The Bubba Chronicles

Bill Clinton has been making the television rounds, holding forth on his global initiative, Barack Obama, health care, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

At the same time, a gusher of new Clinton gossip is erupting in the form of tape recordings from his presidency. That means the spotlight is probably about to swing from reducing world poverty to what he was really thinking about Al, Hillary and Monica.

This reminds me of the split-screen nature of the Clinton years that I spent so much time chronicling. The 42nd president would be meeting with world leaders, and the press would want to ask about Paula Jones or Kathleen Willey or some other bit of alleged tawdriness. Even during impeachment, Clinton stayed popular by talking about middle-class issues (remember V-chip?) while Ken Starr was spewing forth pornographic footnotes.

Why would Clinton spend hours talking into a tape recorder for his pal Taylor Branch, who is now publishing a book based on the conversations? The answer: He has always been fixated on his place in history. Remember all the talk about enshrining his "legacy" during his final year in the White House?

Having published his own sprawling memoir, Clinton now faces an intimate book over which he has no control. Branch is obviously a sympathetic author, but he's got Clinton's own words, and we all know how Bill loves to talk and talk, sometimes too candidly for his own good. So now we can all enjoy a brief wallow in the soap-opera presidency.

For instance -- in case you needed your appetite whetted -- Clinton explains his affair with Lewinsky by repeatedly saying, "I think I just cracked." And he takes a swipe at one of his tormentors, Maureen Dowd, by saying she "must live in mortal fear that there's somebody in the world living a healthy and productive life.'"

At Mother Jones, David Corn gets hold of "The Clinton Tapes" and describes a confrontational meeting with Gore that was just "weird":

"During the discussion, Clinton told his vice president that he was disappointed that Gore had not used him in the last ten days of the 2000 campaign in strategically significant states -- Arkansas, Tennessee, New Hampshire, and Missouri. But Clinton said he could understand that. What was more upsetting for him, Clinton remarked to Gore, was that Gore had not crafted a more winning message during the campaign, that he had not campaigned on any grand themes. Clinton insisted to Gore that he hadn't cared about how Gore had referred to Clinton -- and his personal scandal -- during the campaign. Paraphasing this portion of the conversation, Branch writes that Clinton told Gore, 'To gain votes, he would let Gore cut off his ear and mail it to reporter Michael Isikoff of Newsweek, the Monica Lewinsky expert.'

"At one point in the conversation, Gore told Clinton that he was still traumatized by having been caught up in the fundraising scandals of the 1996 Clinton reelection campaign, and he indicated that he blamed Clinton. Clinton could hardly believe this, and he told Branch that Gore was probably in shock from the election or unhinged, remarking, 'I thought he was in Neverland.'

"In this same conversation, Gore pressed Clinton for an explanation of his affair with Lewinsky, noting that Gore had stood by him throughout the ordeal without Clinton ever confiding in him. There was little to say, Clinton replied. But Clinton did say that he was sorry. Gore responded that that this was the first time Clinton had apologized to him personally. This angered Clinton, who countered that he was only repeating what he had already said publicly. Moreover, Clinton noted, Hillary had more to resent that Gore did, and she had just campaigned successfully for Senate by unabashedly citing the Clinton-Gore record -- not running away from it. Gore responded with his own anger, insisting that Clinton's character had been at the root of his failure to win the White House."

Melinda Henneberger of Politics Daily likes this part:

"We see him relishing George W. Bush's primary contest with John McCain in 2000: 'Both Bush and McCain hated him. He did not mean to take up for either one, but he thought the objective performance was clear. These two Republicans were mirror candidates. Bush was unqualified to be president, said Clinton, but he had shrewd campaign instincts. McCain might make a good president, but he had no idea how to run.'