The Parallel Lives of Bill Clinton

Reflecting on the legacy of former President Bill Clinton in December 2000, Leon Panetta, who served as White House Chief of Staff and budget director from 1994 to 1997, noted: "In many ways, this is a tale of two presidencies. One, obviously brilliant and extremely capable, with the ability to help produce the greatest economy in the history of this country and to focus on major domestic priorities and, in effect, protect peace in the world. And the other is the darker side, the one that made a terrible human mistake that will forever shadow that other presidency" (qtd. in Purdum par. 22). Many critics have shared Panetta's assessment that Clinton's presidency, and even his very identity, is marked by a fundamental duality. A Rhodes scholar with a dazzling intellect made mistakes that can only be called stupid. Clinton's longtime adviser and strategist, Dick Morris, speaks of "Saturday-night Bill" and "Sunday-morning President Clinton" (83). Our former president has been described as a man so profoundly at odds with himself, the polarities of his character so divergent, as to be nearly irreconcilable.

This striking contrast has led commentators to invoke repeatedly some fundamental dichotomy in Clinton, some irresolvable schism that we recognize but cannot quite comprehend. Bruce Miroff identifies Clinton as a "postmodern character," "a political actor who lacks a stable identity" (106). Clinton's continual reinventions, Miroff argues, point to a disturbing absence of self that thrives on performance rather than on substance. Others, like Matt Bai, conceive of Clinton as a composite of opposites, not an empty vessel to be filled with the latest results of polling data. Bai observes, "Two sides of Clinton's persona have long warred with each other, sunny optimism versus angry grievance. Clinton succeeded in politics largely because he projected the former; his worst moments came when he gave into the latter. Both sides are genuine reflections of who he is" (par. 29). Genuine reflections, yes, but how are such contradictions resolved within the man? And what effect did this duality have on the way he governed the nation?

Clinton himself finally shed some light on this essential dichotomy in his long-anticipated autobiography, My Life (2004). The nearly 1,000-page tome was completed under pressure from editors at Knopf who had persuaded the notoriously loquacious former president not to write two separate books as he originally intended. The final product suffers from its excessive length, as early reviewers noted. Joe Klein commented in Time magazine, "My Life is two books, really: Arkansas and the presidency" (par. 9). Even in the book that should have brought some resolution to his warring selves, Clinton could not escape the duality that defines his legacy; he is ever the man who smoked but did not inhale, who cheated on his wife but did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky, and who re-enlivened the Democratic Party by announcing in his 1996 State of the Union address that "the era of big government is over." Clinton is always twinned, inhabiting both sides at once, and as demonstrated by his autobiography, ever struggling to unite them even as that struggle contributes to his political success. His sheer volubility, however, cannot mask the essential division of his identity and only magnifies his inner irresolution.

My Life begins with a poignant description of Clinton's father. The necessary brevity of this portrait poses a sharp contrast to the text's later verbosity, acting as the seed of Clinton's infamous compulsion to talk and somehow unify his opposing selves. After serving in a motor pool in Italy during World War II, William Jefferson Blythe, Jr., died at the age of 28 in a car accident while driving home to his pregnant wife on a Missouri highway. Blythe's memory haunts the entirety of his son's autobiography, as does Clinton's sense that he must compensate for that original loss. Blythe's specter foreshadows the man Clinton might have been, the charming capable president we might have had before a sexual scandal overwhelmed his ability to govern. Clinton begins My Life by establishing...