Rating: 
Summary: Bizarre
Review: Anti-gay journalist Midge Decter ("Boys on the Beach") offers one of the more astonishing screeds of the current reactionary "revolution." Good for unintentional hilarity but nothing else.
Rating:
Summary: Bizarre
Review: Anti-gay journalist Midge Decter ("Boys on the Beach") offers one of the more astonishing screeds of the current reactionary "revolution." Good for unintentional hilarity but nothing else.
Rating: 
Summary: A Complicated Analysis of a Great Subject
Review: Clearly, Donald Rumsfeld is one of the heavyweights in a overwhelmingly stout Bush cabinet and the deserving object of praise for those who care about America's defenses. Rumsfeld, a Personal Portrait does not make any offers to be a thorough biography of a great man, but instead it offers a sort of essay-like look at one of America's greatest and perhaps well-known cabinet officers. It peers deeply into the mind of Rumsfeld, logging his wit, his manly charm, and his unconventional style of management. There are very few revealing facts in Decter's work. Instead, she marvels at the popularity and rise of a humble Chicagoan, whose ambition and drive have carried him to the highest reaches of government. She charts his transformation of failing businesses into profitable enterprises and his ongoing dream of remaking and reshaping the modern American military. For those who admire Rumsfeld, this will offer no additional facts, but will simply serve as a personal portrait into one of America's most capable leaders. We should all be grateful he is at the top of our nation's defenses.
Rating: 
Summary: Orgasmic and blunt -- you go Girl!
Review: Decter is brutally honest about her long affair with Donald Rumsfeld. The eroticism is only a side-subject -- the truth is that many women respond sexually to a man in uniform. Why this is is a subject for further study, which Midge doesn't give us. I am told that a sequel is coming...
Rating:
Summary: "Tiger Beat" for the conservative soul...
Review: Gushy, overdone, an embarrassment. Author Midge Decter needs to take a long, cold shower and to re-read her own book, "The New Chastity." Anyone who wants to really know Don Rumsfeld's life and work (for some reason) should engage in a thorough Web search, including Nexis, and draw one's own conclusions.
Rating: 
Summary: Quit the Decter bashing
Review: I have known Midge Decter for some 25 years, and the attack on her in this amazon.com review bulletin board by some contumaceous rag, whose wording fares "her right wing ideology... parody status... Like someone swept up by a cult, Midge Decter has now written one of the most foolish books in recent times -- a swooning, girlish celebrity bio which purports to be about restoring old fashioned ideals about masculinity but really tells us far more about the author -- her social insecurities, her core shallowness and her neo-Stalinist mindset" I cannot find more disgusting than if I ate a dung heap of the same writers bowelistic evacuations. The work on Rumsfeld, whom I have known some 35 years, does not hold up an icon to be adored or swooned upon, but instead presents one very educated woman's outlook on the career of an individual whose career has indeed turned out to be quite controversial. While I in fact opposed the action in Iraq by George Bush, seeking instead to break terrorism in a way Harry Truman would have deployed, Ms. Decter has not in any way presented a Rumsfeld without faults, without failings. She points out how Rumsfeld admires intellect, perhaps too much, at the cost of other more pressing values in people. She notes, too, his dark side where secrets are his mainstay of attitude in a society where democracy is an open exchange of ideas and hopes. Calling Midge Decter a neo-Stalinist, as the reviewer I quoted above did, makes one wonder if that reviewer himself does not have an agenda that smacks of the Democractic Green Environmentalist Party in Brooklyn, New York where Ralph Nader is the glory of the ages, and where tolerance is always on a slippery footing. Tolerance that makes humans greater in their potential and actuality. The reviewer's comments, in my opinion, are best removed for the sake of civility and decency.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I love Rummie. This book, however, offered no analysis, insight, or behind-the-scenes anecdotes. It is an empty book filled with run-on sentences, mysterious modifiers, and simple observations. Rumsfeld fans like me deserve better.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, I learned something about Rumsfeld
Review: I understand this book is not an attempt to have an in-depth accounting and objective historical analysis on Rumsfeld. What it is, and it does a good job, is this book provides a somewhat personal narrative about Rumsfelds life (and brief, it is a quick read). There were many things I did not know about his life or upbringing, and this book fills in many of the blanks. For example, I did not know his father enlisted in the navy at age 38 to go fight WWII, and I did not know he came from modest means. He made lots of money in the pharmaceutical buisness, and he appears to be very loyal to whomever he serves. Having said all that, those who wan some historical record would probably want more than what this book offers. But it does its job well. If you wanted to know the good things about Rumsfeld, they are in this book. If you want to know the dirt you might want to look elsewhere. I conclude in saying this book made me view him as more of a human being. I have been quick to scrutinize much of what he has done under Bush, but after this read I think perhaps I have been too critical. It is a shame politics is so extremely venomous. Books like this could go a long way in restoring some faith, no.. not faith, but an understanding the other person is human just like we are.
Rating:
Summary: Weak Effort - Chance Wasted to Write a Great Book
Review: I was very disappointed to sit down and go through this book. The author is qualified. It is presented well with a nice series of photos going back to Rumsfeld'd childhood. He (Rumsfeld) has a long and interesting story. What we have is a weak to medium at best effort. It is a chance wasted to do a good in depth biography. Instead it comes across like a PR book. It only merits 2 or 3 stars and is not a buy unless you are desperate for any information on Rumsfeld. Sorry but that is my opinion. Jack in Toronto
Rating:
Summary: as grate as the men that he has served
Review: It is so neat that all the grate presadents like Nixon, Ford and Bush had someone like Rumsfield to work for them, I have always herd that Princeton is a grate collage and that is where this man went to collage! Just like Bush who went to harvard they are both smart and they know what they are doing. Especially in a war like we have know that is what we need. Kerry says he was in the viet-nam war. BIG DEAL! who cares, he did'nt go to Harvard like Bush I bet. I am a REPUBLICAN and I was'nt in the army and none of my friends were either. It makes me so mad when they say that George Bush, DICK Chainey, Paul Wolfowits, John Ashkroff, and Carl Rove were all draftdodgers, just becuase they didn't go to viet-nam like everyone else did does'nt make them draft dodgers: I wood'nt go neither, why wood you if you could get out from it! Who ever said you had to be in the war to be a grate man anyway. Chainey pobally had a bad hart anyway so that is probalay why he culd'nt go and I herd Bush was a pilot or something and was a pow in Korea. Another thing I do'nt like is how they always show that picture of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddom Husane! He was problay just their to tell him to stop starting wars and stuff. Tha'ts what I think because that is what they said on Rush Limball and on Handity and Holmes!!! Reed this book and it will make you change your mind if you don't like him if you do it won't and will only make it more but that do'nt matter anyway as long as you stay the same way, so it's good forevryone to reed. I reed it to my little nefew ever chanse I git. It is well worth the price of .40 sents you can by it for so you shuld! Lisen to me becalls I know who-ever thougt a man that is only 5 foot 5 could go so far.
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