Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Here's how bad the Bush Administration is:

It's making people nostalgic -- nostalgic! -- for the Clinton Administration, prompting adoring fans to stand in line for Clinton's recently-published autobiography despite horrible reviews. ("badly conceived, flatly written, poorly edited...." -- CNN). And good 'ol Bill is happy to cash in, of course....

The man was a lecher and a liar and a con artist. But at least he didn't go around starting unnecessary wars while his henchmen dismantled the Constitution.

1 comment:

Felix said...

Carlos @ 5:17PM | 2004-06-22| permalink

"Sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull."--Michiko Kakutani, NYT Book Review, on My Life.

email | website

Carlos @ 10:12PM | 2004-06-23| permalink

But Larry McMurtry liked it. Of course I liked this quote:

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.


email | website

Felix @ 11:58AM | 2004-06-24| permalink

Interesting confluence there, don't you think? McMurtry, author of books about a fictional Thalia; and Ken Starr, a native of the actual Thalia?

I suspect McMurtry's sour words about Proust-readers not being welcome has a certain basis in his own life. (Doesn't Proust play an indirect role in his last Thalia book, Duane's Depressed?)

Pablo and I drove through the real Thalia on one long-ago roadtrip. It's a rather depressing place, whose most notable feature, so far as I could tell, is an abandoned and collapsing stone school building.

email | website