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Book Reviews: Fools for Scandal Charles F Bridgewater Review Volume 15 | Issue 2 Article 17 Dec-1996 Book Reviews: Fools for Scandal Charles F. Angell Bridgewater State College, [email protected] Recommended Citation Angell, Charles F. (1996). Book Reviews: Fools for Scandal. Bridgewater Review, 15(2), 29-30. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol15/iss2/17 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. ________________ L- _ exhaustion, even enervation, at the alleged der any criticism I might make ofhis prose ethical lapses. Despite the prodigious ef­ style. Primary Colors follows the primary forts to separate fiction from fact and re­ campaign of a small, southern state gov­ veal to us the inner workings of politics, ernor, Jack Stanton, with a prodigious ap­ they have rendered scandal and skulldug­ petite for doughnuts, dames, and destiny. gery dull, dull, dull, dull, or as my stu­ Sound familiar? Henry Burton, the nar­ dents would say BOOORRING. No longer rator and a young, black political opera­ BOOK the age of the last hurrah, we have en­ tive, joins the campaign as a trouble­ tered the era of the last harrumph. shooter and spends most of his time sup­ REVIEWS pressing brush fires that his candidate's Primary Colors: A Novel ofPolitics inflamed appetites ignite. He pretty nearly FOOLS for SCANDAL offers a perfect case in point. Published succeeds, though the novel concludes anonymously last spring by with presidency pursuit and paternity suit Charles Angell "Machiavelliana, Inc." this Roman a clef still equally likely. Stanton even seduces Burton:" He was truly needy. And now he Joe '~onymous" Klein, Primary Colors truly needed me" to remain with him. James Stewart, Bloodsport Primary Colors is the classic insider novel of who's in, who's out, who's up, Bob Woodward, The Choice who's down, who's hot, who's not. Gos­ sip, rumor, innuendo, lies, and evasions are the currency of political discourse. hose happy few American voters This, we're told, is politics, not the art of who took the time to vote this past the possible but the technique ofthe per­ TNovember 5 have re-elected Wil­ missible. Commentators have made a liam Jefferson Clinton the 42nd President commonplace ofthe observation that poli­ of the United States, the first Democrat, tics no longer offers issues and ideas but the commentators never tire of remind­ scandal and celebrity. Conditions have ing us, elected to a lame duck term since A\ovel of Polilies become such that the scandal need not FDR. Newly elected, and perhaps hoping even be interesting. Where's Fannie Fox to escape the comparison to his New Deal cavorting with a drunken Wilbur Mills in predecessor, the Presidentwasted no time the Tidal Basin? Where's Marilyn Monroe leaving for Australia to golf with Greg singing Happy Birthday to JFK in a a voice Norman and joke about outplaying him, ~AJ·OU that left no doubt? Quo vadis scandal? which, he commented, if anyone believed, Though we profess to tolerate almost ev­ he had some Arkansas land to sell them. ery manifestation of private behavior, we That Arkansas land, the blessed plot of cry foul the instant a public person inches Dogpatch called Whitewater, may very across the never precisely delineated line well, again according to the pundits and became an instant best-seller and subject separating private from public. Klein, by commentators, have Mr. Clinton facing ofunending speculation about its author's implying that most private political behav­ depositions, subpoenas, and indictments identity. The novel's characters, readily as­ ior is scurrilous--every candidate in his upon his return to Washington. sociated with their real-life counterparts, novel seems to possess a dark secretu posed no problem, but not until late sum­ doesn't advance our understanding ofthe This year's low voter turnout may mer did Newsweek's Joe Klein, after con­ problem. He, somewhat arrogantly I think, indeed owe something to deep voter wea­ siderable lying and deception, own up to tries to locate Primary Colors within the riness at having heard so much so inces­ authorship, thereby, perhaps unintention­ tradition of American political fiction santly about Mr. Clinton's bedroom and ally, illustrating that life does imitate art. originated by Robert Penn Warren's boardroom difficulties. Whitewater, Paula Having read the novel, I can pretty well All the King's Men. Klein's narrator Corbin Jones, the White House travel of­ understand what motivated Klein's ano­ Henry Burton echoes Warren's Jack Bur­ fice, the White House FBI files have made nymity, my students omitting names from den; Klein's candidate Jack Stanton recalls the executive mansion look like a dung their essays so as to sidestep responsibil­ Warren's Judge Stanton, revealed as Jack hill covered o'er with snow. Certainly the ity, but since Klein's reported earnings Burden's father. No one ever doubted that books up for review here, and numerous from Primary Colors approached six mil­ Warren fathered All the King's Men, others like them, have contributed to this lion dollars, I suspect he can bear up un- though he consistently denied any iden- 29 _______________---l _ tification between his Willie Stark and the with the savings and loan, real estate Foster, feeling personally responsible Kingfish Huey Long. Klein denied author­ wheeling and dealing. With no such as­ for failing the Clintons in the travel office ship but highlighted the political identifi­ sistance I concluded from reading disaster, wrote in his diary that the Wash­ cations. Like children, novels prosper Bloodsport that Bill Clinton (and ington press corps made a sport of ruin­ knowing their parentage. Klein has deliv­ America) would be better off today if he'd ing people's reputations. Stewart's final ered us a bastard. never met James McDougal: that Susan chapter, "Shrouding the Truth," portrays McDougal would definitely be better off if the press as a wolfpack so starved for news she had never met, let alone married, that it could and would tum any scrap, James McDougal; that Bill and Hillary substantial or otherwise--too often oth­ Clinton, notthe first, certainly not the last, erwise--into a story. In the case, for in­ made a bad real-estate investment; that stance, of Paula Corbin Jones, the press Hillary Clinton proved may have truly made something out of her intelligence by pulling out of the feed­ nothing, though many passionately-­ lot commodities trading which earned her more passionately than ever Clinton could $100K over a year's time; that Hillary have been with Jones--argue otherwise. Clinton proved I'm truly not sure what by Foster, trapped among people who failing to close out the couple's couldn't distinguish a mistake from mal­ Whitewater holdings; that the President feasance, took his life. That sad fact may and First Lady, for some reason, thought be buried with him. they retained some small measure of per­ sonal privacy and ignored David Gergen's Bob Woodward brought down a presi­ good advice to release all the Whitewater dent twenty-five years ago with Deep documents to the press, and then when Throat and All the President's Men. He's the media circus started, ignored Bernard been going strong ever since and has writ­ Nussbaum's advice to avoid a special pros­ ten The Choice to show the insides and ecutor; that too many Arkansans in the out of the 1994-96 primary campaigns. national administration invite compari­ The reader enters the candidates' smoke­ AUTHOR OF DEN OF THIEVES AND sons by over-sophisticated journalists to WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE filled rooms and heads. "Ego, therefore I Dogpatch; thatVincent Foster committed run" would appear the motto for most suicide. politicians caught in the Woodward head­ lights. The sub-text of The Choice, an all James Stewart's Bloodsport: The too obvious one, tells us there's really no President andhisAdversaries purports to choice at all. I personally don't agree and offer an even-handed and detailed exami­ think that the recently concluded election nation of Vincent Foster's death, the IHf C801C( offered voters a candidate, Bill Clinton, Whitewater land deal, the White House who understood the public's disenchant­ travel office affair, and the Administration's ment with big visions and presented a efforts to control and contain the press scaled down array of programs that might frenzy. Stewart claims that Hillary just be achievable in a(dare we hope?) bi­ Clinton's friend Susan Thomases first ap­ partisan congress. Who knows? Clinton proached him about compiling a book-­ will soon return home from Asia to face with White House cooperation--that the questions, the accusations, the inti­ would present an impartial account of the mations that he doesn't really stand Clintons' by then tangled affairs. Ulti­ for anything. He surely can be forgiven mately, the Clintons backed off, but for thinking "re-election is the Stewart went forward regardless. One's a best revenge." ~ bit uncertain about what motivated Stewart's 'this is a story that's gotta be told' enthusiasm; suffice it to say that the Charles Angell is Professor ofEnglish reader undertaking his labyrinthine book ought to retain services of a CPA to help 101 WOODWARD 30.
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