Michael Tomasky

As part of the American Presidents Series, this book has been a long time coming. The author who originally was designated to write the Bill Clinton biography (Harold Evans, who is in his mid-80s) never came through. Michael Tomasky is a worthy replacement. He has written a book on the history of progressive politics in the US, and another on Hillary Clinton's 1999 senatorial race. He also is a contributor to The Daily Beast and The New York Review of Books and past editor of The American Prospect and Guardian America.

Tomasky's account of the Clinton presidency is fair and impartial, and as balanced a perspective as one might hope for. He documents the presidential successes as well as the failures, and does not whitewash the personal failings that marred Clinton's otherwise successful life and presidential tenure. As for successes, he can point to the incredible tripling of the Dow Jones average, the 22 million jobs created, the balancing of the Federal budget with the creation of a surplus, and the incredible 11% growth in median family income.

Having been written in 2016, Tomasky's account is sufficiently removed in time to acknowledge the "withering reexamination" of Clinton's terms in office by a younger generation of voters, for whom his "compromises on crime, welfare, and other matters were anathema" (p. 2). What's more, given the passage of a quarter of a century, he (and the reader) can look back dispassionately at the pseudo-scandals ginned up by his opponents. These included the White House travel office firings, his Whitewater investments (which, as his critics like to obscure, lost money), the time his staff scheduled a haircut while on Air Force One (causing a slight delay of other airplanes), and the suicide of Hillary's friend Vince Foster (which the irresponsible Wall Street Journal claimed -- against all evidence -- was a murder in which the Clintons were somehow involved). And of course there was the Lewinsky matter. As is well known, Bill had a few consensual intimate encounters with a female assistant who had targeted him for seduction. These voluntary encounters, and Clinton's reluctance to acknowledge them were what his rabid opponents tried to use to end his presidency.

Tomasky's account is no hagiography. For example, regarding the controversial trade agreement NAFTA, Clinton supporters often assert that the agreement was entirely the responsibility of GW Bush, Clinton's predecessor. To the contrary, Tomasky's account recognizes that the Clinton administration lobbied hard for it against labor unions and progressives in his own party. Likewise, he acknowledges the foreign policy failures, notably the myopia that allowed the mass slaughter in Rwanda to proceed unchecked. But against such failings are the reinstatement of Duvalier in Haiti following the military coup, and the UN intervention in Bosnia.

Tomasky's book breaks no new ground -- there are no revelations here, at least to those familiar with Clinton's presidency. That's to be expected of this sort of work. As a brief (150 page) summary of Bill Clinton's presidency and Hillary's public and private role, Tomasky's account is excellent. A dispassionate evaluation will find little with which to quarrel.

Note: The delay in publication of this work (due to age/ health of the originally chosen author) has led commentators at Amazon.com to claim that the book was somehow suppressed by Hillary Clinton. No evidence is offered for this bizarre, conspiratorial assertion. However, it shows that "Clinton derangement syndrome" -- fueled by "hate radio" and its print counterparts, lives on. Future historians will likely be utterly perplexed at the off-the-charts vitriol this engaging, likeable politician engendered from the rabid right wing, and will probably view with disgust the unprincipled attempts to remove him from office on a pretext.… (mehr)

Not the author's fault but I could not get into this book. Recently I have read a number of other books and articles that attempt to diagnose what's wrong with this country and how we can fix it. These books also tried to explain how Donald Trump became president. Tomasky's book reviewed the political, economic and cultural history of the United States for the past 300 years. Lepore's book analyzed the political, economic and cultural history since the 15th century.

I skimmed through mainly the latter parts of the book. The only point of Tomasky's 14 Point Plan to reduce polarization that I liked was to eliminate the electoral college.

Seemed a good book on the 30-40% I read...

… (mehr)

I really hate to be so negative about another writer’s efforts, but, bless his heart, this book was a major disappointment, being not so much a biography as a screed against anyone who might have uttered a discouraging word against the Clintons, from Rush Limbaugh to the New York Times–yes, the New York Times. I fully expected to read that Monica Lewinksy just accidentally fell face first into Clinton’s lap with her mouth open and a vast right wing conspiracy "blew" it all out of proportion.

The funny thing is that in the attempt to show Bill Clinton was caught up in a “Kafkaeque,” persecution, Tomasky turns him into a weak, hapless victim of circumstances and his political enemies. Consequently, I didn’t really learn much about the man who was such a gifted politician and a dominant personality in American politics for the last quarter century.

The best thing about this book is that it is mercifully short.… (mehr)