No One Left to Lie to: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton

by Christopher Hitchens

Book Overview

"Just as the necessary qualification for a good liar is a good memory, so the essential equipment of a would-be lie detector is a good timeline, and a decent archive." In No One Left to Lie To, a New... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1859847366
• ISBN13: 9781859847367
• Release Date: April 1999
• Publisher: Verso
• Length: 122 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.7" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Invaluable Historical Reference

In "No One Left To Lie To", Christopher Hitchens dissects Bill Clinton psychologically, laying his inner nature bare like an anatomist displays the internal organs of a prepared cadaver. Mr Hitchens provides an invaluable historical reference of magazine-style contemporary news essays. He deserves the highest praise for compiling his perceptive thoughts into a literate and coherent selection of meaningful essays.Note, to left-leaning Americans: This book does not argue that Clinton "destroyed the country" from some sort of socially-conservative (i.e., Republican) point of view at all. These are not essays from the pages of The Wall Street Journal by any means. On the contrary, Hitchens testifies that Clinton destroyed American LIBERALISM, from the point of view of a committed socialist, which Hitchens most solidly is. At one point, Hitchens asks why, given the effect he had on both parties, Republicans hate Clinton at all. It is for this reason that this book is an unusual and highly recommendable perspective for anyone who has the slightest interest in the subject, as well as those who have the greatest revulsion.Hitchens examines Clinton's record of war, his accusations of sexual abuse, his relationship with Dick Morris, his skill at "triangulation", and his relationship with his wife, Hillary. These are not new topics, they have been discussed at great length and in excruciating detail for the last ten years, but Hitchens handles them all with such skill and wit that his compendium deserves reading by even the most jaded partisan or news-weary person.In a surprisingly brief volume, but one dense with information, Hitchens portrays in precise detail a man beholden to corporate interests, upper-class elitism, and big money influence-peddling. He accuses Clinton of adherence to an agenda which dismantled welfare, cut government regulation, increased the lot of America's wealthy, and did everything an American liberal is purportedly against. Hitchens even uses the Clintons' own words against them in making his case. Most interestingly, be believes Clinton won votes from Republicans because he gave them legislation they wanted, and from Democrats because he gave them the empty symbolism of the White House.If you are a right-leaning American, you will either delight, or take horror, in the myriad sordid tales, page after page, of a man corrupt to the bone. On the other hand, if you are a left-leaning American, you truly owe it to yourself to read these essays, and ask yourself how the Democrat Party endorsed this man, and how they came to such abuse by him. I have the feeling that if more Democrats read this book, they would be more angry than the thousands of Republicans who already have.Mr Hitchens has created an unimpeachable journalistic reference, objectively fair, and incisively harsh. Despite partisan arguments of the many who have read it (as well as many who have not!), nothing in his book can be denied, nothing can be disproven, and nothin

Wonderful

What a fantastic book. It's so refreshing to find someone who sees the reality of Clinton. Someone who doesn't shrug off criminal behavior because "the economy is doing well, and he's a Democrat." (Hey, under Mussollini, the trains ran on time. Does that mean he was a great leader, too??) Imagine Hitchens finding Clinton despicable because he raped Juanita Broaddrick? How can liberal supporters overlook that Clinton is a rapist, or so distort Broaddrick's story in their minds that they convince themselves that it can't at all be true (despite corroborating witnesses at the time of the rape). How can they overlook that Clinton had a Sudanese pharmaceutical company that had NO chemical warfare manufacturing going on--as evidence has since proved, as is shown in this book--just to distract people from the Monica Lewinsky scandle? People are upset at how much Ken Starr spent? How about how much bombing a Sudanese factory costs of your tax money! THANK GOD Christopher Hitchens doesn't overlook these things!! (I would suggest Clinton supporters read the book WITHOUT CONSCIENCE By a Dr. Hare about psychopaths, and how a common occurrence is people SUPPORTING them even after their criminal actions have been pointed out. And Clinton displays overt qualities of a psychopath.) And to those reviewers below who think Clinton's reputation will be a good one in the long run: Remember President Warren Harding? At the time of his corrupt adminstration--with its Teapot Dome scandle and all--HIS SUPPORTERS ACCUSED HIS ACCUSERS OF BEING A CONSPIRACY! Just like Clinton supporters today. But all historians agree NOW that the Harding administration was a corrupt and immoral one. That will be the ultimate legacy of the Clinton administration, too. Christopher Hitchens, however, realizes what Clinton is now, and to that I give him huge credit.

An Unusually Honest Look at an Unususally Good Liar

You may have heard a Democrat member of Congress describe Clinton as an 'unusually good liar'. In '92, Spy Magazine documented 100 lies within the first 100 days of Clinton's first term. PBS aired a documentary on the 1992 election with behind the scences footage of both Clinton and Bush, showing Clinton promising the Florida Cubans that he was going to, 'drop the hammer on Castro.' The show revealed that for the first time since Kennedy, the Cuban population in FL voted primarily for a Democrat, due to Clinton's numerous promises to them (and an earlier Bush mis-step). That Clinton was a liar should have been obvious to every citizen by '94, but amazingly, the media and many citizens continued to rabidly defend him against charges of lying. Of course, they jumped on charges that seemed easy to disprove, and ignored the others, unless they could short-circuit the proveable charges by attacking the accuser (i.e., Flowers, Jones, Tripp, and Starr). The bias was and is excruciatingly irritating, but did liberals decry the pro-Clinton bias in the media? Of course not. He was 'their' man. His despotism and fascism has been almost completely ignored by liberals until Hitchens. A corollary to Acton's dictum is that "Moderate power, with no accountability, corrupts absolutely." Of course Clinton was pretty corrupt to begin with. (Few Americans realize the degree to which Clinton has perverted the Constitutional division of powers by issuing Presidential Orders and from the Oval office, under a flimsy claim of America being in a current State of Emergency. In fact, we are currently under about 13 states of emergency, including one declaring that the current unrest in Haiti is a danger to Peace and Welfare of the American People. The upshot is that law is created by the executive office with no input from the legislative branch. "Stroke of the pen, law of the land, kinda neat." -- Paul Begala)Before I read this book, I knew Clinton was an empty suit, that he had no core values, that he would say whatever it took to get two different groups to vote for him, even if he was saying the opposite thing to each group. This is what Hitchens calls 'triangulation'. So one day he's promising Gays the World (and reaping excellent monetary support), the next he's careful to be seen going to church with the biggest black Bible he could hand-carry. One day he's preaching that Old-Time-Socialism to the liberal elites, and the next he's practically telling Cubans that Castro, who's the Left's last Living God, won't know what hit him when Clinton gets into office.Most people cannot hope to succede at triangulation. They either have too much of a conscience or they just aren't a good actor. It also takes some finesse and a media that will help cover for your constant lying. No conservative or moderate can use triangulation with the predominately leftist media. George Bush is still painted in the media with the 'read

WOW!

I'm familiar with Christopher Hitchens from his columns in Vanity Fair and have always found his reporting eminently readable and enjoyable. Not to mention hilariously funny. More important, I've found that he's been able to change my mind about political and/or social issues by presenting arguments and points of view I've previously not heard and therefore hadn't considered. (On most issues I'm right of center; Hitchens challenges me to see the other side.) Further, I find that Hitchens has a knack for finding topics (issues) other journalists either steer clear of or simply lack the objective eye to even conceive. In this respect, Hitchens is fearless and merits a great deal of respect. (His book on Mother Theresa and his recent piece on the state of Washington D.C. beyond Capitol Hill are emblematic of this.) This book is Hitchens at his best. Many years from now, after Clinton is a distant bad memory to us all, historians will be referring to "No One Left to Lie To" to gain perspective on the most arrogant criminal to ever occupy the White House. If you're interested in the presidency, government, American history, politics in general, or in need of an ironic, albeit cynical, laugh, Hitchens is your guy.