No One Left To Lie To: The Values Of The Worst Family (2000) - Plot & Excerpts
In his seventh year in office President Bill Clinton avoided impeachment. The final Senate votes weren’t close. Once again his well-oiled crisis management machine, with strong vocal support from his supporters on the Left, had rallied to save Clinton from the consequences of his actions. Some celebrated, some lamented, some MovedOn. Christopher Hitchens wrote this book.At the time Hitchens had not yet left the Nation and did not so easily defy political classification. He was a member of the Left attacking the Democratic president, and he had evidently been doing this sort of thing a long time. Interviews I watched and read conducted around the time of this book’s release suggested Hitchens had an unhealthy obsession. His response in at least one case was that perhaps this book was his own effort to get beyond this personal hang-up. Hitchens seems to have taken the cleansing task quite seriously. Whatever ammo was in the arsenal, he fired it. And he wasn’t shooting from some sexual moral high ground as so many were at the time. It wasn’t that Clinton was a serial philanderer and a cad—Hitchens himself left his own pregnant wife for another woman in 1989—it was how completely Clinton sold out his base. The subtitle of the edition I read references triangulation: paying lip service to the people that elected you while delivering to the opposition. When it works, and Clinton did it well, it’s an effective way to keep power, but why be president at that rate unless power itself is the principal goal? Hitchens spends almost no time parsing motivation. Instead he calls Clinton a liar, a crook and a rapist. These words demand substantiation, but even without footnotes Hitchens doesn’t struggle to support his depiction. A defender of women? Not Clinton who somehow time and again found himself on the wrong end of credible accusations of harassment and assault that only went away with threats from proxies or hush money. A defender of the poor? Not the man who pushed through more austere welfare reform than even the Republicans could have hoped for. A supporter of gay rights? Not the man who instituted Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act. A friend of labor? Not the man who signed NAFTA. Hitchens argues whatever Bill Clinton was, this was no case of Jekyll and Hyde, because there was no upside to this man. Defenders of Bill Clinton from the days of Gennifer Flowers up to his impeachment made a (talking) point of separating the man’s private life from his public office. It was said the only person he owes an apology to is his wife, and this whole thing is a distraction from the public’s business. Hitchens makes the obvious counterpoint that no one would be talking about any of this at all if Bill Clinton hadn’t forced it on us with his poor judgment and criminal behavior. It was Bill Clinton himself who thrust his private life into the public sphere, and we were all forced to pay his “cock-tax.” By the end of the book it’s hard not to feel pity for most of Clinton’s defenders. They clung to this man perhaps as much out of tribal loyalty as anything. Meanwhile, he had nearly infamous Republican strategist Dick Morris as his chief political advisor. The world lost Christopher Hitchens in 2011, but from the grave he anticipates future political developments with an unflattering chapter on Hillary. Bill Clinton came into office promoting his presidency as a 2-for-1 package deal, and Hillary deserves her share of credit and blame for her contribution. As her inevitable campaign gets off the ground, we should expect to see Bill return to the stage. His baggage, basically stashed in the Chappaqua attic for over a decade, will come with him. Coincidentally, Monica Lewinsky has returned to public life as well.
The late Christopher Hitchens was irreverent, gifted, iconoclastic and brave. No target too big, no challenge too great. Anyone who can take aim at Kissinger, Mother Theresa, Radical Islamists and who would volunteer to stand alongside and take a bullet for Salman Rushdie after the fatwa was handed down by Ayatollah, well, he either knows a good defamation attorney, has a good home security system or simply has no fears. So it is not surprising he takes on Bilary in this entertaining, savaging tome. The greatest fear any public figure can have is a Hitchens' profile. Start with the title ... No One Left to Lie To ... this is not Hitchens' trash talk but an actual quote from a Chicago Democrat who noted that Clinton had lied to a federal grand jury, a civil court, the Supreme Court, Congress, his cabinet and the American people. No one left to lie to. Hitchens occasionally slips off course, dispensing erudite highbrow quips and foreign phrases. His major flaw may be that he is a bit too educated, probably much more than most of his readers. Other folks from the Anti-Clinton camp dish out the dirt with dubious tidbits but Hitchens destroys with the sting of his overpowering invective. Not even a slick sermonizer like Bubba could have comebacks for these putdowns. He uncovers some very unsettling evidence of Clinton's betrayals and transgressions. Plus Bill and Hil come across as a very mean, spiteful couple. To the "forget the personal stuff he did a lot of good for the country" argument, Hitchens takes Clinton apart on the character and integrity issues. Using the Wag the Dog parallel he presents a strong case that Clinton's pre-emptive bombings of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, a Pakistan output and Baghdad with no consultation of the UN and his own Joint Chiefs were intended to distract national attention from the Lewinsky affair and his own impeachment proceedings. The case of Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally retarded black prison inmate that Clinton summarily executed in the middle of his first Presidential campaign (allegedly to distract attention from the Gennifer Flowers scandal) is especially troubling. I forgot that Clinton had once crashed a Jesse Jackson Rainbow Coalition rally during the first campaign to publicly denounce Sister Soulja for her rap lyrics. I guess she hadn't kicked into the campaign yet or accepted a high priced invitation to stay in the Lincoln bedroom yet. Right or Left, you should read this book to remind yourself just how sleazy American politics can be. And quite a few zingers land on the other side of the aisle with barbs at the likes of Jesse Helms and Dick Morris. RIP Hitch ...
What do You think about No One Left To Lie To: The Values Of The Worst Family (2000)?
I would have like about 50 to 100 more pages of introductory material surrounding the various 'triangulations'. You have to already know quite a bit about the stories the author journals about and unless you are a political science major and are still keenly aware of all the players, procedures and policies that played out during Clintons career - then this report is a bit of a whirlwind. In addition, it is desirable to me for the author to cite and verify from multiple sources where available all the information he is providing. It seemed to me to rest a bit too much on other reports that he reported on. Perhaps the information provided is true and accurate, but again, unless you have high political interests or involvement, where can the casual reader go to follow the stories more fully? Well written otherwise. I especially enjoyed the authors fluency and use of language!
—Glesnertod
It’s impossible to read this book and not come away convinced Bill Clinton is a rapist. Multiple women who didn’t know each other’s stories — women who were Democratic supporters from respected families — told similar stories of Clinton’s MO where he bit them in the same way as he forced himself on them. If that weren't enough, the manipulations, selfishness and selling out of liberal causes in order to secure donations are simply staggering, and Hillary was in the thick of it all. This is journalism as it’s supposed to be done: The pursuit of truth that exposes the sins of those in power, made all the more devastating — and all the more risky — because it reveals the deceits of those on one’s own side of the political spectrum.
—Mark
I was in the mood for Christopher Hitchens (I've been trying to space out my reading his books since he passed away) and, since I know how much he hated the Clintons, I picked up this one figuring it would be entertaining. And it was! Hitchens tears into the forty-first President with anger and righteous indignation. Many things I had heard before, but some of the most alarming I didn't, in particular the series of rape allegations against Clinton (at least some of which sound pretty credible, and Hitchens mentions that there were more but they weren't as verifiable as the ones present in the book). The wag-the-dog rumors of his missile strikes in the Middle East also seem to have some merit when looking into the background circumstances. There is also a chapter focusing on Hilary Clinton's campaign for the Senate in New York (the details of which I remember better, as I was a little older at the time), which I appreciated because I am very much not a fan of hers. Amidst his attacks, Hitch gets in a few really funny lines, as always. I'd say it was essential for Hitchens fans, but really, all of his work is essential for his fans.
—Alex Gherzo
