Two nights ago I finished reading Gary Aldrich's
Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House. Two nights ago? That means about 36 hours of mulling time. And I did mull. Actually I started mulling earlier than that. Sometime ago, probably towards the end of 2007, I first heard of the book. A tell-all about the Clintons in office? Sounded good. But I wasn't sure. I looked it up on barnesandnoble.com and read the first chapter. Cool. I ordered it, and it went on the shelf. Sometime last week it came off the shelf, and I took my first look at the physical book. Oops. I realized that if I had looked at the book in a real bookstore instead of a virtual one, I wouldn't have bought it. Why? The two glowing sound bytes on the back cover were by Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. What had I gotten myself into? Still, I'd paid my money; it was time to take my chances.
Turned out the chances weren't that bad. A lot of the book was fun. It's always fun to read stuff that turns people one doesn't particularly like into stark, raving jerks. Of course, disliking the Clintons didn’t translate into liking Gary Aldrich. By book's end, I disliked almost everyone touched by the book. But let's do it with specifics.
1) In a foreward … (Gee, Word doesn't know that word. Interesting.) Anyway in whatever the introduction to a book can be called, Michael Reagan carries on about the great and noble thing Aldrich has done by writing this book. "He knew that the vast machinery of a corrupted government and a co-opted press would be unleashed against him if he told the truth. But that didn't stop him. … That kind of courage is the mark of a great American," (page xvi) Oh, barf! Gag me with a spoon. I'll make up my own mind about Aldrich, thank-you-very-much!
2) Actually the book did lead me to change my opinion of one Clinton. I've always thought Chelsea seemed to be a pretty all-right kid, but Aldrich tells a tale of her, in conversation with a friend, referring to her security guard as a "trained pig." The friend leaves and the security man explains his job is to give up his life for her father—if need ever be. He goes on to say that her father probably would dislike her referring to the guards as "trained pigs." She answers, "I don't think so. That's what my parents call you." (page 90) So much for the Clinton for whom I had hopes.
3) Quite often, after Aldrich discusses horrible, job-related, security things the Clinton administration kept him from doing, he attempts to sum up the new folk in the White House. One comparison he made with the Bush I and Clinton administrations amused me. Maybe it represents the old give-enough-monkeys-enough-typewriters-and-one-of-them-will-write-a-Shakespearean-play theory Anyway, here's a comparison of Bush I staffers with Clinton staffers: "It was Norman Rockwell on the one hand and Berkeley, California, with an Appalachian twist on the other." (page 93) Damn! Cheney couldn't have said it better.
4) Of course in the paperback edition of
Unlimited, the reader hears stories of how the librul (thanks, Steve) media controlled sales and publicity of the book in order to protect the Clintons. All right, lots of people still believe in the liberal-media myth, but Aldrich's one face-to-face encounter with that liberal media was when he appeared on
This Week with David Brinkley. There Aldrich was questioned by the show's three liberals—Brinkley, Sam Donaldson and George Will. Say what? And you know what that liberal George Will dared to ask? "The heart of your book and what makes you think it's important—the security provisions at the White House—but before people can get to that, they have to answer a threshold question of 'Can you be believed?'" (page 198) How dare that liberal Will question the credentials of any author of any controversial book? Bad George! Bad liberal!
5) A final reaction to a specific:
A total stranger introduced herself, and invited me and my family to come to San Diego the Saturday before the Republican convention to speak to a group of six hundred high-profile conservatives, some of whom had served in the Reagan and Bush White House.
I have since joined this wonderful organization—the Council for National Policy, or CNP—and found a home with persons who love our country as I do. Founded by longtime Virginia conservative Morton Blackwell, CNP members are heads of major conservative organizations or major donors who support them. The rules of the organization do not allow the disclosure of membership."
(page 205)
Think they wear white sheets to meetings?
I'd love to hear Aldrich's take on the Bush II administration where, even if all rules of protocol are followed, the Constitution has been shredded.
