Book Review: "Clinton: Portrait of Victory" by Rebecca Buffum Taylor, photographs by P.F. Bentley

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I used to be fascinated with the Clintons. From Bill and Hillary's criminal exploits and chronic victimhood, the former first family were like a grisly car accident that never ended, enjoying worship and idolatry from a fawning left-wing mainstream media. Clinton: Portrait of Victory is a breathless mash note to the then-new Chief Executive, chronicling Clinton's primary and general election wins. The entire book features black and white photography by P.F. Bentley, a photographer I am not familiar with, but who does a very good job.

Reading this book in one sitting, I was struck at the hopeful tone the pictures and essay author strike. Roger Rosenblatt's prologue does nothing more than beat the poor reader over the head about how important it is that the content is not ultramodern "color" photos, but black and white portraits. Rosenblatt equates Clinton to a god, and black and white photos to eternal soul-searching through the eyes of the photographer. The photographer had unlimited access to the Clintons and his bold staff, but the book does not provide any new insight to the family. Subjects wring hands, anonymous crowds surge to their media-made hero, and anyone who voted against him gets a little queasy. You could cut out the pictures of Clinton, insert any other uniparty politician, and you would have the same book. The essayist, Rebecca Buffum Taylor, breathlessly tells us how hard it is to campaign, how hard everyone worked, and how hard it is to win. Clinton is shown in candid moments with his family and staff, yet they still feel staged, as if the subjects knew this would make a really cool book if he won, and a tragic tome on honorable defeat if he lost.

Some of the captions are unintentionally funny. Printed below a picture of Clinton enjoying a big cigar, obviously not his last: "Clinton allows himself one small indulgence...". Ah, those small indulgences he would allow himself over the following two terms and beyond. This is a curio today, serving as an example that no matter what horrible things you and your family have done over the years, with the help of a complicit and credibility-absent "news media," simply lying about it and ignoring it really will make it go away. This really is a portrait of victory- Bill and Hillary Clinton pulled one over on every single one of us.