Scandalmonger

Rating:
Summary: An intriguing, difficult read
Review: William Safire attemps in his latest tome, "Scandalmonger" to bring us to the 'gates' of the founding of our country by illuminating scandals that plagued the Founding Fathers. Ah, to sit back and reminisce about the olden days, and how perfect everything was back then. Balderdash. As Safire points out, early American politics were strife with gossip, rumors, and a media out for blood. It's makes that whole Clinton thing pale in comparison to adulterous behavior, extortion, and other juicy tidbits which shaped our destiny, almost bringing down the Nation as well.

Not five stars because of a challenging read, Safire often sprinkles names throughout the story that I found sometimes confusing. For the casual history buff, or the more experienced devotee, "Scandalmonger" is sure to please!

Rating:
Summary: Good for History Buffs
Review: William Safire would have you believe that today's political world is tame when compared with the formative years of our country when in actuality there is no comparison between a country trying to define itself as a new form of democratic republic and the current number one power in the world. You have to give Safire credit, though. He knows his history and knows his topics. I don't know that I would go so far as to label him a scandalmonger in his own right, but knowing Safire's own stance on certain issues certainly colors how the novel can be interpreted. It seems so obvious that he would would try and create an allegory for the current administration's foibles, but in a strange way his failure to fully connect those parallels succeeds in making his novel more compelling. We all know more than we need to know about scandalmongering in the 20th century, so why not allow ourselves to recognize that the 18th was no better and probably worse?

The best thing to be said about the novelization is that it works on 2 different levels. If you are a casual reader whose interest in history never made it out of high school classrooms, the book is a decent enough story with enough subplots and intrigue to keep you going. However, if you are keenly fascinated with history and American history in particular, then the book takes on a whole new meaning. If you are at all familiar with the lives of the men it portrays (Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, etc.) then you bring your own perspective to the story. It's a kind of automatic foreshadowing, because if you know something about what is supposed to happen you can read between the lines to see how the events Safire highlights lead up to those key moments that are more familiar.

Whether you agree with Safire's politics of the right or not (and I happen to be in the latter category), he does put together an interesting narrative. It won't change any preconceived notions you have about the Founding Fathers, but it will prove mildly educational while being entertaining. Any lover of history will enjoy it, and even those with fleeting interest will as well.

Rating:
Summary: The more things change the more they stay the same
Review: William Safire's novel Scandalmonger brings to life the clash between the press and politicians two centuries ago, and in doing so holds up a mirror to our own times. It is not likely to be a surprise to readers that the Founding Fathers were as subject to human failures as politicians in our own time or that the press, then as now, was more concerned with sales than with truth. What is fresh and novel about this book is the focus on James Callender, the "scandalmonger" whose writings break the stories that impact the political fortunes of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, and Maria Reynolds, who was central to both one of the scandals (having had affairs with both Hamilton and Burr) as well as becoming central to Callender's bleak life. What fascinated me was how unbelievable, yet demonstrably true, this story is. Relying heavily on letters, journals and published documents of the time, Safire recreates a story of clashing political ambitions, illicit sex, corruption in high places, coverup, deception and murder.

Callender, a refugee from press persecution in Scotland and down on his luck, is selected to break the story of Alexander Hamilton's supposed financial impropriaties at the Treasury Department. This becomes a fascinating story when the "facts" of the case intersect with Hamilton's secret sexual relationship with the wife of his supposed accomplice and he allows the sexual scandal to be used to coverup (and "explain") the financial one. To oversimplify the book's complex story lines, Callender goes from success with his Hamilton expose to being the subject of government pressure to silence him. The Sedition laws are passed. He is charged, tried and imprisoned, but this just makes him more popular and his writings, secreted out of prison by visitors, are published and republished across the country. He believes that when Jefferson is elected President, due in no small part to Callender's efforts at embarrasing the party then in power, that he will be rewarded and has even picked out a modest post that would grant him and his young children a predictable income. But that is not to be, and believing himself abandoned by those he had worked so hard for, he turns his pen against them. The result is the Sally Hemings revelations that charge Jefferson with having a black mistress with whom he fathered many children. That story, of course, continues to this day. The story of James Callender ended shortly after and until this book was forgotten except for historians.

Unlike one of Gore Vidal's historical novels that lavish attention on character and place, this book is long on talk and short on description. But the talk, because it is based so often on the character's actual words from letters or diaries, is often quite good. The overall style is somewhat stiffer than I would have expected but perhaps Safire felt he had to try and match the tone of the character's conversations. The portaits of both Hamilton and Burr that emerge are fascinating, but Jefferson and Washington both come off seeming rather cool and remote, perhaps both, in their own ways, rather Machiavellian.

This is a book I expect to reread from time to time. For anyone interested in the history of American politics, or in seeing a more human side of our Founding Fathers, I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Federal Period Politics Made Fascinating!
Review: Wow! Want to get beneath the saccharine veneer most historians put on America's Federal Period? Want to see politics-as-usual so bad that you'll think today's politics-as-usual is positively altruism? Want to find out what life was like for newspaper editors in the days when truth was no defense against libel suits? Read Safire's Scandalmonger. Using their own letters and speeches, Safire gives us the Founding Fathers as we never saw them in our school rooms: the proud George Washington obsessed with his public image, the erratic and volatile John Adams, the dreamy and sensual Thomas Jefferson, the practical and flawed Alexander Hamilton, the crafty and self-assured Aaron Burr, the naive but loyal James Madison, and the coldly calculating, slightly reptilian James Monroe. And through it all walk two of the most remarkable, powerful newspapermen in American history, William Cobbett and James Callender, bitter enemies in politics but accidental allies in promoting freedom of the press. Adding to the book's educational and entertainment value, Safire reveals his sources and separates truth from fiction at the end of his novel. Novel? Well, maybe.

Rating:
Summary: Challenging... but worth the effort
Review: You may need your dictionary by your side and you may have to give yourself "a good talking to" now and then to get through the first few hundred pages of Mr. Safire's book. But it's all worth it for what you learn about the founding fathers of our nation. The biggest scandals have little to do with Hamilton's and Burr's daliance with Maria Reynolds or Jefferson's ongoing relationship with Sally Hemings and attempted seduction of a friend's wife. The most frightening scandals have to do with compromised judges, political revenge, blatant lies in the newspapers of the day, and ultimately suspected murder and arson. The reader is left wondering if it's better or worse now, or somehow just the same as the picture Safire paints of those days just after the Revolution.