They Stuck To Their Guns

[Guest MikeSC]

Remember that rather vicious review of Clinton's book in the NY Times?

 

Well, they are planning on making amends.

The Times is apparently repenting for the fact that its lead book critic savaged Bill Clinton's autobiography. To make amends, the Times is rushing to inform journalist types that it is running a favorable review of the Clinton book in its Sunday book review section--two weeks from now.

 

     Times PR person Kathy Park sent a missive to the liberal-leaning journalist website Romenesko late Wednesday, informing it of the paper's early posting of the favorable review. As if trying to assuage angry liberals for having initially dared to criticize Clinton, Parks quickly assures readers that this review, anyway, is positive: "Larry McMurtry describes 'My Life' as '…the richest American presidential autobiography--no other book tells us as vividly or fully what it is like to be president of the United States for eight years.'"

 

     Editor and Publisher magazine calls the posting of the review, 11 days ahead of schedule, an "unprecedented move." It's indeed strange for the Times to be stepping on its own reviewer, especially in such a cringing manner.

 

     Novelist Larry McMurtry is most famous for "Lonesome Dove," a Western which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The Times apparently chose him based on a proudly lurid and profanity-laced review he penned last October of an anti-Clinton biography, one which made clear McMurtry's admiration for the seamier sides of the former president.

 

     Here's one of the few quotable bits from that risqué New York Review of Books piece, lamenting Clinton's lack of guts in confessing to the Lewinsky affair compared to the fortitude he believes JFK and LBJ would have shown: "Certainly both would have cheerfully plowed through amber waves of interns without giving the matter a thought."

 

     McMurtry also blamed the press in that review for Clinton's woes, and implausibly claims they were set to drive him out of office: " The American press really didn't like it that Bill Clinton just plain got away with Gennifer Flowers. They've sulked and spat at him from that day to this. Like Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies the press has ever since been determined to steal Bill Clinton's mojo, but they were making no headway at all until Monica Lewinsky came along."

 

     His take on Clinton's new autobiography is basically an extension of that seamy praise. From the beginning the review is pitched at a high note: "William Jefferson Clinton's 'My Life' is, by a generous measure, the richest American presidential autobiography--no other book tells us as vividly or fully what it is like to be president of the United States for eight years. Clinton had the good sense to couple great smarts with a solid education; he arrived in Washington in 1964 and has been the nation's--or perhaps the world's--No. 1 politics junkie ever since. And he can write--as Reagan, Ford, Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson, to go no farther back, could not."

 

     Later he notes: "It was Bill Clinton who had legs--still does--and it's no wonder the press fell upon him with glad cries, which soon turned into yelps of outrage. A yelp or two could be heard just recently, when a select few finally got a look at his book."

 

     (Could that be a reference to Kakutani's negative review, already notorious in liberal circles?)

 

     He sees Clinton's big payday for his big book as payback: "That somehow a long, dense book by the world's premier policy wonk should be worth that much money is amusing, and brings us back to Clinton's long coyote-and-roadrunner race with the press. The very press that wanted to discredit him and perhaps even run him out of town instead made him a celebrity, a far more expensive thing than a mere president….During the silly time when Clinton was pilloried for wanting to debate the meaning of 'is,' I often wondered why no one pointed out that he was educated by Jesuits, for whom the meaning of 'is' is a matter not lightly resolved."

 

     Whatever, Larry--though that is the most imaginative excuse for Clinton Times Watch has seen in quite a while.

 

     McMurtry obviously admires Clinton's horn-dog exploits, and basks in Clinton's (and his own) liberal elitism, as opposed to those Ken Starr-loving troglodytes down in Texas. McMurty ends with an out-of-place attack on Starr, who's apparently one mean hombre: "Before leaving them I might just offer a bit of context. To judge from this book, Clinton has never been able to understand why Kenneth Starr, the special counsel appointed to investigate Whitewater, pursued him so ferociously. The answer is to be found in the soil Kenneth Starr sprang from. His hometown, Thalia, Tex., lies along what local wits sometimes refer to as the 'Floydada Corridor,' a bleak stretch of road between Wichita Falls and Lubbock that happens to run through the tiny town of Floydada, Tex. It's a merciless land, mostly, with inhabitants to match. Towns like Crowell, Paducah and Matador lie on this road, and nothing lighter than an elephant gun is likely to have much effect on the residents. Proust readers and fornicating presidents will find no welcome there. Bill Clinton should check it out. If he makes it to Floydada his understanding of Judge Starr (as he's sometimes called in Texas) will have been substantially increased."

 

     Speaking of Proust, one gets the feeling McMurtry would have Clinton's next autobiography be "Remembrance of Flings Past."

http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2004/0624.asp

NY Times: We'll Blow Him More Than Monica Ever Dreamed Of Doing.

 

The full NEW review is located on their site:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/23/books/re...ry-clinton.html

 

The OLD review is --- well, it's not something to be found on the NYT site.

-=Mike

[Rob E Dangerously 0]

Here ya go Mike:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/books/20CLIN.html

[Guest MikeSC]

Here ya go Mike:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/books/20CLIN.html

Wonderful.

-=Mike

[NoCalMike 0]

why is this in current events?

[tommytomlin 0]

Because partisan bitching > hard news stories.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I think this is CE worthy.

 

Too bad the Times isn't as balanced in some of its other coverage...

[Guest MikeSC]

why is this in current events?

Because Clinton's book is big news right now and belongs more in the political folder than in the literature folder --- seeing as how the book is rather poorly written and dull as shit.

 

Well, from what I've gathered in reading it while sitting at B & N. You don't think I'd BUY that thing, do you?

-=Mike

[Vanhalen 0]

You don't think I'd BUY that thing, do you?

-=Mike

Oh, you've disappointed me now

[Guest Anglesault]

Well, from what I've gathered in reading it while sitting at B & N. You don't think I'd BUY that thing, do you?

-=Mike

I almost bought his wife's book.

 

And then someone told me that the Dragon Lady doesn't die at the end.

[Vyce 0]

This story is kind of ridiculous. Not because it's fluff, but because as book reviews - just like movie reviews, or music reviews, etc. - are inherently subjective, a newspaper shouldn't be under ANY obligation to publish a positive review to counteract a negative one, and vice versa.

 

But then again, hey, it's the NYT.