Customer Reviews

Clintonisms: The Amusing, Confusing, and Even Suspect Musing, of Billary

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Just finished "Clintonisms," by Julia Gorin. Gotta admit, as a Democrat I felt a tad disloyal picking it up, but the "slumlord" comment Hillary hurled at Barack Obama in the last Democratic debate really put me off. So I let myself indulge. Basically, Clintonisms is a conglomeration of quotations uttered by the Clintons, and about them by others, during their long and scandal-ridden public life, with joke set-ups above the quotes. Some are pretty funny (preceding a reporter's description of Clinton, "His sturdy jaw precedes him," Gorin writes, "THAT'S NOT HIS JAW.") But even more important, this fun little read of a book crystallizes some uncomfortable truths that even some of us Democrats had to face by the time Bill left office dispensing hundreds of last-minute pardons and swiping "62 keyboards, 26 cell phones ... and ten antique doorknobs," among other items from The White House (quotation courtesy of--I never thought I'd be quoting them--Fox News!!!): the Clinton administration exhibited more than its share of corruption. Now we see some of that pattern coming to haunt progressives in the form of the Clintons' underhanded attacks on Barack. Vital reading here for anyone who wants to better understand the Clinton attack machine. Super fun read, too.

Author Julia Gorin has compiled a highly amusing collection of quotations from Bill and Hillary Clinton taken over the years that reflect their (often slippery) stands on a number of issues. With her intrinsic rapier wit, Gorin nails "Billary" in a seemingly endless stream of contradictions, nonsequiturs,and inanities.All based on properly cited quotations direct from the Clintons' mouths.

Adding to the humor, Gorin has juxtaposed paragraph headings that illustrate the contradictory, paranoid,and occasionally irrational mindset that the Clinton couple brings to the nation. Focusing on Hillary's constant "blame the victim" behavior when confronted with a GFOB (girl friend of Bill) is a prime example. William Jefferson Clinton's sudden inability to distinguish words like "is" and "sex" is another.

In this nuclear meltdown political season Gorin's book is a must-read for everyone regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum. Facing the daunting prospect of not one but both of these people back in the White House - fighting over who is the real president? - it is important to regain mental perspective. Gorin's excellent book helps the reader do exactly that.

While you're buying a copy for yourself remember to send a few to your friends. All of you will enjoy the great humor and the timely reminders of aberrant Clintonisms.

These are the most outrageous things the Clintons (and their associates)have ever said, plus hilarious titles by the author. It would be well worth your while remembering these during Hillary's presidential campaign. After eight years of Bush, people forget what the Clinton era was really like.

My favorite story was Hillary's ridiculous tall tale of her attempt to join the Marines. Titled Hamburger Hill by the author, Hillary says in an interview, "I decided I was very interested in having some experience in serving in some capacity in the military." She continues, "So I walked into our local [Marine] recruiting office...This young man looked at me and he said, 'How old are you?"...I said, 'Well, twenty-seven,'...I had these really thick glasses on. He said, ' How bad's your eyesight?' I said, 'It's pretty bad.' And he finally said to me, 'You're too old. You can't see. And you're a woman.' He said, 'But maybe the dogs [army] would take you.' This [was] not a very encouraging conversation... so [I thought] maybe I'll look for another way to serve my country."

Hillary later says that "research shows that the presence of women [in government] raises the standards of ethical behavior and lowers

corruption."

Somehow, I find both stories a little hard to believe.

To read Julia Gorin's "Clintonisms. The Amusing, Confusing, and Suspect Musings of Billary" is to be transported back to the time of the Clinton presidency. With no time off for good behavior.

In those days, anyone still able to make bail camped out by their mailbox for the next edition of "The American Spectator." Month after month, we could read there the most amazing stories of people who had by some cosmic joke come to control the civil and military power of the federal government of the United States. Though two highly intelligent people with law degrees from Yale, no less, Bill and Hillary Clinton were, it became clear, individuals suited instead to careers as Demolition Derby drivers. For eight years, we reveled in the spectacle of their going after ideological and legal enemies as they would have had they been behind the wheel, respectively, of a 1963 Studebaker Wagonaire and a 4-door 1959 DeSoto Sportsman Friday evenings in Conway, Arkansas.

Julia Gorin has made a careful compilation of the Clintons' own words with her own witty commentary and some great lines from Saturday Night Live, Dennis Miller, and Jay Leno, among others. It is a crystal clear a picture of two limited people whose inner compasses were so bent they should have gotten no closer to the White House than the second window of the Hot Springs McDonalds.

Our natural temptation is to think that any resident of the White House and his wife are pretty much like the previous ones. Probably, we hope that the electoral process winnows out poseurs, flaneurs, gamblers, climbers, and others living principle-free lives. Maybe we even think that that process identifies and disqualifies people who seek the office of Commander in Chief but who have actual contempt for the nation's armed forces. Perhaps, too, we are tempted to believe that even if the scrutinizing powers of the electorate are inadequate to the task of choosing the national leaders, a glib sex addict taking a seat in the Oval Office would somehow be elevated to a higher level of conduct and consciousness by the enormity of the privilege bestowed and responsibility encountered.

Little prepared the nation for a man who viewed being president as great way to get laid.

Gorin reminds us of the reigning spirit of the Age of Clinton -- astonishment. How, we could only wonder, could two such people have risen to the top of American politics when their only motivation was to advance their private interests by any expedient means? If there had been anything noble in their thinking in Arkansas times, it must surely have been confiscated by Customs at the Tennessee border.

It is hard to describe a vacuum. How many different ways can you say "not much there"? Gorin's solution has been to present the Clintons in their own words, rather like searching for a ghost in the attic by using neon spray paint. Page after page, we are immersed in iteration of and variants on Bill's now-immortal scholastic musings upon the verb "to be," conduct that would embarrass Al Sharpton, and interspousal communication that would blister paint.

Gorin fails only in that she sheds no light at all on the 1992-2000 suspension of the laws of physics that allowed (a) law firm billing records to materialize in the Clinton bungalow, (b) Vince Foster to float from the parking lot of Ft. Marcy Park to his nearby "locus terminatio," and (c) and female breasts spontaneously to spring from their place of confinement into the presidential hand. Surely experts could have been consulted.

If we overlook this omission, Gorin's keen intelligence, dry wit, and comedienne's gift for language conspire to bring us a great book. "Clintonisms" is an instructive read -- however bereft of inspiration and uplift it might be -- that is best savored four or five pages at a time or produced at dinner parties to refresh fading memories of truly bizarre times.

As Hillary's hopes revive in the wake of the revelations about Obama's 20-year power nap in the pews of the Church of the Holy Fever, it's also something to peruse on the eve of the general election in November. It will re-alert you to (a) her modest but "burning desire to do what I can" in aid of "remaking . . . the American way of politics, government, indeed life" and (b) what a crazy mistake it would be to give her an opportunity to try.

One of the most polarizing political families in American politics today is that of the husband and wife team of former President Bill Clinton and his wife, the current Illinois Senator Hillary Clinton. The notoriety of these Democratic Party icons has been exacerbated with Hillary's current pitched political battle for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency being waged against fellow Democratic Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama. All that the Obama (and the Republican McCain) campaign personnel need by way of background research material to point out past foibles, follies, and questionable conduct of Hillary Clinton and her husband/political partner Bill, is to be found within the 130 pages of "Clintonisms: the Amusing, Confusing, And Suspect Musings Of Billary". Compiled by Julia Gorgin, readers are treated to a wealth of such infobits as Hillary's observations regarding the Whitewater scandal, "If we did something improper, ;then how come we lost money?", or Bill 'I did not have sex with that woman' opining that "The road to tyranny, we must remember, begins with the destruction of the truth.". While Bill and Hillary's direct quotations are plentiful, "Clintonisms" also features a wealth of comments by other concerning this American couple such as the comment by Jim McDougal (deceased former Clinton business partner) that "I just got sick and tired of lying for the fella. "Clintonisms" is especially recommended reading for anyone, Democrat, Republican, or Independent, not wanting to relive the turmoil and torment of the Clinton White House years with 'Billary" back in charge.

As a Hillary supporter from New York, I bought this book with every intention to pick it apart... But then it started to make me laugh. The funny thing is I actually finished the book understanding more about Bill and Hillary's rise to power. I often take my politics too seriously, and this humorous account was a welcome change of pace. I consider Clintonisms to be essential subway reading.

A good collection of amusing quotes and anecdotes. Living somewhat near them just adds to the spice.

"Clintonisms: The Amusing, Confusing, and Suspect Musing of Billary" (edited by Julia Gorin) is a book meant to amuse you, and yet it somehow also manages to make you wet yourself in nervousness at the prospect of Hillary Clinton becoming the next president of the United States.

Indeed, the nervous laughter emanating from my and other Republicans' mouths is not because Hillary Clinton could very well be cantering herself toward the White House as we speak, but rather because she and her husband could both be cantering toward the most powerful position on Earth.

"Clintonisms" is a collection of quotes by the being known as "Billary" as well as their friends, acquaintances, staff and people who randomly met them, with a wonderfully hilarious forward by Julia. And it will make your skin crawl thinking of Hillary entering the White House.

In the forward, Julia asks the tough questions: "If Bill Clinton was the first black president, would that make Hillary Clinton the second black president? Or is Bill Clinton a self-loathing brother who married a white woman and is a traitor to his race?" These are simply questions that must be answered, and Julia is not afraid to go there.

Quick Snippets:

HIS VIVID AND PAINFUL IMAGINATION

"I have vivid and painful memories of black churches being burned in my own state when I was a child." --Bill Clinton, about his childhood in Arkansas, where there weren't any church burnings in that time period, June 8, 1996...

...CAN BE LIKE CUBA?

"I pledge allegiance to the America that can be." --Hillary Clinton, as recalled by Chris Matthews, "Hardball", November 2001...

VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN!

"We just can't trust the American people to make those types of choices. Government has to make those choices for people." --Hillary Clinton, to Illinois Rep. Dennis Hastert about health care, 1993

One particularly interesting chapter was entitled "A Note of Thanks for All You Do", in which we are exposed to the treatment of Hillary's immediate staff throughout the years. She would often use profanity toward them, demand that they do things that were prohibited by their job descriptions and just be a general grump. One Arkansas State Trooper said, "We all got used to her screaming, 'Just get the hell away from me.'", and a secret service agent got a book in the back of the head thanks to Hillary. I'm sure that temper of hers won't flair up when she becomes president, right? Perhaps we can count on her to throw books at the terrorists rather than using manly weapons.

We also get a view of the laws the Clintons have broken, the lies they have told, and the language they use to try to get around tough questions about their sketchy past actions.

I have recently been interested in the scandal involving Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky because only in recent years have I realized how strong of a case it really is. Liberals would have us believe it was "all about sex", but no, it wasn't. The president was a felon, and he lied under oath. With liberals proclaiming that we should all just "mind our own business", the fact remains that any question can be asked of you when you are under oath. You cannot lie, even if the question is "not the business" of the jury and judge.

LIAR OR PHILOSOPHER?

"Q: Do you agree with me that the statement, 'I was never alone with her,' is incorrect? You were alone with Monica Lewinsky, weren't you?

A: Well again...it depends on how you define alone."

Classic.

Julia Gorin has put together a collection of the most hilarious utterances of Bill and Hillary Clinton. And yes, at this point in time Barack "Barry" Obama has essentially pushed them out of the spotlight. Nonetheless, one should never conclude that the Clintons will disappear into the pages of the history books. The odds are that John MCain will be a one term president---and Senator Clinton will be back in 2012. Please read Ms. Gorin's book and be prepared for her return. If nothing else, your funny bone will be tickled in the process.

While there are many delightful quotes and humorous headlines in Julia Gorin's book, there is also an undercurrent of seriousness throughout because Hillary Clinton is running for the highest office in the land. When you are reminded of her past statements as presented in Clintonisms, it is undeniable clear that she and her husband are liars who will do and say anything to get what they want. No way should either of them get anywhere near the Oval office again even for a visit. I strongly recommend this book to any campaign looking for ammunition against Billary. The Clinton administration was a stain on out country's history. Let's not repeat it.