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Clinton on Clinton: A Portrait of the President in His Own Words

by Bill Clinton

Clinton on Clinton: A Portrait of the President in His Own Words

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Clinton on Clinton: A Portrait of the President in His Own Words is a 1996 election-cycle compilation edited by Wayne Greenhaw, drawing speeches, press conferences, and statement excerpts from Clinton's first term into a single volume marketed at sympathetic readers heading into the 1996 reelection. It is a campaign book in the literal sense, assembled and rushed to market by August of that year.

What makes the book interesting to read in 2026 is the gap between this curated version of Clinton's first-term voice and the version that appears in his 2004 memoir My Life. The 1996 compilation foregrounds the centrist-policy speeches (NAFTA, welfare reform, the 1994 crime bill) that Clinton himself would treat with more ambivalence eight years later. The compilation work itself is competent rather than thoughtful.

Recommended only for serious students of the Clinton presidency and for readers interested in books like Clinton on Clinton as historical document of a campaign-cycle artifact. The 2004 My Life is the better-and-fuller version of the same material. Three stars, mostly for archival value.

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