliefs. I'm generally socially liberal and fiscally
conservative which Clinton tried to be.
I'm not too sure about some of the accusations he made about the
Reagan/Bush years in terms of fiscal responsibility. But Clinton came
into office with a huge budget deficit and was able to reduce it to
zero (though deficit and debt are two different things, government has
a hard time reducing debt if even if they have lots and lots of extra
money). Part of it is that economy improved on its own, part of it is
that Clinton got some things done.
And Clinton/Gore really reduced the size of the federal government.
Mostly it was Gore's job which he did well. Mountains of paperwork and
rules were eliminated, a lot of fat was cut out of the federal
workforce, a lot of programs were consolidated. I don't particularly
like the way Democrats do things but after reading the book I'm
impressed with Clinton's administration.
Now, lots of people are going to go "duh he wrote it himself, of course
he looks good!" Personally I don't mind. You have plenty of books that
trash Clinton and the media seemed to do a fine job trashing him during
his presidency. I don't need to read all the negative things. I'd
rather think Clinton was a good guy and if that errs to much on the
positive bias it's much better than erring the other way.
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