Hitchens is particularly damning on Clintons tendency to resort to divisive racial politics when it suits his purposes as when in the course of the 1992 presidential campaign he refused to lift a finger to save a mentally retarded African American from state execution so he could appear tough on crime then shortly afterwards hijacked a Rainbow Coalition conference to criticize rap artist Sister Souljah for the benefit of the attendant press. When he needs the black vote though Clinton will allow himself to be trumpeted as the most racially sensitive president in American history--if not in Toni Morrisons memorably ludicrous phrase our first black president. Furthermore the man who once connived his way out of the draft has become a chief executive so willing to use military air strikes as a means of foreign policy that in the authors view the United States is now a potential banana republic.
Of course there is plenty of vitriol directed at Clintons conduct with regard to Monica Lewinsky (the woman with whom he admitted under duress to having had an inappropriate relationship consisting of multiple incidences of oral sex) and Kathleen Willey (who alleges that the leader of the free world merely fondled her breasts and forced her to touch--albeit shielded under some layers of clothing--his tumescent penis). In Hitchenss view however the sexual controversies are only the most prominent aspect of Clintons shameful character a moral condition that must be considered in toto. The book is short with an argument that runs only about a hundred pages but thats still more than enough room for Hitchens to serve up a comprehensive blistering indictment suffused throughout by his dark wit. He sums up the failure of those fixated on Clintons adultery to fully investigate his cronyism and financial shenanigans: Its not the lipstick traces stupid Hitchens warns its the Revlon Connection. --Ron Hogan
Hitchens is particularly damning on Clintons tendency to resort to divisive racial politics when it suits his purposes as when in the course of the 1992 presidential campaign he refused to lift a finger to save a mentally retarded African American from state execution so he could appear tough on crime then shortly afterwards hijacked a Rainbow Coalition conference to criticize rap artist Sister Souljah for the benefit of the attendant press. When he needs the black vote though Clinton will allow himself to be trumpeted as the most racially sensitive president in American history--if not in Toni Morrisons memorably ludicrous phrase our first black president. Furthermore the man who once connived his way out of the draft has become a chief executive so willing to use military air strikes as a means of foreign policy that in the authors view the United States is now a potential banana republic.
Of course there is plenty of vitriol directed at Clintons conduct with regard to Monica Lewinsky (the woman with whom he admitted under duress to having had an inappropriate relationship consisting of multiple incidences of oral sex) and Kathleen Willey (who alleges that the leader of the free world merely fondled her breasts and forced her to touch--albeit shielded under some layers of clothing--his tumescent penis). In Hitchenss view however the sexual controversies are only the most prominent aspect of Clintons shameful character a moral condition that must be considered in toto. The book is short with an argument that runs only about a hundred pages but thats still more than enough room for Hitchens to serve up a comprehensive blistering indictment suffused throughout by his dark wit. He sums up the failure of those fixated on Clintons adultery to fully investigate his cronyism and financial shenanigans: Its not the lipstick traces stupid Hitchens warns its the Revlon Connection. --Ron Hogan
Christopher Hitchens
