Customer Reviews

Clinton & Me: How Eight Years of a Pants-Free Presidency Changed My Nation, My Family and My Life

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I read lots of books that claim to be "humor," but Clinton & Me is the first book in a long time that had me laughing on the first page. And I laughed all the way through.

I was expecting something more political. Michael Graham is a radio talk show host down here in the Carolinas, and he talks alot about current events. But the book is all over the place. About every other piece (it's a collection of humor columns) is related to something in the news: Clinton, Elian, Gingrich, Hillary. But the rest jump from bad movies to being a dad to how Michael dresses when he's a guest on TV shows. That was very funny, by the way.

I have already bought another copy, for my dad, for Christmas. He listens to Rush Limbaugh, and I'm sure he'll like the comedy in the book, even though he won't agree with all of it.

And he will definitely like the Clinton bashing in this book. It isn't the same old stuff. There isn't any whining in this book. When he jumps on Clinton, it sticks! There are several pieces that made me want to show them to my liberal friends and say "See! That's what I've been trying to tell you!"

Oh, and there's one line in the very first piece that sums up Al Gore to a T. You've got to read it for yourself.

Great book, easy to read, and laugh out loud funny.

Michael Graham is a bit of an oddity in the world today. First of all, he is unafraid to tell you exactly what is on his mind, no matter the consequences. In addition, what he reports is the truth. This alone makes him nearly unique nowadays. In his book, Clinton & Me, he displays his mastery of the above two virtues as well as his mastery of satirical humor. From the first essay to the last you will be laughing, but more importantly, THINKING. The biggest problem in politics on a grass roots level these days is that so many people don't think anymore. Witness the vast number of ineffectual incumbents that get re-elected in this state alone. Michael Graham, both in his daily radio show and in Clinton and Me, he makes it impossible for you to merely tow the party line. Read this book. Even if you disagree with the politics, it will make you question your stance on each and every issue it addresses, and that is ALWAYS a good thing.

More pointed than Dave Barry, more balanced than Rush Limbaugh, and funnier than the late great Lew Grizzard, Michael Graham is the best columnist I've discovered since James Lileks. He hits hard, but he makes you laugh, and he's the only American besides me who will admit wearing those squared-off knit ties in the early 80s. Even lefties will find things to like about this book. And check out that cover!

Michael Graham's book takes a look at the Clinton Administration and says what we have all been thinking. Nixon left office for less than has conspired in the Clinton White House. From the hiring the former Govener of SC, which has the worst education system in all 50 states, as Secretary of Education, to the O. J. like impeachment trial of Clinton, Graham pokes fun at this soon to be former administration.

Graham also has touches of family humor. His stories of his children are delightful.

In conclusion, Clinton is a must read for conservatives and liberal alike. I wish more people in the United States saw life through Michael Grahams eyes.

Clinton & Me, How Eight Years Of A Pants-Free Presidency Changed My Nation, My Family, and My Life, Michael Graham; Pinpoint Press (2000)


It escapes me now - as all things do, but in particular - what the link had been between reading the reviews of "I Shot An Elephant In My Pajamas" (Morrie Ryskind, 1994) & discovering the existence of Mike Graham's "Clinton & Me."

But this is one of the great benefits of Amazon (albeit & entirely justifiably self-serving) - being able to discover new books, the existence of many I had never known about because the good stuff never makes it into the local papers.

"No Room!" Cry the Editors -obsessed during the last ten years with the size of Jennifer Lopez's butt & the hair & acting genius of Jennifer Aniston.

And who can deny the Ascendancy of our new Cary Grant, Adam Sandler?

Besides, the only guy with the name of Mike who's gotten any local press in the last dozen years has been billionaire Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York. By now, thanks to Marco Polo Mike's intrepid voyages aloft, we're unanimously familiar with & practically experts on the real estate prices of Bermuda (this comes in real handy when we're negotiating the ins & outs of getting your hands on Mets & Yankees tickets, whose prices have increased 854% in the last ten years).

Anyway, I hate Mike Graham. Here's why.

2:05 a.m.: C&M was open to page 118 where Mike's column, "The Yankees Are Coming" (June 1998) gives an accounting of his having spent a year living up North:

"Ask a waitress in New York restaurant if they have grits...

"`Grits?' one particularly parochial has slinger barked at me last summer.

"`Wazzamattawitchoo? Weahdoyootinkyoutinkyouare, anyway? Weahyoofum?'

" `Hey, Joey! Dis guy wants ta know if we got grits!' "

I'm on the floor. I stopped laughing around 2:35 a.m. & then stayed up for another hour or so wondering if lightning could strike twice.

3:05 a.m.: "The Envelope Please - Best Stunts: William Jefferson Clinton, [in] `How Bad Do You Need A Job, Mrs. Wiley?'...his [previous] performance with Monica Lewinsky in the year's biggest box-office smash, `Titanic II, Monica Goes Down.' "

(If you or your friends can or know how to remove multiple lightning burns from furniture & drapes, please contact me. We have a foundation set up for those sort of expenses.)

4 a.m.: Time to call it quits. Nothing's planned for the coming day & all is well.

8 a.m.: The 500-horsepower chain saws blew me out of bed.

My neighbor down the block had procrastinated for years about cutting down a dying tree on his front lawn. He even threw good money after no money last year trying to save it by pruning (Net effect: A smaller & equally ghastly vertical corpse).

Now. He ain't screwin' around no more.

I don't know if you've ever bought firewood from commercial dealers.

If you have, you've probably noticed that it tends to include - at the cost of about one Yankee ticket per cord - odds & ends from construction sites, things that resemble loaves of Wonder Bread, & logs from trees that when originally felled had narrowly missed crushing Benedict Arnold in his flight to the British lines. One look at this chintzy crap dumped in your driveway & you do start look for less expensive fuel that doesn't burn like a baseball bat-sized bundle of stove matches (if it burns at all).

Well, this was just such an opportunity. And with about only four hours of sleep, myself & the cutters wheeled the humungoid slabs of - not the dead tree, don't touch that stuff, it's jinxed! - the neighbor's other victim, a perfectly healthy & mature chestnut tree (arborcide is an inexplicable crime).

So, at any rate, thanks Mike, you Carolinian cur, you.

Thanks for writing a book that was so funny, such a success, whose material is timeless - that it resulted in an unanticipated & spontaneous 12-hour shift of strenuous physical activity, on about four hours sleep.

And to the editors of our local papers, back in 1998:

WAZZAMATTAWITCHOO?!

Thanks for your ideological (at least that's what you think it is; others have proven that Dr. Seuss can explain it) hostility to actual intellectual diversity - which, of course, doomed any chance of Mike's scathingly witty columns being printed in the New York City area during the Clinton presidency.

By the way, if the Mets do go into bankruptcy, I'll be first in line at the property auctions in order to scarf up the pre-printed tickets for the 2011 season.

I hear they burn real good.