Review: Funny Graham uses president as foil in 'Clinton & Me'

"Clinton & Me"
By Michael Graham
Pinpoint Press
Nonfiction/Columns
232 pages

By L.D. Meagher
Special to CNN Interactive

(CNN) -- If you've ever seen Michael Graham, you know the truth behind the bromide "looks can be deceiving." Graham has the outward appearance of a perpetual grad student - bespectacled, tousled, affecting a blue-blazer-and-chinos fashion sense. But if you look closely at his eyes, and at the sly grin that seems permanently affixed to his face, you'll get a glimmer that there's much more to him than outward appearances suggest.

Because, if you've seen Graham in one of his television appearances, on "Politically Incorrect" or "Hardball," you know that his innocent, late-Boomer laid-back appearance is a facade. Behind it is the mind of an assassin whose weapon of choice is words. And he wields his weapon with a skill rarely matched in today's climate of overheated political debate.

	RESOURCES
The Clinton years

Graham is an unabashed conservative. But don't let that lull you into a false belief that his opinions are knee-jerk attacks on liberals. In his syndicated newspaper column, his verbal thrusts are aimed at the heart of the Republican Party just as often and as lethally as they are aimed at Democrats. His second book, "Clinton & Me," is a collection of columns written during the era of Bill Clinton, a man Graham clearly despises. But that doesn't cloud his realization that he owes his career to the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

As he acknowledges in the book's preface, "How lucky am I to have a president who turns me into a successful humorist every time I quote him accurately?"

In truth, Graham would be a successful humorist without Bill Clinton's help. He is genuinely funny. What Clinton has provided him is a context that allows his humor to make a point. Of course, it hasn't hurt Graham that a deep well of anti-Clinton feeling has built up in the country during the past eight years. That sentiment may be the wellspring of his career, but the source of his humor is much deeper.

Graham is a Southerner, and proud of it. That doesn't mean he has a romantic notion of his fellow Southerners. Indeed, based on most of the evidence in "Clinton & Me," he doesn't have a romantic notion of anything. (The lone exception is a poignant essay on Christmas.) At his best, Graham launches heat-seeking humor missiles at every target of opportunity.

Examples:

• "While the voters have declined to take his campaign seriously, Alan Keyes continues to liven up the 1996 presidential race. ... Mixing a conservative, anti-government diatribe with a heavy dose of brimstone, Alan Keyes is the perfect speaker for any group of guilty, white Republicans (how redundant is that?) in need of a good spanking."

• "President Clinton's strategy of staying in office long after he has become a laughingstock is successfully demeaning the power of every elected office in the land. And I say "Hooray!" Newt Gingrich couldn't do this much damage to the federal government with [a] SCUD missile."

• "Bagels are an example of distinctly northern dining, like a bowl of clam chowder in New England or a bullet in the skull in New York's Little Italy."

• "It's not easy staying poor amid the current economic boom rocking America. You have to work at it. The job market is so hot right now that there are anecdotal reports of American high school graduates getting jobs that don't involve a drive-thru window."

Sensitive Graham isn't. He got fired from a radio job for a remark he made about the school shootings in Littleton, Colorado. It wasn't his first. A year earlier, after a school shooting in Oregon, he wrote: "One personal observation: A sure way to reduce the amount of youth violence is to stop naming children 'Kip Kinkel.' Stick some unlucky teenager with a moniker like that and you might as well hand him a rifle and point him to the nearest clock tower."

The most successful entries in "Clinton & Me" are those that employ his deadly wit to deflate pomposity, political, social and cultural. The least successful are those that express his pent-up rage and hatred of Bill Clinton, written in the volcanic atmosphere of the unfolding Monica scandal in early 1998.

You don't have to agree with Michael Graham to laugh at what he writes. But be forewarned. Don't let his gentle looks or Southern charm fool you. His wit is a stiletto and, as Billy Joel put it, "you really don't mind the pain."

See related sites about BOOKS

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.