Rating: 
Summary: A must for any student of history or politics
Review: Woodward's "Shadow," was, indubitably, the best book I have read in several years. It examined, with incredible detail and authority, the sundry effects of Watergate on the American presidency. Since Nixon's resignation, Woodward shows, the American public has viewed every leader as thoroughly corrupt and intent only on serving their own self interests. With painstakingly accurate and unbiased facts, Woodward convinced me that most of the post-Watergate presidents were victims rather than villians. President Reagan, for example, likely had little if any awareness of the Iran-Contra operation at the time it was executed; President Clinton has been plagued incessantly by unvalidated insinuations and malicious investigators hoping to serendipitously stumble upon some wrongdoing, e.g. Whitewater, where none existed. Overall, Woodward seems to suggest that the expiration of the independent counsel statute was overwhelmingly positive and that, in the future, the public should cease its endless cynicism and regain its erstwhile sentiments of respect for our leaders. Regardless of your views of my interpretation, I believe "Shadow" is one the most informative, and simultaneously engrossing, reads you are likely to find.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but biased
Review: Woodward provides exellent backing for his theory that Watergate has stained the presidency, however, the book merely touched on Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush while devoting most of its text to Clinton. The dirt on the Clinton scandals is all there, and you'll be captivated unless you're tired of the media coverage. Especially interesting are the details on how the Clinton-Starr battle turned personal.My only complaint is that Woodward makes it clear that he has lost all respect for the office of the presidency. While that may be due to Nixon (Woodward's first subject), I feel that Woodward should stop looking for things to dislike about each president and present his report in an unbiased fashion. Each of these presidents has done good (some more than others) and Woodward would do well to remember that. A good read, however, I found it difficult to stomach the constant harping on the distinguished men whom I elected to serve my country.
Rating: 
Summary: The effect the Independent Counsel had on the Presidency
Review: I think this is a pretty good book on the Presidency of the United States since Watergate. Of course, Mr. Woodward played a significant role in reporting Watergate and has written extensively about the Presidency since then. This book examines the various difficulties and scandals the Presidents since Nixon have had and the shadow the legacy of Watergate fell on those events and affected how they were handled and perceived. The most significant event in the way these things played out was the creation of the Independent Counsel. While I was never wild about the Independent Counsels before I read this book, I have come to the conclusion that it was an awful idea and an abuse of our Constitution. While the office was designed to not be accountable to the President to afford a credible ability to investigate the Executive Branch, it has no reasonable boundaries or limits and is not subject to any of the checks or balances that enable our government to function as reasonably as it does. Freed from any limits of time, budget, or public accountability it is not surprising that many, but not all, of these Independent Counsels end up pursuing all kinds of things apart from what they were originally charged to pursue. My chief conclusion from reading this book is that this was a bad law with worse execution and should never be revived. Good riddance! Half of the book is devoted to the Clinton scandals. The other large section is Iran-Contra. How you perceive Woodward's balance and objectivity will be colored by your personal politics. I have to admit that I found my own reading of the book varied at different points because of my own view of these scandals and whether or not I agreed with Woodward or felt that his own political biases were creeping in (which is impossible to avoid). But all-in-all there is a lot of good reporting here and is written in way that is easy to read. There are lots of endnotes to document the sources for the various statements, meetings, and conclusions drawn. I recommend the book highly.
Rating:
Summary: The Diminished Presidency
Review: Bob Woodward who wrote "All the President's Men" and "The Final Days" has taken another stab at chronicling the importance of the Watergate Scandal in "Shadow". This book looks at the importance of Watergate in the context of subsequent presidencies. There is alot of detailed recitation of scandals in different Presidential administrations here. They range from the absolutely silly (the investigation of whether Hamilton Jordan, Jimmy Carter's Chief of Staff, snorted cocaine) to important ones (such as Iran-Contra under President Reagan and recently the Monica Lewinsky affair under Bill Clinton's Administration) Watergate created a new climate for Presidents that is both good and bad. The good part is that Presidents have to take into account the fact that failure to behave ethically in office may result in resignation or impeachment. The bad part is that much of the modern presidency is now focused on "damage control" and avoiding scandals rather than simply governing. Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton all learned that media scrutiny is much greater and the Independent Counsel Law could be used to conduct witch hunts rather than investigate wrongdoing. In essence, Woodward sees good in what has occurred, but also argues that the American Presidency is now a diminished office because of all the scrutiny from the press and legal profession that is a direct result of Watergate and the enactment of the Independent Counsel Law. My greatest complaint about Woodward's book is that he could spend more time analyzing and less time simply regurgitating history. He tells us what happened, but fails to suggest alternatives or ways that we could have both ethics in government, yet avoid diminishing the powers of the Presidency. Admittedly, this might be difficult. However, Woodward doesn't even make the effort. His failure to really make an attempt to do so a serious disappointment to me as a reader. The redeeming feature of the book is that it is good, solid reporting and accurate contemporaneous history. Those who are interested in a behind the scenes look at modern presidential scandals should read this book. Mark
Rating:
Summary: Thorough study of scandal and its effects
Review: Scandals have been part of the American political landscape throughout our history, but it was Watergate that became the precedent for the scandal so large that it could bring down the presidency. Bob Woodward's book Shadow is an examination of how Watergate affected the presidencies of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton. Watergate clearly affected Ford and Carter the most: Ford, because of his pardon of Nixon and its consequences, and Carter, whose promise of total ethics unraveled with scandals involving Bert Lance and Hamilton Jordan. Reagan and Bush's Iran Contra scandal is also discussed, with all of the details and questions over what Reagan knew or didn't know. The second half of the book is devoted to the various scandals that have affected the presidency of Bill Clinton. The narratives are presented in thorough detail, often with sources who are not named. This is the "Woodward way", and although many have questioned his methods, it definitely provides for interesting material.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, disturbing look at the presidency
Review: Heard the taped version of SHADOW: FIVE PRESIDENTS
AND THE LEGACY OF WATERGATE by Bob Woodward . . . it
is a very interesting, as well as disturbing, look at what it takes to be president in this country. Because of Watergate, the press no longer takes a "hands off"
approach to what is being done in the White House . . . consequently, Woodward points out that all presidents--from Nixon through Clinton--seem to have had lapses in judgment, during which they either did not tell the truth or had others help cover it up for them. I got a fresh perspective on Ford's pardon of Nixon, and though
I had thought I had known a lot about the Monicagate morass,
I now know even more (including a lot of dirt not uncovered
elsewhere). Fortunately, Woodward is only heard at the beginning and
the end . . . he does not have a great speaking voice, that's
for sure . . . the rest was narrated by James Naughton . . . his
impressive baritone voice made for easy listening . . . moreover, he actually sounds like many of the characters he portrays, such as James Carville, Ronald Raegan and Jimmy Carter.
Rating:
Summary: An important bridging of common sense psychology & politics
Review: The first line in Micahel Lind's deeply provocative treatise on the modern American conservative movement UP FROM CONSERVATISM kicks you in the stomach, regardless of your political beliefs:"American Conservatism is dead." Like the political Nietzsche he is, Bob Woodward, in SHADOW: FIVE PRESIDENTS AND THE LEGACY OF WATERGATE, finishes that statement in this 500-plus page tome by saying, essentially, "...and Nixon has killed it." None other than Gore Vidal has nicknamed America the *United States of Amnesia* so often that the trueness of it stops it from being funny. Yet any psychologist worth their salt will tell you the many reasons why memory, in a person or culture, is often the first thing to be EXORCISED. It isn't always something that leaves willingly. Bob Woodward brings common sense psychology--memory--back into the discussion of what has happened to the presidency, and America's relationship to it, since the quasi-psychotic Nixon disgraced it in the early 1970's. He reveals this with SHADOW, not by calling out and judging the Nixonians from the perspective of opinion, but via showing and analysing actual history. The degree to which the entire concept and institution of the American Presidency has been almost irrevocably debilitated by Watergate is the subject of this book, and it cannot be ignored in our time after reading it. In revealing the new cynically invasive psychic architecture of American politics, built on the destroyed remnants of the trusted Tao of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, LBJ and Kennedy, he offers a glimpse of what Watergate symbolized about Nixon's soul. And what that tortured soul has meant for American culture today, in the 21st century. Doing this not only puts Monica Lewinsky into a less mythological perspective. It also puts all of the machinations that now go into politicking for your right to actually BE President long after you have been elected--Republican or Democrat--into a new, important, and ultimately saddening perspective. (The degree to which her very existence in the public mind is shown to be part of a desire of Clinton's powerful enemies to erase Nixon's legacy from the annals of history with the impeachment of a Democratic President is brilliant. That omen is ironically overshadowed, however, by the way he explains the uncontrollable political Frankenstein that was the Office of Independent Counsel. This evil genie, with its granted near absolute power, is what Clinton let out of the bottle; a bottle that, after Watergate, was thought never to be opened again. Without it, the reincarnation of the Salem witch trials with Kenneth Starr and the pornography of his reports would never have occurred.) I happened to have picked up this book to read after reading Conason and Lyons' THE HUNTING OF THE PRESIDENT--something which truly must be read in tandem with this if one is to really understand the social forces that also took center stage in the Clinton drama, despite their desire to still remain hidden. As such I found the Clinton chapters of SHADOW a rehash of previously digested material. SHADOW nonetheless, with its detailed meticulous analyses of the weaknesses and foibles of Ford, Carter, Regan, Bush and Clinton, and how these weaknesses became debilitating through the sins of their Watergate predecessor Nixon, cuts to the quick of our social consciousness today. It is so important, it seems, for the American public not to have a historical perspective on anything that happens in politics. As if the pretense that all of it has no precedence somehow makes it more real or important--or worse, justifies an often hypocritically manufactured moral outrage. (I'll never forget the rage Clinton-haters would express at the mere mentioning of Sally Hemmings [Thomas Jefferson's slave mistress], Judith Exner [one of Kennedy's mistresses] or the broken first marriages of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich, seemingly defending their right to believe Bill and Monica had ushered in the seventh sign of the Book of Revelations with their original sin.) Woodward's SHADOW destroys any validity that way of thinking had, and redefines the desire to be willfully politically/historically ignorant (as if ignorance buys someone moral virtue) as anything but sane. The book has a way of revalidating the entire concept and discipline of psychology, and its ability to explain the source of today's events, as it gives new strength to the battle weary line of Santayana: "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Anyone interested in a deeper perspective on the Clinton presidency, the presidency of both Bushes, and modern American culture would highly benefit from this powerful trinity: Michael Lind's UP FROM CONSERVATISM, Conason and Lyons' THE HUNTING OF THE PRESIDENT, and this book. Woodward's SHADOW is extraordinarily well written, tremendously informative, and, even with its inevitable biases both in favor of journalism as it is presently practiced (Consaon and Lyons are fortunately not so kind--particularly to the Washington Post) and against the possibility of a president after Nixon inspiring the kind of faith and hope that those like FDR and Kennedy did (though he is almost right, Conason, Lyons and Lind will explain clearly why it could have happened but would not be allowed in Clinton's case), Woodward's masterful writing and storytelling skills hide a multitude of sins. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Intelligent Work
Review: Woodward's SHADOW is a first-rate political reporting and a study of leadership styles from Nixon to Clinton. Accounts and evaluations contained are always intriguing, frank and intelligent. Woodward's treatment of his subjects is brutally honest, yet fair and balance. The analysis and judgement of their (subjects) successes and failures are thought-provoking and, seems, very objective. The chapter on Clinton (covering half of the book) is a flawless epic of this person's political skills and undisciplined personality, and the treatment of the author(as mentioned by Helen Thomas, UPI) "poignant and painful". The book's footnote section is incredible, and the epilogue worthy of one's critical analysis. Like his other work, the best-selling ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, this one is an explosive and highly fascinating expose of human weaknesses. Lastly, this is an instructive research on leadership, and an excellent, valuable book on American politics
Rating:
Summary: Overall good, but too soft on Clinton
Review: Woodward does an exceptional job of covering the impact of Watergate on the Nixon-Bush administrations. However, he is far too easy on the Clinton administration. If we are to believe the Woodward account, every Clinton scandal was one big misunderstanding after another. Travelgate...Filegate...Fostergate...Paulagate...WhiteWatergate...Monicagate. The Clintons were being up front, but poor Starr and the Republicans just kept misinterpreting everything. Nice try, Bob. But it just don't add up. If this had happened just once or twice, that would be explainable. (After all, every administration has some bad apples. That's just a fact of life.) However, the plethora of scandals reflects a systemic problem in the Clinton White House. A fundamental rule of leadership (to quote John Maxwell) is that WHO YOU ARE is WHAT YOU ATTRACT. If Clinton had that many people in his inner circle who were so dishonest, then that reflects his own ineptitude as a leader. That is the dirty secret: Clinton was extremely talented and intelligent, but lacked the character befitting a great leader. This is why his presidency will go down as a great case of "what could have been..."
Rating:
Summary: Great Detailed Info
Review: Ok, I admit it; I am a big fan of Woodward. I will read everything he puts out and probably enjoy it. With that being said here is another book of his that I will profess to really enjoying. For my money he is the best political writer in the business today. He has so many contacts that many times in reading the book you could swear he has the White House bugged. This book tries to tie in the Presidents sense "Tricky Dick" and draw a parallel to how they have all had some form of a "scandal" during there terms. With my professed admiration for Woodward it pains me to say this, but the premise does not really work in the book. He details the issues each of the Presidents have faced but he really does not tie them together in the way I think he wanted to, which is that the power and complexity of the President almost assures a problem. Where I think he could have tied the theory together is that the press is all after the next "issue gate", and they more then anyone drive this issue of scandal journalism. With this being said, you get all the standard Woodward items with the book, great details, wonderful he said - she said conversations that really make you feel like a fly on the wall, an easy to follow and well laid out book. The real gems of the book are the details of how the Reagan and Bush Presidencies handled Iran - Contra and what is probably the best record of the last two years of the Clinton scandal Fest and "Monica-gate". This is an interesting book that I really enjoyed. If you like Woodward you will like this book, if you are interested in Iran - Contra or the last two years of the Clinton presidency then this is also a good source of information.
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