Citizen Clinton

摘要

"Those are the non-nutcase books about [my] Administration," Bill Clinton said, pointing to three shelves, arranged alphabetically by author, in the study of his newly renovated barn, adjacent to his home in Chappaqua, N.Y. This is the room where he wrote, in longhand, most of the latest contribution to Clinton lore: his 957-page memoirs, titled simply My Life. It is a comfortable room-a plasma TV, couches and rocking chairs, walls lined with Native American paintings and pottery ("We've been collecting it for 30 years" he said)-and Clinton seemed in a comfortable mood as he sat down to be interviewed by TIME Washington bureau chief Michael Duffy and me. The former President was dressed formally., in a blue suit, white shirt and pink tie, but he spoke easily and often quite candidly about his successes and failures. The purpose was to sell books, obviously, but Clinton was also intent on adding his two cents to the never-ending partisan donnybrook that has become a central component of his legacy. In his memoirs and our interview, he launched a blistering counterattack against the people whose books and actions were not in his "non-nutcase" category-the members of Hillary Clinton's "vast right-wing conspiracy," especially Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr.