Maureen Dowd: The Devil Wears Crocs (Reviewing 'Speech-less' and "The Clinton Tapes')
[Maureen Dowd, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary, became a columnist on The New York Times Op-Ed page in 1995 after having served as a correspondent in the paper's Washington bureau since 1986.]
At the end of many Shakespearean dramas, self-destructive leaders are usually strewn dead on stage.
With modern presidencies, we have to watch the poignant tableau of such leaders realizing that they have squandered their chance for greatness even as they suffer the indignity of rejection by those who once sought their blessing.
These painful periods for W. and Bill Clinton, falling low after starting with such grand hopes, are recounted in two new books.
The pen-and-tell by Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer, “Speech-less,” is being denounced by some former Bushies and Republican commentators as a “Devil Wears Prada” betrayal. (Except, in this case, the Devil wears Crocs. Preparing to make a prime-time address explaining why the 2008 economic bailout wasn’t socialism — “We got to make this understandable for the average cat,” the president tells his speechwriters — W. pads around the White House in Crocs, an image that’s hard to get out of your head.)
“The guy is a worm,” Bill Bennett told Wolf Blitzer about Latimer, adding: “He needs to read his Dante. He probably hasn’t read ‘The Inferno.’ The lowest circles of hell are for people who are disloyal in the way this guy is disloyal, and at the very lowest point Satan chews on their bodies.”
Despite all the devilish critiques, the book is not that hard on W., except to state the obvious: that he was a Decider who made bold but bad decisions. And it’s positively dewy-eyed about two of the worst decisions, Dick Cheney and Rummy. (Latimer wrote speeches for Rummy at the Pentagon and is now helping the former defense chief with his memoir.)...
... In his new book, “The Clinton Tapes,” Taylor Branch describes an explosive meeting between Clinton and Gore after the election characterized by Clinton as “surreal.” Gore said people around him blamed Clinton’s scandalous shadow for the defeat. And Clinton, who told Branch that W. was “an empty suit, meaner than his dad,” shot back that if Gore had used him more in the last 10 days in places where he was still popular, he could have swung the election. He chastised Gore for not running on bigger themes and for dropping the issue he was most passionate about: the environment.
Gore asked Clinton for an explanation of Monica Lewinsky; he wanted an apology. Clinton blew up. Focusing on his mistakes, he told his V.P., demeaned voters and ignored the public’s business.
Branch summed up Clinton’s bottom line to Gore: “By God, Hillary had a helluva lot more reason to resent Clinton than Gore did, and yet she ran unabashedly on the Clinton-Gore record” for the Senate and won handily. Gore, Clinton said, was in “Neverland.”...
Read entire article at NYT
At the end of many Shakespearean dramas, self-destructive leaders are usually strewn dead on stage.
With modern presidencies, we have to watch the poignant tableau of such leaders realizing that they have squandered their chance for greatness even as they suffer the indignity of rejection by those who once sought their blessing.
These painful periods for W. and Bill Clinton, falling low after starting with such grand hopes, are recounted in two new books.
The pen-and-tell by Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer, “Speech-less,” is being denounced by some former Bushies and Republican commentators as a “Devil Wears Prada” betrayal. (Except, in this case, the Devil wears Crocs. Preparing to make a prime-time address explaining why the 2008 economic bailout wasn’t socialism — “We got to make this understandable for the average cat,” the president tells his speechwriters — W. pads around the White House in Crocs, an image that’s hard to get out of your head.)
“The guy is a worm,” Bill Bennett told Wolf Blitzer about Latimer, adding: “He needs to read his Dante. He probably hasn’t read ‘The Inferno.’ The lowest circles of hell are for people who are disloyal in the way this guy is disloyal, and at the very lowest point Satan chews on their bodies.”
Despite all the devilish critiques, the book is not that hard on W., except to state the obvious: that he was a Decider who made bold but bad decisions. And it’s positively dewy-eyed about two of the worst decisions, Dick Cheney and Rummy. (Latimer wrote speeches for Rummy at the Pentagon and is now helping the former defense chief with his memoir.)...
... In his new book, “The Clinton Tapes,” Taylor Branch describes an explosive meeting between Clinton and Gore after the election characterized by Clinton as “surreal.” Gore said people around him blamed Clinton’s scandalous shadow for the defeat. And Clinton, who told Branch that W. was “an empty suit, meaner than his dad,” shot back that if Gore had used him more in the last 10 days in places where he was still popular, he could have swung the election. He chastised Gore for not running on bigger themes and for dropping the issue he was most passionate about: the environment.
Gore asked Clinton for an explanation of Monica Lewinsky; he wanted an apology. Clinton blew up. Focusing on his mistakes, he told his V.P., demeaned voters and ignored the public’s business.
Branch summed up Clinton’s bottom line to Gore: “By God, Hillary had a helluva lot more reason to resent Clinton than Gore did, and yet she ran unabashedly on the Clinton-Gore record” for the Senate and won handily. Gore, Clinton said, was in “Neverland.”...