Ulster Can Wait

"During the government shutdown in late 1995," he writes, "I'd had an inappropriate encounter with Monica Lewinsky and would do so again on other occasions."

Truly, that is one of the saddest sentences ever written. If I were the big spenders at Knopf, I'd have said: "Look, we understand that a politician with legal difficulties has to say things like 'inappropriate encounter.' And, if you want to write a memoir in dead pol-speak, that's OK, we'll pay you 20,000 bucks. But for 10 mil do us a favor and lay off the 'I had an inappropriate encounter' stuff. Shoot for more of 'the shaft of light from the dying sun through the Oval Office window caught the swell of her bosom as she slid the extra-large pepperoni across the desk. I knew it was wrong. I'd penciled in that evening for bringing peace to Northern Ireland, but what the hell, the two sides of that troubled island's sectarian conflict were separated by as deep a divide as the plunging cleavage now beckoning from her low-cut angora sweater. Ulster could wait.'" . . .

Mr. Clinton's book is a double flop: Either stake your claim to join the guys on Mount Rushmore or embrace your destiny as a guy who rushes to mount more.

Mark Steyn, in "The Wrong Way to Mount Rushmore" (The Wall Street Journal), reviewing Bill Clinton's My Life.

Comments

[stephenesque]

Personally, I prefer "inappropriate encounter" - that is an excellent phrase, carrying just the right amount of smutty weight. Steyn needs to let his imagination work for him a little.

[The Misspent Life]

I find Mark Steyn to be a genius. In his case quality and quantity are not inversely related--every piece is a gem. Would that I could be as prodigious as he!

I, too, like "inappropriate encounter." However, it sounds like something that happens while walking down the street. "Oh! Sorry ma'am, we seem to have had quite the inapproriate encounter. Here, let me help you clean that off your dress...no, allow me."