Political Fictions

Last updated
Political Fictions
Didion-Fictions.jpg
First edition
Author Joan Didion
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre Essays
Publisher Knopf
Publication date
2001
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages352 pp (Knopf hardcover edition)
ISBN 0-375-41338-3 (Knopf hardcover edition)
OCLC 47913664
973.929 21
LC Class E839.5 .D52 2001

Political Fictions is a 2001 book of essays by Joan Didion on the American political process.

Contents

In it, Didion records the election of George H. W. Bush and his defeat by Bill Clinton, the Republican takeover of Congress in the 1994 elections, Clinton's impeachment, and the 2000 race between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

The collection includes two of the three essays previously published as the "Washington" section of After Henry written for The New York Review of Books between October 1988 and October 2000.

Content

President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, the intern's association with Linda Tripp, and their entanglement with Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr provides the book's central material. [1]

Didion evolves this into a close dissection of how the press casts and shapes the news, and helps promote a scandal. It is, as Didion writes, a story of "that handful of insiders who invent, year in and year out, the narrative of public life." [2] The narrative, she writes, "is made up of many understandings ... to overlook the observable in the interests of obtaining a dramatic story line." [3]

She implies that this shift to a more purely performative, logistically cynical, media-narrative determined politics is a functionally emergent, if possibly only semi-consciously intentional strategy to mask the American voters' disenfranchisement. As she mentions in the book's foreword, "We'd reached the zero-sum point towards which the process had been moving, the moment in which the Republican's determination to maximize their traditional low-turnout advantage was perfectly matched by the determination of the Democratic Party to shed any association with its low-income base." [4]

In a 2001 essay, Joseph Lelyveld, former executive editor of The New York Times , asked, "Who can deny that this is a reasonable view of reality?". [5]

Reception

In the Yale Review of Books, Jessica Lee Thomas wrote, "The scariest point Didion seems to be making is not simply that politics is a nest of lies, but that we buy into 'the story' like any good novel." In his 2001 essay in The New York Review of Books , former Times executive editor Joseph Lelyveld discussed "Didion's great virtues as a political writer," noting particularly her examination of the journalism of Bob Woodward. "For the sheer exuberance of the savaging, Joan Didion on the methodology of Bob Woodward's books is itself worth the price of admission." [6] He calls the book both a demonstration of how "in the end something like a narrative is foisted on the land" and "the freshest application of an acute literary intelligence to the political scene [in] three decades." In Salon , political writer Joe Conason noted, "It turns out that the man who used to run the Times is quite troubled by the quality of journalism during the era when he was in power, though we learn that circuitously, through his endorsements of many of Didion's complaints. He is plainly contemptuous of his old rivals at The Washington Post . He worries that readers regard him and his colleagues as part of a 'self-serving, self-satisfied, self-enriching establishment' that conspires in the creation of a trivial and misleading narrative of our national life. And most surprisingly, he suggests that there was substance behind suspicions of a 'vast right-wing conspiracy' against the Clintons. (Now he tells us.)" [7] In The New York Times Book Review , John Leonard wrote, "Didion is on pure Zen target when she tells us that American democracy has been abducted," and called the book "a splendid sermon." [8]

Conason, in his brief essay, examines implications in Lelyveld's positive reception of the book.

Although he oversaw most of the Times coverage of Whitewater, replete with distortion and omission, Lelyveld avoids mentioning how that fabricated "scandal" led into the Lewinsky affair. He praises Didion's able dissection of the Isikoff–Starr version, an unreliable narrative concocted by prosecutors and their helpers in the press. He doesn't dispute her observation that Washington's "self-interested political class," including the media, "smelled blood, Clinton's." And he forthrightly agrees that the real story was the independent counsel's "headlong attempt" to bring down an elected president, adding that Hillary Clinton's famous remark about a possible conspiracy "was too easily discounted."

What Lelyveld says next amounts to a confession of sorts. "Very late in the game, reporters started tracing the network of lawyers in the conservative Federalist Society, funded in part by Richard Mellon Scaife, that reached into both the Paula Jones defense team and Starr's office," he writes. Students of the subject will recognize how inadequate that description is, but it is apparently the best he can do.

The question he is uniquely qualified to answer, but does not, is why that fascinating and salient story was so assiduously ignored by the mainstream media, including the Times, for so many years. Lelyveld cannot quite bring himself to be candid on that sensitive topic, which is, ironically, the same kind of intellectual failure excoriated so passionately and so precisely by Joan Didion. It is astonishing, nevertheless, that he even tries. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monica Lewinsky</span> American activist and writer (born 1973)

Monica Samille Lewinsky is an American activist and writer. A former White House intern, Lewinsky gained international celebrity status in the late 1990s as a result of the public coverage of a political scandal when U.S. President Bill Clinton admitted to having an affair with her during her days as an intern between 1995 and 1997. The affair, and its repercussions, became known later as the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Starr</span> American lawyer (1946–2022)

Kenneth Winston Starr was an American lawyer and judge who as independent counsel authored the Starr Report, which served as the basis of the impeachment of Bill Clinton. He headed an investigation of members of the Clinton administration, known as the Whitewater controversy, from 1994 to 1998. Starr previously served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1983 to 1989 and as the U.S. solicitor general from 1989 to 1993 during the presidency of George H. W. Bush.

The Whitewater controversy, Whitewater scandal, Whitewatergate, or simply Whitewater, was an American political controversy during the 1990s. It began with an investigation into the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their associates, Jim and Susan McDougal, in the Whitewater Development Corporation. This failed business venture was incorporated in 1979 with the purpose of developing vacation properties on land along the White River near Flippin, Arkansas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clinton–Lewinsky scandal</span> 1998 American political sex scandal

The Clinton–Lewinsky scandal was a sex scandal involving Bill Clinton, the president of the United States, and Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. Their sexual relationship began in 1995—when Clinton was 49 years old and Lewinsky was 22 years old—and lasted 18 months, ending in 1997. Clinton ended a televised speech in late January 1998 with the later infamous statement: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." Further investigation led to charges of perjury and to the impeachment of Clinton in 1998 by the U.S. House of Representatives. He was subsequently acquitted on all impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21-day U.S. Senate trial.

Joe Conason is an American journalist, author and liberal political commentator. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of The National Memo, a daily political newsletter and website that features breaking news and commentary. Since 2006, he has served as editor of The Investigative Fund, a nonprofit journalism center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linda Tripp</span> American civil servant (1949–2020)

Linda Rose Tripp was an American civil servant who played a prominent role in the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal of 1998. Tripp's action in illegally and secretly recording Monica Lewinsky's confidential phone calls about her relationship with President Bill Clinton caused a sensation with their links to the earlier Clinton v. Jones lawsuit and with the disclosing of intimate details. Tripp claimed that her motives were purely patriotic, and she avoided a wiretap charge by agreeing to hand over the tapes.

"Vast right-wing conspiracy" is a phrase popularized by a 1995 memo by political opposition researcher Chris Lehane and then referenced in 1998 by the then First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton, in defense of her husband, President Bill Clinton, characterizing the continued allegations of scandal against her and her husband, including the Lewinsky scandal, as part of a conspiracy by Clinton's political enemies. The term has been used since, including in a question posed to Bill Clinton in 2009 to describe verbal attacks on Barack Obama during his early presidency. Hillary Clinton mentioned it again during her 2016 presidential campaign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impeachment of Bill Clinton</span> 1998 presidential impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, was impeached by the United States House of Representatives of the 105th United States Congress on December 19, 1998, for "high crimes and misdemeanors". The House adopted two articles of impeachment against Clinton, with the specific charges against Clinton being lying under oath and obstruction of justice. Two other articles had been considered but were rejected by the House vote.

<i>Living History</i> (book) 2003 book by Hillary Clinton

Living History is a 2003 memoir by Hillary Clinton. It was written when she was a sitting Senator from New York.

Joseph Salem Lelyveld was an American journalist. He was executive editor of The New York Times from 1994 to 2001, and interim executive editor in 2003 after the resignation of Howell Raines. He was a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author, and a contributor to the New York Review of Books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sidney Blumenthal</span> American political writer

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.

Gene Lyons is an American political columnist who has defended President Bill Clinton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucianne Goldberg</span> American literary agent and author (1935–2022)

Lucianne Goldberg, also known as Lucianne Cummings, was an American literary agent and author. She was named as one of the "key players" in the 1998 impeachment of President Clinton, as it was she who controversially advised Monica Lewinsky's confidante Linda Tripp to tape Lewinsky's phone calls about their affair. The 20-hour recording became crucial to the Starr investigation. She was the mother of Jonah Goldberg, a conservative political commentator, and Joshua Goldberg, a Republican nominee for the New York City Council.

The non-fiction novel is a literary genre that, broadly speaking, depicts non-fictional elements, such as real historical figures and actual events, woven together with fictitious conversations and uses the storytelling techniques of fiction. The non-fiction novel is an otherwise loosely defined and flexible genre. The genre is sometimes referred to using the slang term "faction", a portmanteau of the words fact and fiction.

Jeff Gerth is an American former investigative reporter for The New York Times who has written lengthy, probing stories that drew both praise and criticism. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for covering the transfer of American satellite-launch technology to China. He broke stories about the Whitewater controversy and the Chinese scientist Wen Ho Lee.

"Clinton crazies" is a pejorative term in American politics of the 1990s and later that refers to intense criticism of United States President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton. The phrase refers to Clinton opponents who, according to Clinton supporters, "systematically ... sought to undermine this president with the goal of bringing down his presidency and running him out of office; and that they have sought non‐electoral means to remove him from office." Such intensity of feeling existed throughout the Clinton years, leading commentators to wonder what was at the root of it. The term was especially used in reference to people and media outlets that focused on all manner of Clinton scandals and controversies, some of which had substance behind them and some of which did not.

<i>Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India</i>

Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India is a 2011 biography of Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph Lelyveld and published by Alfred A Knopf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Clinton sexual assault and misconduct allegations</span> Accusations of sexual misconduct against Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States

Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States (1993–2001), has been publicly accused of sexual assault and/or sexual misconduct by several women: Juanita Broaddrick accused Clinton of raping her in 1978; Leslie Millwee accused Clinton of sexually assaulting her in 1980; Paula Jones accused Clinton of exposing himself to her in 1991 as well as sexually harassing her; and Kathleen Willey accused Clinton of groping her without her consent in 1993. The Jones allegations became public in 1994, during Clinton's first term as president, while Willey's and Broaddrick's accusations became public in 1999, toward the end of Clinton's second term. Millwee made her accusations in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Benedict</span>

Elizabeth Benedict is an American author best known for her fiction, her personal essays, as the editor of three anthologies, and for The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers. Her novels are: Slow Dancing, The Beginner's Book of Dreams, Safe Conduct, Almost, and The Practice of Deceit. Her first memoir, Rewriting Illness: A View of My Own, was published in May 2023. She lives in New York City and works as a college admissions consultant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impeachment inquiry against Bill Clinton</span> 1998 U.S. presidential impeachment inquiry

The impeachment inquiry against Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, was initiated by a vote of the United States House of Representatives on October 8, 1998, roughly a month after the release of the Starr Report.

References

  1. Joseph Lelyveld, "In Another Country," The New York Review of Books, December 21, 2001. ("It's striking that Didion finds the capstone for her argument about a narrative-shaping political class permanently estranged from the country in the media splurge—let's resist the temptation to call it an orgy—of the Lewinsky affair. This 'self-interested political class,' as she here lambastes it, smelled blood, Clinton's. It was sure the President would have to resign or face impeachment. The country was mildly titillated, not uninterested in seeing how Letterman or Leno would exploit the scandal, but resolutely unwilling to accept it as a constitutional crisis. Noting that Americans now, on average, become sexually active about a decade before they marry and that extramarital sex is one of the big reasons for a high divorce rate, Didion finds wonderment and self-serving political calculation in the ability of politicians and journalists to act so shocked.")
  2. Joan Didion, Political Fictions, New York: Knopf, 2001. p. 22.
  3. Joan Didion, Political Fictions, New York: Knopf, 2001. p. 37.
  4. Didion, Joan (2002). Political Fictions. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 17. ISBN   9780375718908.
  5. Lelyveld, In Another Country."
  6. Lelyveld, "In Another Country."
  7. Joe Conason, "Remembering the Bad Times," Salon, November 30, 2001.
  8. John Leonard, "Who Stole Democracy?", The New York Times Book Review, September 23, 2001.
  9. Conason, "Remembering the Bad Times."