Who would have guessed that Taylor Branch —Taylor Branch — had umpteen hours of secret tapes of Bill Clinton during his Presidency chewing over his plans and setbacks. History narrated as it happens by a master (but exhausted) talker. And now it's going to be a big book: The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President.
It seems that Branch — an amazing historian and writing — had been friends with Clinton in their salad days, but they had drifted apart. Then Clinton pulled him back into the orbit, in the hopes he would become the court historian. And from the sounds of it, the President got both more and less than he wanted.
