Poetic licentiousness: what does the president see in 'Leaves of Grass'?
| Publisher | Reason Foundation |
| Publication | Reason |
| Subject | Humanities |
| Format | Magazine/Journal |
| ISSN | 0048-6906 |
| Issues per Year | 11 |
| Volume | v30 |
| Issue | n3 |
| Published | 1998-07-01 |
| Role | Type | Name |
| Person | Beliefs, opinions and attitudes | Bill Clinton |
| Author | n/a | Nick Gillespie |
| Related Content | Type |
| Leaves of Grass | eNotes |
| Leaves of Grass | Salem on Literature |
You can't judge a book by its cover, but can you judge a man by the books he gives to his, er, inamoratas? That's a question raised by accounts that one of the gifts President Clinton gave to former White House intern Monica Lewinsky was a copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. As Newsweek reported, Clinton had "also happened to give Hillary [a copy] when they were courting."
Such consistency over the decades is hardly surprising: Seduction is a trial-and-error process, and smooth operators tend to stick with what works. (Casanovas also possess the ability to make the object of...
[This journal article is 1127 words long]
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