Book Description
'Clintonism' is not an idea, or a program; still less is
it a principle. It represents what might be termed-were it
not for its murk-the distilled essence of consensus politics.
Unremarkable in its constituent elements, which are a mixture
of opportunist statecraft, crony capitalism, 'divide and
rule' identity politics, and populist manipulation,
Clintonism has nonetheless raised these ordinary practices to
the level of theory. It has succeeded, argues the author,
because of a stealthy appeal to the waning and insecure
forces of an American liberalism gone bad. Christopher
Hitchens followed Governor Clinton through New Hampshire in
1992, and has remained an assiduous student of his methods
ever since. In Ask Not, Tell Not, he profiles the rise and
decline of some prominent Clintonoids, from George
Stephanopoulos to the First Lady. He scrutinizes the debased
new language in which the discourse of Clintonism has been
couched, and proposes that, if successful, the Clinton
machine will become the model of pseudo-democracy for the
coming century.