Author | Christopher Hitchens |
---|---|
Language | English |
Subject | Bill Clinton |
Publisher | Verso Books |
Publication date | 1999 |
Publication place | United States/United Kingdom |
Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
Pages | 122 (original hardback) [1] [2] 160 (expanded paperback) [3] |
ISBN | 978-1859847367 |
973.929/092 | |
LC Class | E886.2 .H58 1999 |
No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton is a 1999 book about President of the United States Bill Clinton by author and journalist Christopher Hitchens. It was first published in hardback by the New Left Review imprint, Verso Books. [4]
Journalist and essayist Christopher Hitchens's polemic on the political career of American president Bill Clinton. Hitchens examines Clinton's psychology and how it affected the then-president's record in war, acts that led to accusations of sexual abuse, his skill at "triangulation" and his relationship with his wife Hillary.
Discussing the book on the April 28, 1999, episode of Charlie Rose , Hitchens said he wrote the book to criticize what he perceived as Clinton's political corruption and conservatism, seeing them as mutually reinforcing. He also criticizes many American liberals for their support of Clinton.
Its re-publication in paperback in 2000 featured expanded content, a new subtitle (The Values of the Worst Family), and an additional image of Hillary Clinton on the front cover. [5]
No One Left to Lie To drew polarized responses. Referring to the work as "at once illuminating and depressing", Stephen Thompson of The A.V. Club wrote that Hitchens "ultimately does an excellent and revelatory job of not only breaking down Clinton's various alleged and provable offenses [...] but tying them together, making a case for how his much-discussed character flaws actually affect his ability to serve the people." [6] Nick Cohen of The Observer defended Hitchens's comparison of Clinton's America to a banana republic, and praised the chapter on the president's war crimes. [7] Edward Said of Al-Ahram Weekly praised the book as "By far the best of all the books on the Clinton era". [8] [9] Carla Power of Newsweek referred to the book as "witty" and "well researched". [10]
Louis Menand writing in The New York Times Magazine said that the book fed the reader's confirmation bias, that it served to "confirm every prejudice you ever had on the subject, plus a few you might not even have known you had". [11] [12] In the London Review of Books , Martin Jay criticized the lack of footnotes and argued that "the book is itself an extended op-ed piece, resting more on avid belief and strongly held opinions than hard, dispassionately presented knowledge, and liberally drawing on its author's formidable rhetorical skills to convince the reader. Hitchens's argument is based on a welter of assertions about Clinton's actions – many of which, I hasten to add, are all too plausible – that are never backed up in a convincing way by verifiable sources". [13] Charles Taylor of Salon accused Hitchens of making unsubstantiated accusations and wrote that "the damnable thing about No One Left to Lie To is that had Hitchens focused on [Clinton's triangulations], he might have produced a very compelling and very damaging book." [14] Karen Lehrman of The New York Times , while lauding "Hitchens's brave willingness to show all the sordid scenarios in which our emperor has removed his clothes", found the book emotionally undisciplined in the depth of its negativity toward Clinton, writing that the author "is appalled by virtually everything the President does." [2]
William Jefferson Clinton is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the attorney general of Arkansas from 1977 to 1979 and as the governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981, and again from 1983 to 1992. Clinton, whose policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy, became known as a New Democrat.
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Christopher Eric Hitchens was a British and American author and journalist. He was the author of 18 books on faith, culture, politics, and literature. He was born and educated in Britain, graduating in the 1970s from Oxford with a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. In the early 1980s, he emigrated to the United States and wrote for The Nation and Vanity Fair. Known as "one of the 'four horsemen'" of New Atheism, he gained prominence as a columnist and speaker. His epistemological razor, which states that "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence" is still of mark in philosophy and law.
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Juanita Broaddrick is an American former nursing home administrator. She alleged that she was raped by U.S. President Bill Clinton on April 25, 1978, when he was the Attorney General of Arkansas. Clinton declined to comment on the issue.
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Sidney Stone Blumenthal is an American journalist, political operative, and Lincoln scholar. A former aide to President Bill Clinton, he is a long-time confidant of Hillary Clinton and was formerly employed by the Clinton Foundation. As a journalist, Blumenthal wrote about American politics and foreign policy. He is also the author of a multivolume biography of Abraham Lincoln, The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln. Three books of the planned five-volume series have already been published: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel, and All the Powers of Earth. Subsequent volumes were planned for later.
Edward J. Klein is an American author and former foreign editor of Newsweek, former editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine (1977–1987). He has written about the Kennedys, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, and Donald Trump.
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Robert Sean Wilentz is an American historian who serves as the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1979. His primary research interests include U.S. social and political history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has written numerous award-winning books and articles including, most notably, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
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Deputy White House counsel Vince Foster was found dead in Fort Marcy Park off the George Washington Parkway in Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., on July 20, 1993. His death was ruled a suicide by five official investigations.
Christopher Peter Andersen is an American journalist and the author of 35 books, including many bestsellers.
Christopher Hitchens was a British and American author, polemicist, debater and journalist who in his youth took part in demonstrations against the Vietnam War, joined organisations such as the International Socialists while at university and began to identify as a socialist. However, after 9/11 he no longer regarded himself as a socialist and his political thinking became largely dominated by the issue of defending civilization from terrorists and against the totalitarian regimes that protect them. Hitchens nonetheless continued to identify as a Marxist, endorsing the materialist conception of history, but believed that Karl Marx had underestimated the revolutionary nature of capitalism. He sympathized with libertarian ideals of limited state interference, but considered libertarianism not to be a viable system. In the 2000 U.S. presidential election, he supported the Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. After 9/11, Hitchens advocated the invasion of Iraq. In the 2004 election, he very slightly favored the incumbent Republican President George W. Bush or was neutral and in 2008 he favored the Democratic candidate Barack Obama over John McCain despite being critical of both of them.
Christopher Hitchens was a prolific British and American author, political journalist and literary critic. His books, essays, and journalistic career spanned more than four decades. Recognized as a public intellectual, he was a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits. Hitchens was a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and a variety of other media outlets.
Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States (1993–2001), has been publicly accused of sexual misconduct, including rape, harassment, and sexual assault. Additionally, some commentators have characterized Clinton's sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky as predatory or non-consensual, despite the fact that Lewinsky called the relationship consensual at the time. These allegations have been revisited and lent more credence in 2018, in light of the #MeToo movement, with many commentators and Democratic leaders now saying Clinton should have been compelled to resign after the Lewinsky scandal.
Hitch-22: A Memoir is a memoir written by author and journalist Christopher Hitchens.
Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich is a 2015 New York Times bestselling book by Peter Schweizer in which he investigates donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities, paid speeches made by Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the state of the Clintons' finances since leaving the White House in 2001. It was published by Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins, and was adapted into both a film and a graphic novel.