David Remnick says Clinton insists history be told fairly
Clinton's concern with his reputation came up again last week, when his aides reportedly helped persuade ABC to re-edit a miniseries about the run-up to 9/11. How concerned is he with shaping how he's remembered?
He told me that he liked a biography by John Harris, "The Survivor," that is not entirely complimentary, but he thought it was quite good and accurate and fair. So he's not interested in only his own hagiographies, although no one resists his hagiographers. But he is very interested in making sure people get things right where his Administration is concerned, as he sees it. And, sometimes, he's right. When it comes to this docudrama, the behavior ascribed to Sandy Berger and Madeleine Albright is wrong, scandalously wrong. Even John Podhoretz in the New York Post this morning wrote that, and he's hardly a fan of Bill and Hillary Clinton's.
The Clintons believe in fighting back, and fighting back quickly and effectively and forcefully. If one thing unites Bill and Hillary Clinton it's their frustration, and even disgust, with Democratic candidates who fail to fight back. Clinton says he just can't understand the phenomenon of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth tarring a guy like John Kerry, who was a real war hero in Vietnam, and getting away with it, with all the tacit encouragement of the Republican national campaign. It's beyond his imagining.
Because Clinton would never have let that happen to him?
No. That was the whole purpose of the so-called "war room" in 1992. It was filled with political tough guys who act that way in the service of winning so that they can then do good. That's the way they see themselves. If you are too polite and hesitant, you never get the chance to do good because you don't win.
Read entire article at David Remnick in the course of an interview posted at the New Yorker following his 23 page profile of Clinton
He told me that he liked a biography by John Harris, "The Survivor," that is not entirely complimentary, but he thought it was quite good and accurate and fair. So he's not interested in only his own hagiographies, although no one resists his hagiographers. But he is very interested in making sure people get things right where his Administration is concerned, as he sees it. And, sometimes, he's right. When it comes to this docudrama, the behavior ascribed to Sandy Berger and Madeleine Albright is wrong, scandalously wrong. Even John Podhoretz in the New York Post this morning wrote that, and he's hardly a fan of Bill and Hillary Clinton's.
The Clintons believe in fighting back, and fighting back quickly and effectively and forcefully. If one thing unites Bill and Hillary Clinton it's their frustration, and even disgust, with Democratic candidates who fail to fight back. Clinton says he just can't understand the phenomenon of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth tarring a guy like John Kerry, who was a real war hero in Vietnam, and getting away with it, with all the tacit encouragement of the Republican national campaign. It's beyond his imagining.
Because Clinton would never have let that happen to him?
No. That was the whole purpose of the so-called "war room" in 1992. It was filled with political tough guys who act that way in the service of winning so that they can then do good. That's the way they see themselves. If you are too polite and hesitant, you never get the chance to do good because you don't win.