Because He Could

New York: ReganBooks, 2004. First edition. Stated. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/very good. 303 p. Notes. Index. Eileen McGann is Dick Morris's wife. This is the fourth book they have written together. Political consultant and former "friend of Bill" Dick Morris is making a mini-career out of writing about the Clintons, deconstructing what he sees as their many attempts to revise the historical record through their own writings. Morris's REWRITING HISTORY analyzed the many masks of Hillary Rodham Clinton, especially what he sees as her over-determined book, LIVING HISTORY. In BECAUSE HE COULD, Morris and his wife Eileen McGann see Bill Clinton's autobiography, MY LIFE, as the Rosetta stone that reveals a man who is a puzzle, a riddle, and an enigma, all in one. When he was a close advisor to Bill, back in their Arkansas days, Morris spent endless hours in his presence and thought he knew him. His Aha! moment came when he read MY LIFE. Using that book the way Freud used a patient's dreamwork, Morris and McGann dig into the historical record to counter and correct Bill's version and tease out a greater truth. Morris sees Clinton as a Jeckyll-and-Hyde personality, and, to mix literary metaphors, he considers Hillary to be a Dr. Frankenstein-like creator. This unified theory of "everything Bill" is a powerful psychological portrait and a fascinating reader's guide to Bill Clinton and his true life.