Tina Brown does the Clintons (with forthcoming book)

COMMENTARY


It’s all over the news. Tina Brown, former editor of the New Yorker and another in a long line of authors of books about Princess Di, is writing a book about those darlings of the “intellectuali” The Clintons (the ‘T’ on ‘The’ is capped on purpose). I’m not really sure why we need another book aimed at the populace on a topic as worn as my 10-year-old Birkenstocks, but I suppose the publisher, Broadway Doubleday Publishing Group, thinks it’s a good idea. Plus the Clintons are, like Di, basic royalty I suppose. The book is scheduled for a 2010 release, by which time it is possible Hillary will be Commandress-in-Chief and Bill will be First Spouse.

I tried to read a bio of Hill. After buying the hardcover copy of Carl Bernstein’s A Woman in Charge, I made it through 39 pages. You can only spell ‘boring’ one way. I ranked it right up there with Ian McEwan’s Atonement. If I were placed in solitary confinement and had only those two books on the shelf, I might pick one of them up and try to read them again. Under no other circumstances can I imagine indulging either of these self-indulgent authors’ books. Both of them are just a shade more boring than It Takes a Village, a book that succeeded in convincing some that children are primarily everyone's responsibility instead of the two people who conceived them.

Of course, Brown’s book will be fodder for (1)library orders, (2)book clubs, especially those with female members, and (3)bookstores who hold a Tina Brown event whether she appears in person or on a video screen as so many tony authors do nowadays.

Meanwhile, Clinton fans can take comfort in knowing yet another tome recounting the dandy duo’s interests, pursuits and habits will be served up in glittering prose (Brown always writes glittering descriptives) within two years. The rest of us can go drown our sorrows in the nearest bottle of Scotch and close our eyes when we walk past bookstores in 2010.