Love him or hate him, (and I fall firmly into the love category), Clinton is one fascinating character. Reported by Bizzyville http://bizzyblogging.blogspot.com/

The Vanity Fair feature on Bill Clinton is an amazing read. Basically it's really meant to answer the question: "What happened to him?" How could he/his people let him go from being a party hero to such a douche (even though some of us already thought he was one)?

Obviously women, his competitive nature, and issues not being in the spotlight are mentioned, but there are other factors I hadn't thought of: post-bypass depression, possible mood altering problems from all the heart meds he's on, not being really familiar with the millenial campaign world (i.e. your speech is on youtube before you leave the venue), and, apparently, not being that nice to begin with.

Some quotes:

* “There’s an anger in him that I find surprising,” one senior aide, who has known and served both Clintons for years, told me this spring. “There seems to be an abiding anger in him, and not just the summer thunderstorms of old. He has been called into question repeatedly by top staff. The fact is, you can only weigh in so often on this stuff. It’s just a huge force of nature.”

* ...one of the president’s former assistants, who still advises him on political matters, had heard so many complaints about such reports from Clinton supporters around the country that he felt compelled to try to conduct what one of these aides called an “intervention,” because, the aide believed, “Clinton was apparently seeing a lot of women on the road.”

* One senior aide told me bluntly that Bill’s anger “has not served her well. That side of him feeds the worst side of Hillary. He does stoke her up.”

* Still, there is a repellent grandiosity about Clinton’s post-presidential style. Before he settled on more modest space in Harlem, Clinton had intended to rent the entire 56th floor of Carnegie Hall Tower, in Midtown, for roughly $738,000 a year. He changed course after a rash of sharp congressional and public criticism. Each year at Christmastime, Clinton sends out to supporters a slim, paperbound volume of his Selected Remarks, with a gold-embossed “Happy Holidays” greeting card replete with the requisite “bug” showing it was printed in a union shop.

* As president, Clinton often could not show grace in the smallest ways. He dithered about where and when to go on vacation, so that aides and Secret Service agents could not plan their own. He declined to release aides and reporters who had waited around all through a pointless Saturday of duty while he made up his mind whether to play golf (a game at which he has been known to cheat). He was never, ever, on time.

* But for a politician with so many admirers, allies, acquaintances, faithful retainers, and hangers-on, Clinton remains a profoundly solitary man, associates say, without any real peers, intellectual equals, or genuine friends with whom he can share the sweetest things in life. (The one who has always come closest, for better and worse, for richer and poorer, is simply too busy these days.)

Source: Written By Unterekless Thoughts http://unterekless.blogspot.com/