Sidney Blumenthal's

new book is excerpted in today's Salon.

A tiny snip:

"We reviewed the campaign and how it had ended: his frantic but failed efforts in its closing days to help Democrats win the Congress. Clinton wasn't angry, just disappointed, not particularly by his own result, but by the Democrats' lacking the majority. He still had to maneuver his way through a Republican Congress to reach his goals. But his demeanor was of one who felt far more secure and knowledgeable about wielding his power than he had in 1992.

"Clinton was frustrated but almost philosophical about the pseudoscandals. He knew that the Republicans knew they had been ginned up for political effect--and the Republicans knew that he knew that they knew. He related a conversation he had had with Senator Alan Simpson, the Republican from Wyoming, who was retiring.

"'You know there's nothing wrong that HIllary and I did in Whitewater,' Clinton told him.

"'Of course,' Simpson recalled. 'We all know there's nothing there. It was just politics. And it just go out of hand.'

"Clinton shrugged. He told me another story. He and Bob Dole, his Republican opponent in the presidential race, had become even friendlier after the campaign than they had been before, when they bonded over Newt Gingrich's antics. They were two veterans, no longer competitors, who had a love and respect for politics.

"'Let me ask you this,' Clinton said he told Dole. 'Do you think that politics are dirtier or cleaner since you came in?' Here Clinton was the younger man asking the older one about gritty reality before his own time.

"Dole, during the race, had billowed clouds of smoke about campaign finance scandals at Clinton. Now the race was over. 'Much cleaner,' said Dole. 'No comparison.' He related that politicians literally used to stuff their pockets with payoffs. He recalled long-forgetten Senator Herman Talmadge of Georgia, who had the misfortune of getting caught.

"Clinton wondered why politics was depicted as dirtier. 'What accounts for the difference?' he asked.

"'The media,' Dole replied. He explained his view that campaign finance laws gave the media endless grist for their mills, and the details were mostly blown out of proportion. So even if politics were cleaner, they were reported as dirtier."

Much, much, much more at the link.