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Morris approaches his analysis by first sketching in Bill Clinton's family background and the events of his formative years. He then does the same for Hillary Rodham. The last and longest part of the book follows the two chronic overachievers as they make their way together through the political labyrinth that leads to the White House.
Initially Clinton emerges as a wholly admirable figure. In spite of his profoundly unsettling family life, he is a whiz in school and a charmer of teachers and fellow students alike. He is devoted to his free-living mother and fiercely protective of his younger half-brother, Roger. Even after his mother divorces (and then remarries) his alcoholic and abusive stepfather, Clinton remains dutiful, sometimes driving long distances to visit and cheer up the older man while he is being treated for the cancer that would ultimately kill him. As Morris observes it, no clouds form around Clinton until he begins evading the draft during his Rhodes Scholar days at Oxford. Young Hillary Rodham is pictured as an earnest, bright, and hard-working drudge, intent on gaining approval from a father who always denies it. By Morris's account, neither Clinton nor Rodham ever showed signs of being political ideologues, although both clearly believed that government was a socially beneficial institution and government service an honorable calling.
While he depicts Arkansas politics as being particularly vile and grasping during Clinton's rise to power, Morris sees nothing to applaud in American politics as a whole. He strikes out at both Democrats and Republicans for what he perceives to be their surrender to moneyed interests and demagoguery at the expense of the country's poor and middle class. Thinking thus, it is no wonder he is so ready to conclude that the Clintons -- like all other politicians -- are inevitably soiled in the process of seeking and holding office. However, his overall charges against the system are more persuasive (and better documented) than his specific complaints against the Clintons. And the complaints are legion: vote-buying, cronyism, cover-ups, arrogance, greed and duplicity at every turn.
Time and the seemingly endless parade of investigators may one day demonstrate that the Clintons are indeed as corrupt and self-serving as the author contends they are. To be sure, both are morally flawed figures in their evident willingness to transform themselves and their political stands for public acceptance and votes. But there are indications that Morris dealt with some less than reliable sources in reaching his final judgments. For example, he says he interviewed for the book more than 100 people who demanded not to be identified. That's fair enough. But how can we assess their knowledge, trustworthiness, and freedom from bias if we don't know who they are? Some of the sources Morris does identify-including political opportunist James McDougal and the Arkansas troopers who accused Clinton of serial adultery-have lied sufficiently in their contexts to make all their testimonies suspect.
Moreover, Morris draws extensively on Jeff Gerth's Whitewater articles published in the New York Times, a series whose conclusions about Clinton wrongdoing are disputed-if not dismantled-in Fools for Scandal. This newer book has a far more narrow focus than Morris's, intending only to show that the Whitewater affair by itself amounts to nothing hidden, illegal or shocking. To that end, Fools for Scandal traces Whitewater coverage from the Times's initial alarm-sounding in early 1992 through most of Alfonse D'Amato's recently concluded Senate hearing. In addition to offering his own interpretation of the various Whitewater changes, writer Gene Lyons provides the full texts of the Times articles in question: letters of clarification to Times reporter Jeff Gersh from Beverly Bassett Schaffer, the former Arkansas Securities Commissioner and Savings and Loan Supervisor accused of giving "special treatment" to James McDougal, the Clintons' associate on the Whitewater venture; a letter from the executive editor of the Times defending Gersh's reporting; and an edited transcript of a forum sponsored by Harper's magazine to examine the media's role in making Whitewater an issue.
Whether all this documentation exonerates the Clintons on this specific matter is something each reader will have to decide. But it unquestionably brings to light examples of sloppy and high-handed reporting. It also illustrates that once errors appear in respected publications they tend to take on a virulent life of their own.
Questions of motive and guilt aside, Partners in Power is a fascinating look at a couple whose grand ambitions for the Presidency were doomed to collide with America's growing skepticism toward all things governmental. Fools for Scandal helps explain why that skepticism is so persuasive.
Edward Morris is a journalist in Nashville.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.