Free Republic

Desperate to undo the damage of its first review -- Michiko Kakutani described Bill Clinton's book as "eye-crossingly dull" and "self-indulgent" -- the New York Times scrambled to post on its website a positive review of the book this week. The Times found for the task Larry McMurtry, a fiction writer, a spinner of tall tales like Lonesome Dove. In other words, a peer appropriate to Bill Clinton. According to press reports, McMurtry's review wasn't supposed to appear until July, but the Times had to slap it up quickly to stop the bleeding from the Kakutani review. McMurtry hails the...

As his celebrated 1993 speech in Memphis to the Church of God in Christ demonstrated, former President Bill Clinton is capable of soaring eloquence and visionary thinking. But as those who heard his deadening speech nominating Michael Dukakis at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta well know, he is also capable of numbing, self-conscious garrulity. Unfortunately for the reader, Mr. Clinton's much awaited new autobiography "My Life" more closely resembles the Atlanta speech, which was so long-winded and tedious that the crowd cheered when he finally reached the words "In closing . . ." The book, which weighs in...