Rating: 
Summary: Scathing Analysis of an Erroneous Supreme Court Decision
Review: Aside from the legal precedent established by Paul Jones v. Bill Clinton, Bugliosi is obviously distraught about this and many aspects of our current culture, and the book honestly portrays this raw emotion that is attributable to the fast track publishing offered by this "Library of Contemporary Thought" series. While much of this emotion would have been eased through the traditional and more lengthy editorial process, the core message Vincent Bugliosi provides is a critical analysis of the Supreme Court decision in Paula Jones v. Bill Clinton.He accurately critizes a decision that apparently was made on a political, rather than legal, basis. In the zealousness with which his critics have been out to "get" Bill Clinton, this decision establishes a dangerous legal precedent -- that a sitting President can be subjected to a civil lawsuit. Bugliosi's principal argument is that for this decision, the Office of the Presidency should have been separated from the person holding the office at any given time. This core message is an important one that was severely neglected by the traditional media, who used to have some sort of "journalistic integrity" that distinguished them from the tabloids. This argument extends to the entire manner of the Kenneth Starr investigation, and now that his report has been sent to Congress, it will be entirely appropriate to examine his tactics and political motivations. We can only hope that Bugliosi will do so, although without the emotional outbursts that detract from his stellar legal career. As this review is being written, further disgrace to the Office of the Presidency is being inflicted by Starr and the Congress by their decisions not to allow the President time to review the report before it is made public. Furthermore, another review of this book "Poorly veiled partisan deceit" is typical of the hypocrisy of Clinton critics. In this highly partisan critique of Bugliosi, the author completely ignores the crux of Bugliosi's argument (as stated above). That this author, the Republican party, and vast portions of the media are disrepectful of the Office of the Presidency is shameful; that the Supreme Court could unanimously be so is a national disgrace.
Rating:
Summary: Vincent Bugliosi voices a minority opinion... again.
Review: Bugliosi approaches the Paula Jones decision by the Supreme Court as he approaches everything: with an open mind, open eyes, a willingness to do his homework, and an arrogantly brutal honesty in stating his unconventional conclusions. Very thought provoking and very entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: not a classic;makes its point
Review: Bugliosi begins with an irrelevant social commentary.When he gets to the subject,he makes his point well.The Jones v. Clinton decision of the Supreme Court was a tragic mistake,a travesty of justice that has forever altered the balance of power in the three branches of government,and may do untold harm in the future. Any fair reading of the FERERALIST PAPERS leads one to conclude that the founders could not have intended for a federal district judge to have the power to compel a sitting president to answer a civil suit.Bugliosi uses Fed.69,by Hamilton,to argue that a sitting president could not even be arrested for murder without first being impeached and removed from office.
Bugliosi correctly sketches the true meaning of the case.The Supreme Court now views itself as the "first among equals" and wields the power of judicial review to assert iteslf against the other two branches,with no repect for precedent or original intent.
Bugliosi also takes on the question ignored by Mr. Clinton's lawyers:the need of Mrs. Paula Jones' interests to be balanced against the interests of all other Americans.Even a soldier undergoing basic training enjoys "temporary immunity" from lawsuits,but the President apparently does not.
On the negative side,Bugliosi's writing style is colloquialistic and unfocused.He can sometimes depart from sober analysis and launch into hyperbolic editorialism in the very same sentence.There is too much slang,and too much "tough guy language",and this does not serve to support his thesis in a meaningful way.
I believe that the Rehnquist Court has waged war against the rights of private citizens and against the traditional balance of the separation of powers.Bugliosi argues convincingly that the latter is,at least,the case.This book was written before the Clinton Impeachment.A revised edition is now in order.However,the legal reasoning would be the same.
Rating: 
Summary: A valid point lost in a morass of hostility and name-calling
Review: Famed lawyer Vincent Bugliosi (who successfully prosecuted Charles Manson) has delivered an ascerbic and emotional diatribe in which he takes on the Supreme Court, the religious right, the media, Rush Limbaugh, and the American public. Nominally, the focus of the book is the Supreme Court's decision in _Jones v. Clinton_, in which the Court held unanimously that Paula Jones had the right to proceed to trial with her lawsuit against President Clinton and that the office of the presidency did not provide Clinton with the automatic right to postpone the suit until after he leaves office. Bugliosi tries to situate this decision within the context of a society gone crazy. The crux of Bugliosi's criticism is that the Court failed to balance the private interest of Paula Jones in having her case heard without delay against the public interest of having a president with his full attention devoted to the job. In this portion of the argument, Bugliosi, though not a constitutional scholar, makes a great deal of sense, particularly in pointing out that soldiers in basic training would enjoy the sort of temporary immunity Clinton sought. Bugliosi also points out that the Supreme Court grossly underestimated the pressures of the presidency and the time demands of a trial. However, "No Island of Sanity" goes far beyond the author's nominal target and is wildly inconsistent in spots. For example, Bugliosi tackles the issue of judicial review, one of the most fundamental of principles in American jurisprudence. (Judicial review, established in the landmark case of _Marbury v. Madison_, is the principle that allows the courts to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional.) Certainly, judicial review is not without its detractors, and there are sound arguments against it. But Bugliosi goes beyond sound arguments and presents a thoroughly one-sided argument against judicial review, in the process overlooking arguments in favor and mischaracterizing Justice Marshall, who authored the _Marbury_ opinion. "No Island of Sanity" also engages in specious logic in other areas and includes far too much sarcasm and name-calling for comfort. While there is no need for a criticism of the highest court in the land to be entirely dry legalese, Bugliosi's resort to ad personem attacks is thoroughly unjustified and extraordinarily unprofessional. Further, as the book takes a great deal of time extolling just how adept Bugliosi is at separating truth from fallacy, it is almost embarrassing when he engages in such transparent logic and such childish argument techniques as name calling (for which he castigates Limbaugh (p. 10)). For example, Bugliosi calls the members of the "ultraconservative wing" of the Republican Party "beady-eyed, narow-minded people" (p. 56). He accuses Justice Antonin Scalia of having no point and of having only one objective, "to be cute and sarcastic" (p. 99). Of the editorial boards on the _New York Times_ and _Washington Post_, Bugliosi writes "we're dealing with some very, very mediocre minds" (p. 119) and then calls them "barons of buffoonery, sultans of silliness, dukes of duncery" (p. 121). Most serious, though, is the rambling nature of "No Island of Sanity." Bugliosi takes issue, for example, with teenage girls wearing jeans (pp. 24-25), and it is difficult to see how this topic has anything to do with the Supreme Court's decision or can serve to do much more than divert the reader. What could have been a concise piece challenging a Supreme Court ruling devolves, almost before it begins, into one man's ramblings about just about anything that seemed to cross his mind. Between the rambling diatribes about matters at best tangentially related and the _ad hominem_ attacks, "No Island of Sanity" is an unprofessional and mean-spirited attack hardly worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting
Review: Good book, makes you think of how ridiculous things are in the states with regard to litigation. One wonders if this case interrupted Clinton s presidency enough to distract him from perhaps eliminating the master mind of 9/11 -> namely osama bin laden, since he did have a chance to assasinate him at one point.
Rating: 
Summary: What a windbag!!!
Review: I happen to agree with Mr. Bugliosi that the Supreme Court made a huge blunder in this case. I agree that postponing Ms. Jones' suit until after the end of Clinton's term would have been the most acceptable route. Clinton (and no other president) would ever be "above the law" with this approach. Paula Jones would still have had her day in court. I rather doubt that she and her handlers would care once Clinton is no longer president. That said, this book is a BIG disappointment. Mr. Bugliosi rambles on for much of the book about totally unrelated topics---girls wearing jeans and navel jewelry come to mind. He even shamelssly promotes his OJ book. He arrogantly promotes himself as the only one who noticed the Court's blunder (some of the rest of us noticed, too). Without the ridiculous diatribes and self promotions, the author would have had a very slim book. I also think that he likes to rant and hear the sound of his own voice.
Rating:
Summary: Focus, Vince. Focus!
Review: I have to chime in and agree with what most people are saying here. When he sticks to the point of the book, which is that the Supreme Court erred when it let the Paula Jones lawsuit proceed while President Clinton was still in office, this book is excellent. However, Mr. Bugliosi wants us to believe that this is merely an example of a whole society that's gone "insane" (using rap music, Ivan Lendl, and navel piercing in support of his argument). Hello? Is there an editor in the house? Bugliosi or his editor or someone should have made him stick with the Court's decision and left the rantings to letters to the editors. Fortunately, the book's not that long so it's a quick read. I'd recommend skipping the first section, though, which is just an irrelevant screed.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing!
Review: I thought OUTRAGE was so good and objective, I was really looking forward to this book. But Bugliosi has no objectivity at all! For one thing, he points out the true statistic that the vast majority of journalists vote for Democrats. But then he says, "For some reason, even though they vote liberally, they write from a conservative-Republican viewpoint. The idea of a liberal media is a myth." The idea that the media is conservative in it's view is INSANE! And so is Bugliossi...or so I thought a few times when I read his delusional free-association ranting.
Rating:
Summary: A strongly felt, if not entirely convincing, argument
Review: It should be noted from the beginning that Vincent Bugliosi is not afraid to give opinions, particularly about himself. While it was refreshing that no punches were pulled, it quickly became tiring when Bugliosi used the first 30 pages of the book as an opportunity to tell everyone how clever he is. Even more wearying was the way Bugliosi used this book as an opportunity to sell his most recent book Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away With Murder. In the first four pages of No Island of Sanity, Outrage is explicitly mentioned 10 times. I believe it was Isaac Asimov who was quoted as saying "many have called me arrogant, few have called me wrong," and so Bugliosi's self-congratulation is not necessarily a reason to discount his primary argument. Bugliosi makes two points in this essay. First, and primarily, is that the Supreme Court's ruling - that Paula Jones civil trial against Bill Clinton should not be postponed until after the completion of his term - is so illogical as to defy belief. Bugliosi's secondary point is that only in a world that (in his opinion) is slipping into insanity can this ruling be shrugged off as an anomaly and that this is a sign that the Supreme Court is not immune to the malaise that is afflicting the world at large. Bugliosi's argument that the Supreme Court was in error is both exhaustive and compelling. Whatever one might think of the author as a personality, one would be hard-pressed to read this book and not come away agreeing with him. Example after example shows how Clinton is not "just another citizen" but rather a man with incredible power and an even more incredible responsibility. The author's second argument that the world is going to hell in a handbasket is a little harder to accept, mostly because of the examples he uses to support the proposition. I may be biased by the fact that my wife is covered with ink and has her share of piercings but I find it difficult to take the fact that "girl[s] today wear rings not only on their ears and fingers, but unbelievably on their noses and tongue, even their navels" as a sign of Armageddon. In recommending this book I temper it with a warning that it might be best to just skip the "introductory" (read: "let me tell you how clever I am") chapter. Start with page 31 and simply stipulate that Vincent Bugliosi is a brilliant guy.
Rating:
Summary: A correct but blunt and harsh critique of the Court's error.
Review: Like Outrage, Vincent Bugliosi prosecutes the Court for its blunder in Jones v. Clinton. But this is not the first time the Court has issued horrible and unsupportable decisions, something which the author ignores. Vincent's timing, however, was perfect as the book came out January 15 before the Lewinsky and Ginsburg became household names Overall, a very good book that needed another draft and editing. As Mark Twain said: There is no such thing as good writing only good rewriting, or something like that!
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