Clinton Memoir Falls Short

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (June 24 2004):

Bill Clinton is not the first husband to find himself sleeping alone on a sofa, but he's the first president to ever admit it.

"Whatever the motives of my adversaries, it became clear on those solitary nights in my upstairs office that if I wanted compassion from others, I needed to show it, even to those who didn't respond in kind. Besides, what did I have to complain about? I would never be a perfect person, but Hillary was laughing again, Chelsea was still doing well at Stanford, I was still doing a job I loved and spring was on the way."

So much for"that woman" and impeachment.

In this age of therapeutic soul-bearing memoirs, we've come to expect admissions like that one, but hearing it from a former commander in chief is, well, a little embarrassing.

There are other painful confessions from Clinton in his attention-getting book,"My Life," but this is a different kind of"tell-all" autobiography.

It's short on sin but long on details major and minor. In fact, there would be a lot less of Clinton's 957-page"Life" if he'd left out his high school girlfriends and his favorite foods.

"I loved those RCs [Royal Crown Colas] and it was really sad when they quit producing them," laments Clinton in a section about his college days. (For the record, RC is still in business.)

Mirroring his two terms in the White House,"My Life" squanders an extraordinary opportunity. Here is a relatively young, intelligent and engaged ex-president given the chance to reflect on his remarkable time in office, and he wastes much of it listing the ordinary details of everyday life.

But, don't blame Clinton. That's the way he is -- a nonstop talker who has depended on a personal and folksy style. Blame Robert Gottlieb, so-called editor extraordinaire, who failed to give this book coherence and focus.

Gottlieb failed in similar fashion with Robert Caro's third installment of his Lyndon Johnson biography, which was too long and unbalanced.

In a publicity appearance before his book came out, Clinton joked that he tried to include every person he ever met and Gottlieb reined him in.

He let Clinton name every other person....