Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Several items at World Net Daily today focus on the impending release of Bill Clinton's memoirs , titled "My Life" ("Mein Lebensweg" in German), for which he has reportedly been paid $10 to $12 million.
Associated Press says US Grant sets the benchmark in success for presidential memoirs, which have often proven to be bland and unappealing.
Both Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford were less successful in book sales than their wives.
Some of the greatest presidents did not write memoirs. Lincoln, JFK and FDR all died in office, while Woodrow Wilson died before he could finish writing a book. Thomas Jeffersen, James Maddison and the two Adams chose not to pen memoirs.
Kennedy won a Pulitzer prize for a book he penned (apparently with assistance from his wife) before he became president.
WND queries in one of its own books the death of Clinton Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, along with the strange deaths in short order of two other persons at the Department of Commerce who worked closely with Brown.
Of course it is highly unlikely that answers to these and many other questions will be found in the new book.
Although Clinton has been able to fend off a number of legal challenges, many still characterize his administration as corrupt.
Some on the Democrat side recognize examples of Clinton "playing fast and loose" in respect of fund-getting activities, but believe that an unfair amount of attention was focused on these vis-a-vis other administrations. No president before Clinton had to contend with the Internet.
Wealthy Republican presidents like the two Bushes had to deal with less challenged circumstances in obtaining financial backing.
The Democrat president's detractors point to numerous deaths, as well as flights from jurisdiction and mysterious behavior amongst witnesses and persons with knowledge regarding investigations involving the Clintons. They say that the extent and tenor of activity around Clinton is similar to that which surrounds investigation of organized crimes figures.
President Bush has been seen, since he assumed office, to curtail probes into the Clinton administration.
Some of his presidential predecessors have said that the United States would gain nothing from "the jailing" or indictment of one of its leaders.
Clinton critics say it is unacceptable that a US president subvert the very system he heads in the interest of self-preservation, and that his example undermines confidence amongst citizens in the rule of law and damages the credibility of US activities abroad.
Regarding the latter, Islamofascists cite Clinton's "Monica bombs" as facade operations carried out by the US in the style of "Wag the Dog" - contrary to the public perception in the US - only to divert attention from the president's domestic travails.
