Rating: 
Summary: Who believes any thing that Woodward writes.
Review: After the book that he wrote on the CIA and a interview with a man that had been in a coma for a month, who believes these "qutoes' from all the people in the Clinton White House. I sure don't. The book reads like a novel and He gives the impression that he is the "fly" on the wall. Already the people that he says are his sources are already saying that it wasn't true. This book will be a bomb and should be in the "dollar bin" at your book store.
Rating: 
Summary: a new reading experience for me
Review: I wish less time had been spent on the Clinton section. Being as naive as I am, the two most disturbing thoughts that came to me during the reading were 1. how morally obscene it is that so much money is be spent on becoming the president of the United States, and 2. the vulgarity that our elected officials use in their language
Rating: 
Summary: pointless
Review: How does Bob Woodward get away with writing a book without a thesis when any freshman in college would be flunked? This was a pointless exercise in political gossip - and most of it, especially the tedious recapitulation of the Lewinsky affair, was not even new. Strangely and unforgivingly, Woodward hints at the pointed criticism of scandal-soaked press coverage and does not offer much of an opinion. It amazes me that he would not have anything to say. Perhaps it shouldn't; perhaps he's too caught up in beltway insider gossip to bother thinking about the significance of what he reports in the name of Truth. He's just stuck on boorish autopilot, more a part of the "establishment" that he once tried to bring down than ever.
Rating: 
Summary: A good historical read.
Review: After just finishing Shadow, I was struck by how Woodward threads the blight of the independant council law on the US presidency through each administration. The reactions and decisions made by Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton were clearly affected by the investigatorial climate set in Watergate along with the special prosecutors and independant councils who put their own prestige and interests beyond the point of rationality and above the interests of the nation. Woodward puts it all together with a perspective not presented previously.
Rating: 
Summary: Woodward does it again.
Review: Bob Woodward has done it again. Even if you thought you knew everything about the Presidential peccadillos of the past quarter century, Woodward provides new details and insight in "Shadow." In the crucible of Watergate Woodward learned how White House scandals should NOT be handled. Unfortunately, some of President Nixon's successors did not learn that lesson as well. This book should be required reading for all Presidential candidates.
Rating:
Summary: With the Step-On-All-Of-Us Book you will know the truth!
Review: How can this book be ceditable when important information was withheld from the people, the author is a journalist, to sell this book? This book tells us that this is not the most "ethical" administration at all. How can we believe the leader of the free world when he fails to tell the truth and how can we believe the press when they withhold the truth to sell a book?
Rating:
Summary: Gives Clinton a pass
Review: Bob Woodward's book is well-written and does provide some sense of the depths of Clinton's dishonesty, but it fails to fully expose the man, the way Isikoff did in his book. Our President is a vicious, abusive sociopath and deserves to be in jail, but Woodward makes it seem as though he was a victim more than a perpetrator. He does shed some light on the Starr investigation and the process that led to impeachment. If only Monica had been more forthcoming, if she hadn't shaded her testimony to protect Clinton, things might have turned out differently. If the media hadn't ignored Juanita Broaddrick anf forced Clinton to answer her charges his approval ratings wouldn't be as high as they are. Woodward doesn't really try to expose Clinton;like Monica, his loyalties are clear.
Rating:
Summary: Facts or fiction ?
Review: If I want to read great fiction I'll order a copy of "The Triumph and the Glory"! How many of Woodward's depicted conversations actually took place ? How do we know these quotes he relies so heavily upon to spice up his books aren't manufactured out of whole cloth ? We don't.
Rating:
Summary: Enough
Review: When is Woodward gonna quit? I mean, great, he did Watergate, "All the President's Men," wonderful. Now give it a rest. How many times can he rehash it?
Rating:
Summary: Enough inside tidbits justify book
Review: People here complain that the anonymity of Woodward's sources make it impossible to know whether to trust this book. Hey, when I'm told how Robert Bennett felt about a meeting he had alone with the President, I think I can guess who the source was. The fact is, Woodward barely hides his sources 99% of the time (sort of the way he hid who Deep Throat was-- the big mystery becomes a little less mysterious when you know that the garage they were meeting in was that of L. Patrick Gray's apartment building).This is not a great book, but there are more than enough tidbits to justify it, taking you inside aspects of the scandal that you knew only from the outside on TV and in the papers. Woodward is a plodding writer, but his ability to find the new detail and drop it tellingly (or killingly) into his deadpan prose is often wonderful. ("I've never worn Armani before!" is La Lewinsky's breathless response to being hustled out of a restaurant with William Ginsburg's jacket over her.) And by revisiting earlier scandals, he reminds us how predictable the seemingly unimaginable recent events really were-- his deft account of how the decent Gerald Ford was unable to communicate why pardoning Nixon was a good and unsordid thing to do, or of how the utterly dubious Hamilton Jordan-cocaine-at-Studio-54 allegations took on a life of their own as so many of the Clinton allegations would, really do provide a historical context for the last few years of legal and media madness.
|
