My arch-enemies at Newsweek’s newish Gaggle blog note the early posting this morning of Peter Baker’s What-Has-Become-Of-Bill Opus, which will be published in print this Sunday in the New York Times Magazine. The former president, it turns out, remains very much the same, though he seems to have traded the pure stuff for something more indirect. Call it methadone:
In between his globe-trotting philanthropy, speech making and legacy burnishing, Clinton is a regular at crafts stores around the world and can tell you the best ones in Hong Kong or Arusha. “They’re a great thing,” he said. “If all of your staff are women and all of your family are women, you just buy what you like and bring them home and then figure out who to give them to.”The store owner showed him a selection of shoulder bags for women. Clinton selected one he thought would be great for his friend, Frank Giustra, the Canadian mining mogul, to give to Giustra’s girlfriend. Clinton said he likes picking out gifts for his friends’ wives and girlfriends.