Wednesday, June 23, 2004

A narcissist's outburst: light on Clinton's character

Eric Johnson (Catholic Light [not Catholic lite]) sheds light on Bill Clinton's recent angry
outburst during a BBC interview with David Dimbleby:
I watched the first half of the BBC interview with Bill Clinton, which you can see here. You may have heard that he grows angry with the interviewer, and so I'll save you some time if you want to see it: skip to 19:00, and you'll see the lead-up. The outburst starts building at 24:30, with a crescendo at 28:50.

I thought of so many things while watching it, but I am so tired of thinking about that man that I cannot summon the energy. A few thoughts, though:
. . . The outburst itself was classic Clinton. The childish sense of persecution, the peevish remarks to the interviewer such as "people like you always help the far right" (was he even familiar with the guy interviewing him?) His descriptions of how "the other side" operated was the mirror opposite of the truth. He says the evil Republicans thought that politics was about power, and he thought it was about how power ought to be used. But if there is a modern politician who believed in acquiring power for his own sake, it would be him.
In another takedown of the recent 60 Minutes interview with clinton by Dan Rather, Andrew Sullivan, who, as one of my sons says, can actually write something decent when he's not busy promoting homosexual marriage, offers a remarkably insightful analysis of the mind and reasoning and psychology of the pathological liar and womanizer whom we once honored with the Presidency of the United States. Check out his analysis in the New Republic Online here.

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