New Documents Show Blunt Bill Clinton

New York Times: “Fifteen years almost to the day since former President Bill Clinton left office, a newly released batch of documents from his library offers a fresh look at his later years in the White House even as his wife, Hillary Clinton, seeks to win the post for herself. The documents transcribed phone calls and meetings between Mr. Clinton and Tony Blair, then the British prime minister and perhaps Mr. Clinton’s best friend among foreign leaders.”

“With bracing bluntness and a smattering of R-rated language, the private conversations reveal a president sometimes unseen by the general public, one who veered from wonky discussions of the Northern Ireland peace process to serrated assessments of his American political opposition. Like a time capsule, the transcripts capture the priorities and perceptions of the moment that, judged with the harsh certainty of hindsight, look prescient or wildly off base.”