December 9, 2024
In this energetic if out of touch memoir, Clinton (My Life) paints his post-presidency as a whirlwind of globe-trotting, do-gooding, and private statesmanship. He recounts delivering humanitarian relief to disaster zones, undertaking informal diplomatic missions, and promoting innumerable social and environmental projects through the Clinton Foundation. Clinton still brims with empathy and exuberance (a William Jefferson Clinton day in Harlem “ended with all of us joining a jazz group in singing ‘Stand By Me’ ”), funny stories (Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi proposed a marriage between his son and Clinton’s daughter Chelsea, who nixed the union), wary defensiveness (he insists he never visited sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s island), and dazzling, somewhat iffy statistics (“More than 37 million people became actively engaged in efforts to promote climate change solutions,” he reports of a Clinton Global Initiatives program). But he’s tight-lipped about Democratic Party power plays—commenting neither on the party’s sudden promotion of Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders in the 2020 primary nor its hasty ouster of Biden in 2024—and his empathy evaporates when it comes to Donald Trump’s supporters, whom he characterizes as “mostly white working-class voters” mired in “rage-based tribalism.” Such musings feel ill-timed in the wake of the recent election, when Trump increased his share of voters of color. As a self-portrait, it amounts to an inadvertent illustration of how modern liberalism’s ardency and efficacy can be undermined by its elitism and myopia.