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Zoë Heller and James Wolcott

the breakfast table
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from: James Wolcott

Conservatives on Clinton: Just a Lucky Guy

Posted Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2001, at 3:28 PM ET

Dear Zoë,

I admire Victoria Gotti's contributor's shot, which suggests the kind of tough blonde they used to plaster on the covers of Mickey Spillane novels, pouting with a highball in her diamond-fingered hand. I can see I'm actually going to have to start reading her copy.

No, I don't feel sorry for Gary Condit, who is probably the creep's creep (to steal a phrase from James Dickey), though I do have a natural sympathy for anybody being hounded or besieged, even if they're in the wrong. What fascinates me is the sheer force of will required for him to maintain that infuriating smile. He must have facial muscles of steel. And while I agree that the pro-Condit rally was cuckoo, the very idea of it was so misguided that I almost give it points for Dada-ism.

The Bill Clinton book contract got a lot of air time last night, but it was clear even the Clinton-bashers couldn't work up a proper froth. On Fox News, the closed mind imprisoned in the body of Fred Barnes expressed the view that the book would be valueless since Clinton never stood for anything as president, won't tell the truth about his personal turmoil, and left the Mideast a mess by trying to overreach and broker a peace settlement. (Just as a side note, the media, U.S. government, and Israeli governments appear to be preparing us for the eventual assassination of Yasser Arafat, or failing that, the elimination of everyone around him until he's standing alone and the hopes of the Palestinians reduced to rubble.) The Barnes sound bite is part of the revisionism being waged by conservative pundits as they rewrite history to prove that the prosperity and relative peace of the Clinton years were completely the products of everyone except Bill Clinton. He was just some lucky dude riding the wild surf.

I don't begrudge Clinton his advance on the book, but I am getting tired of the ritualistic invocation of Katharine Graham. (Like Hillary, he wants his book to emulate Graham's memoir, which was also edited by Bob Gottlieb.) What would make the Clinton memoir refreshing would be a daredevil absence of piety and sepia-toned, but of course he isn't being paid the big money to go Harry Crews or Barry Hannah on us and let all the cats out.

Jim

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819
from: James Wolcott

Conservatives on Clinton: Just a Lucky Guy

Posted Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2001, at 3:28 PM ET
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Zoë Heller is a columnist for the London Daily Telegraph and author of the novel Everything You Know. James Wolcott is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and author of the novel The Catsitters.
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