The President We Deserve: Bill Clinton: His Rise, Falls, and Comebacks - Hardcover

Walker, Martin

3.17

12 ratings by Goodreads

9780517598719: The President We Deserve: Bill Clinton: His Rise, Falls, and Comebacks

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 051759871X ISBN 13: 9780517598719

Publisher: Crown, 1996

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Martin Walker's critical biography of Bill Clinton focuses on the president as a classic figure of America's post-World War II meritocracy, a poor boy from the segregated old South who won scholarships to elite universities and became a lawyer fascinated by the process and the power of government. Walker also unearths a private life that has resonated to the rhythmic clich�s of a country-and-western song: Clinton's father died in a car wreck before he was born; his mother buried three husbands and married two more; his stepdaddy beat his mother and fired gunshots into the bedroom walls; one brother went to jail; and his own marriage tottered under the pain he admitted inflicting upon it. This president's background is as grittily American as the woeful tales that wail from jukeboxes in bars across the land. He is Bubba with brains, a redneck with a Rhodes scholarship--America at her most raw, and most cultivated. And his first term has been unpredictable, volatile, and fascinating. Martin Walker shows us the why, the how, and the future of the Clinton administration.

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Review:

With the harsh partisanship and sensationalism associated with the coverage of American politics, it's perhaps not surprising that it takes a Brit to provide the proper perspective of American politics at the end of the 20th century. Martin Walker, Washington correspondent for Britain's the Guardian newspaper, used the occasion of the 1996 presidential campaign to produce a thorough account of President Bill Clinton and his place in American history. Walker follows Clinton through his development, examining his early life, his college experiences--including tales from Clinton's Oxford classmates who were there when he didn't inhale--on through his presidential performance. Walker focuses on substance rather than the trivialities of personal life, reviewing the president's policies for what they are and objectively placing them in context of America in the 1990s.

From the Publisher:

"This biography does not supplant David Maraniss's First in His Class but goes beyond that excellent treatment of Clinton's youth by providing a seamless account of his roots, education, Arkansas government, the presidency, and the uncertain state of American politics."
-- Library Journal

"Martin Walker's book about Bill Clinton is, to paraphrase the title, more than we deserve in the way of depth and understanding of an American president and his times. Like the best British correspondents, Martin Walker is debonair and diligent and often out-reports his American cousins and writes them under the table. This is a first-class biography because it places Clinton in his little state, his chaotic world, and the postwar cosmos, which has been so kind to him. Martin Walker has taken the time to understand him and to understand us. If you're looking for context, you need look no further."
--Mary McGory, Washington Post columnist

"Martin Walker's book, THE PRESIDENT WE DESERVE: Bill Clinton: His Rise, Falls, and Comebacks, is indispensable to any understanding of American politics and the end of the century. Martin Walker is fast becoming the most astute commentator on American political affairs since Toqueville and Bryce."
--James Chase, World Policy Journal editor and Henry Luce Professor in Freedom of Inquiry and Expression at Bard College

"As Bill Clinton's first term draws to a close, there has been a plethora of books analyzing the last four years. Martin Walker's is one of the most brilliant, bringing the unique perspective of an American-educated foreign journalist to the last Democratic president of the century. Walker is an astute observer who thinks out the meaning of what he has observed, bringing the perspective of history to contemporary politics. THE PRESIDENT WE DESERVE is indispensable reading for citizen and political scholar alike."
--Rod MacLeish of Christian Science Monitor and Monitor Radio

"Like Bill Clinton, Martin Walker is at home in many places at once. Be it London, Moscow or Washington, Cold War geopolitics, insider baseball or straightforward political analysis, Walker walks with the best. THE PRESIDENT WE DESERVE is a tour-de-force that shows Walker to be at the top of all his crafts at once."
--Eric Alterman, The Nation columnist

"Clear-eyed and sympathetic, THE PRESIDENT WE DESERVE provides invaluable perspective on a president too often portrayed in cartoon caricature. Even when you disagree, you will find yourself enlightened and challenged."
--E.J. Dionne Jr., author of They Only Look Dead and Why Americans Hate Politics

"In the wave of supposedly revealing books on the Clintons, Martin Walker has done the truly sensational by defining the Clinton presidency in the context of a larger historical and global framework."
--Sidney Blumenthal, Washington Editor of The New Yorker

"In a warts-and-all but ultimately respectful attempt to capture the manifold contradictions and promise of Bill Clinton and his administration, Walker, US bureau chief for the Guardian (The Cold War, 1994, etc.), portrays the president as the archetypal figure of America's postwar meritocracy."
--Kirkus Reviews

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