Rewriting History
by Dick Morris
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Book Summary Information
Author: Dick MorrisEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-05-03
ISBN: 0060736690
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of Rewriting History
Book Review: Frankenstein Unbound!
Summary: 5 Stars
Face it, fellow Americans: if Hillary Clinton did not exist, it would be necessary for us to invent her.
With 'Rewriting History', former Clinton campaign heavy Dick Morris plows into what he saw while doing hard time at the Clinton Oval Office, and what he concludes about uber-pol Hillary Rodham Clinton isn't pretty, folks: She's into Power. Raw Power. Raw, unbridled, absolute Power.
From the time the Hellmouth spat her up as an infant on the rocky slabs of Golgotha (complete with molten magma caul)---or, if you prefer, from the time Mighty Poseidon raised her up from the waves, a virgo intacto in a half-shell!---Hilary has plotted, cajoled, lied, triangulated, and maneuvered with a restless, hungering glee that would have made a Borgia pope blush.
Well, Duh! Look: it has become almost stupefyingly boring to observe that politicians don't really care about their constituents. They want the perks of office: the long 5 martini lunches with bigwigs, Hottentots, and sultans, howler monkeys; the chauffeured limos; the many invitations to get all liquored up in the Green Room and go mano a mano with Hannity, Mathews, or O'Reilly. Wouldn't you? Sure you would.
With that in mind, let's worry less about ethics, character, and competence, and focus on the one trait in our 'Leaders' we should value most: sheer Entertainment Value!
In that regard, then, Ladies & Gentlemen, my fellow Americans, through the pages of Dick Morris's peerless little sordid potboiler---you know her! You love her! You can't live without her! The next President of the United States----HILLARY CLINTON!
Don't groan. I'm throwing my vote for Hillary come 2008 because---well, for deeply personal reasons. Chiefly because I have a fiendish plan. Mainly because we need an interregnum of such beastly political malfeasance, something so utterly hellacious, as to---well, but I'm tipping my hand. It's not that important.
Anyway, Hillary will be more entertaining than anyone else. As Morris observes in what amounts to a collection of bile-dripping epistles devoted to all things Clintoniana, Hillary is a Nixon character: furtive, incapable of bonding with human beings outside her phalanx of titanium-faced harpies (scarier than she is, actually, which is probably the point), willing to sell her grandma into white slavery just to see the look on her face, more than capable of having subordinates or even intimates whacked (I'm lookin' at you, Vince Foster), and very, very paranoid.
The Clintons have sheer moxie, magic & unbridled audacity on their side. Why shouldn't they have Power as a kind of garnish?
Check it out, dawgs: Bizzle and Hizzle pretty much carried out rapine in the Ovum Office, turned the Lincoln Bedroom into a free-standing bordello, looted the White House of everything that wasn't nailed down, and stole the flotation devices & oxygen masks off Air Force 1---and all of this is just their final 2 hours in office alone---and yet still, despite it all, bazillions of registered American voters adore them! If that's a mandate for Divine Right monarchy, what is?
It's true that Morris, a man so feverishly ratty even his literary style sounds like Templeton Rat, has an axe to grind. Morris has a---well, *complicated* relationship with the Clintons. It's like a sort of perverted umbilical cord, and this one works two ways, only instead of feeding precious nutrients it spews out black bile and political poison. That's why "Rewriting History" is so much devilish fun.
Anyway, the point here is that Morris's little exegesis on the Arkansas Power Duet never fails to amuse: pound for pound, it's a truly wicked piece of political skull-duggery. The Portrayal of Lady Clinton is truly warts and all, though mostly warts. Big, nasty, blackish warts, with little scraggly hairs growing out, truth be told.
This might lead you to conclude, as Morris does, that 1) Hillary will do literally anything and everything to get elected Grand Poobah of the Republic; 2) given her brand name, she's likely to take the Prize---beware Obama, there can be only One!---and will, yet again, have those keys to the exhausted Lincoln Bedroom, where in the last Clinton Regime they were lining up overnight donors like 747s at O'Hare; 3) this will be a Great Tragedy for the Republic.
Not so! The Clintons, if not national treasures, are certainly national fixtures, like big, comfy, ratty barco-loungers. We want the Clintons because, unlike JFK, they're America as we see ourselves, not as we ought to be. For better or worse, they're our Ozzie & Harriet, our Augustine & Livia, Lucrezia & Cesare, Kermit & Miss Piggy, Big Bird and Snuffleupagus, Lord & Lady MacBeth.
And it can be said, as Morris someimes does, that Hillary is the supoerior in the political firepower arena: where Bill could tailor his views to every push poll or audience, the Hill can acually adjust her deeply held views (she's hawkish! she's dovish! she's right, left, cleaning up, flying right! she's the King of the Sea!)---better still, she she can also completely alter her dialect and voice! A human Transformer! Marvellous!
Plus, we'd have Bill back. Bill is the gift that keeps on giving: he could jam it up on the sax with Guy Ritchie and Madonna in the Lincoln Bedroom. You know you want it.
Anyway, Morris's book is, as usual, trenchant, nasty, caustic, bold, and deeply amusing. Election 2008, might yield us a national disaster (though it would be hard to imagine trumping the current White House denizen in that regard) but she'll be fun political theater.
As for Dick, though: if Hillary wins, he might find himself rewriting---well, if not history, at least his travel itinerary. Somewhere without extradition laws? Hell hath no fury, and all.
JSG
Summary of Rewriting History
Now, for the first time, Fox News political analyst and former Clinton adviser Dick Morris turns his sharp-eyed gaze on Hillary, the longtime First Lady, current New York senator, and bestselling author. For, as he argues, no politician in America today is better aligned to become president in 2008?and none would bring more baggage to the White House?than Mrs. Clinton. In Rewriting History, Morris draws on his own long working relationship with the Clintons, as well as his trademark deep research and candid, nonpartisan analysis, to create a rebuttal to Hillary's bestselling autobiography, Living History. Morris documents how Hillary hides her true self behind a "Hillary" brand that is chatty, charming, giggly, and warm?but is far from her true personality.
In Rewriting History, Morris pierces the mask to get at the truth behind the distortions and omissions of Hillary's memoir. Here we meet the real Hillary, both good and bad: the manager who makes the trains run on time, but also the paranoid who sees all those who disagree with her as personal enemies; the idealist, but also the "advice addict" easily misled by the guru of the moment. Morris describes Hillary's sense of entitlement, and warns that it may lead deep into financial scandal. And he demonstrates how Hillary dodges criticism by pretending that every attack is directed not just at her, but at every working woman in America.
Ultimately, Morris argues, the Hillary Clinton of today is marketing a false front, obscuring both her wants and her assets behind the phony facade of a domestic Everywoman. But as she pursues higher office, she also faces a choice. Will she, like Bobby Kennedy, see the error of her ruthless ways, and embrace the sincere idealism she professes? Or, like Richard Nixon, will she allow the darker angels of her nature to overcome her, jeopardizing herself and the country in the process?
As Rewriting History suggests, we can only hope that Hillary Clinton's past performance is no guarantee of future results.
It's one thing to review a book by pounding out a few hundred words of criticism but it's quite another to review a book by writing an entirely new book. That's what Dick Morris, former advisor to President Bill Clinton, has done in Rewriting History, an energetic response to Hillary Clinton's Living History. Mrs. Clinton, Morris warns, is on a direct path to the White House due to a lack of Democratic alternatives and a leftward trend in the nation; therefore America must evaluate who she really is and not just what her memoir says. Morris's book is actually remarkably similar to the slew of attack books published about recent presidents but with the crucial difference that Hillary is at the very least four years away from the Oval Office. So Morris's criticisms of her, though backed up by a 20-year relationship with the Clintons, are rarely more than speculative, worrying about what she might do and asking ominous questions that are inherently unanswerable. Hillary Clinton, in Morris's view, is a much more insecure, disingenuous, and calculating creature than "Hillary," the palatable political product that won election to the Senate in 2000 and she's also an inferior politician to her husband. But as a political operative who has worked for both conservatives and liberals, Morris's indictments of Clinton evolve into a grudging respect as he demonstrates her considerable political resolve. All the same, he refutes many passages in her book with his own accounts of what transpired and indicts her integrity and behavior dating back to Bill Clinton's early career in Arkansas. Going forward, he says, she must decide whether to rely on her behind-the-scenes political acumen or embrace actual convictions. Often, Morris puts Clinton in no-win situations. For instance, while First Lady, she decides to get a dog, a decision that Morris infers is entirely politically motivated despite Clinton saying that it was because daughter Chelsea had moved out. Thus, if she had "admitted" her motivation was political, it would be an admission of cynicism and manipulation, but if she protests that her motives were simpler, Morris would have us believe that she's just lying. Nowhere is it allowed that the woman may have just wanted a dog. Rewriting History, co-written by Morris's wife Eileen McGann, offers a pleasing blend of Washington (and some Little Rock) gossip along with its political strategizing and is more valuable as insider scoop than presidential road map. Fans of Hillary Clinton will find little to alter their view and those who oppose her will find plenty of talking points for all the years of future debates that Hillary Clinton will surely inspire. --John Moe
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