Rating: 
Summary: Moral Bankruptcy?
Review: During the mid 1990's, the witty sage, Garrison Keeler, said, "The Republican Party is morally bankrupt" in an interview published in a Lutheran magazine. As prescient as that view was, then, he could not have known how bankrupt until Sidney Blumenthal published so many facts to support that judgment in THE CLINTON WARS. While a preoccupation with sexual morality would lay that judgment on President Clinton (and as an Episcopal Priest, I would agree that the violation of his wedding vow to be faithful to Hillary was an egregious moral lapse), there is evidence in Blumenthal's book of moral rot at the core of at least the right wing of the Republican party and its adherents. As defined by the life and teachings of Jesus, morality consists of love for God and neighbor to the point of donating oneself to their glory and welfare. Blumenthal documents how unloving these folks are in trying to accomplish their own agenda. What he does not do is expose what lies behind the agenda, aside from talking about the vague "cultural war" that supposedly has gripped this country. I may be wrong, but I believe what lies behind it is one of the seven deadly sins: Greed. Accuse me of being a class warrior, if you wish, but as Molly Ivins has pointed out, our national govenment is daily becoming more and more a "government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations." While giving a significant role to the private sector in rehabing our economy, Clinton always had the vision that government and corporations exist to elevate and liberate PERSONS to achieve the best that was in them for the COMMON GOOD. THE CLINTON WARS gives us ample evidence that the President's vision lay behind all of the proposals and accomplishments of his administration. That moral vision has since been extinguished by the Bush presidency. I hope that people who read Blumenthal's excellent book will some how help rekindle the flame.
Rating:
Summary: Worth reading
Review: No, not perfect. And it's a thick monster. But it's worth the read in trying to understand the poisonous atmosphere that rightwingers and others have created. For them, it's essential to find someone to blame. Clinton could without question be a jerk. But Republicans were shaking in their boots at even the possibility of a constitutional amendment that would have allowed him to run again. Why? Because he would have taken the flight suit phoney to the cleaners. Why? During Clinton's era, the United States balanced its budget and had the longest economic expansion in American history. There was no reason for it to end, but Bush's inauguration marked the downhill slide. The recession began in March, 2001. How remarkable was that growth during Clinton's years? For starters, Reagan's policies drove the nation into recession and almost bankrupted the nation. Talking about the success Reaganomics is revisionism. The government he turned over to Bush the elder had a deficit ballooning out of control. Reagan generated the largest deficits in history and made it harder for anyone after him to balance the budget. Bush elder made a lot of mistakes, but he somewhat bit the bullet on taxes. Clinton had to take another bite on the bullet, and aside from taxes, cut spending, amid dire projections by Hard Core Republican right wingers that the nation's economy would collapse. The opposite happened. There was no recession during Clinton's years. The economy expanded each quarter and millions upon millions of new jobs were created. No, it wasn't Clinton's singular genius that did it, but what happened, worked. How hard is that? Clinton served two full terms. No recession. That's not something you can say about Reagan or Eisenhower. In fact, you can't say it about any American President since WWII. Ike had three -- and he wasn't a bad president. The politics that Blumenthal dissects is the major reason leaders of substance have such difficulty dealing with issues of substance. Theories about government spending are nice for whacko right wingers. Social Security, which is self-financed although endangered by Bush, is one big expenditure. The Post Office is the biggest civilian employer, about 850,000, filling an essential role. But the big swallower of federal spending is the Pentagonm nearly 2.5 million people including troops and civilian employees. A great Army. But we can't get them body armor in Iraq. Perhaps Blumenthal overrates his importance, but he is a realist and he, along with many others of right and left leaning pols, know the truth. You can't cut taxes at a time like this without taking great risks with both our security and our military. As it happens, that's exactly what is happening and if it were Clinton pulling this, the Clinton Wars of the past would be nothing to compare to this. As it is, Bush ambles along and the Right wing whines that he's being treated unfairly. SEriously conservative Republicans are horrified, but so afraid of White HOuse or Texas disfavor, that they pee on their office carpets as the country goes to hell. Left wing Press. A myth. What we have a is a cowed, puppy-dog media that chews on rugs while looters destroy our country. Fox in charge of the foxes. There's nothing in this book that will make Washington reporters happy, even as they let Bush slide off the hook day after day.
Rating:
Summary: A Fascinating and Well Documented Clinton Reference
Review: A great read. Blumenthal's insider view puts the reader as a fly on the wall. Worth all 5 Stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Biased, but Valuable and Insightful
Review: I have been amused by those on both the political left and the right when it comes to their views of the Clinton years. Here the author shares some first hand experiences which are both enlightening and fascinating. His bias is obvious throughout this long book, but most of the readers tackling this work will benefit despite that. In fact I would have been disappointed if he had not been passionate about the ideas that he believes in. Overall it is a good first-hand account of the Clinton years from an insider.
Rating:
Summary: READ IT
Review: pretty much breaks down why and how President Clinton was a great president. Reading this book makes me really really appreciate the Clinton years.
Rating:
Summary: generally excellent - but with a few serious flaws
Review: As I read this work, pausing frequently to ponder and reflect on the text and its implications, I was repeatedly swept back to the vivid emotions and intensely mixed feelings I had about Clinton, his presidency, and his administration.
Originally I was going to assign five stars in rating this book, but the more I thought about it the more I realized this would not be justified. The book has many excellent qualities: 1) it's extremely well written, 2) very thorough, 3) well researched and documented, 4) very insightful and wise, and 5) generally fair.
I think its greatest strengths revolve around the exposure and the thorough scrutiny and analysis of the very powerful and active right wing groups in this country - - and how they've managed (with plenty of help from the left, as well!) to poison, distort, corrupt, and pollute politics in the United States over the past several decades. Their amazing successes cannot be denied or gainsaid, and one reason they've been so successful and effective is their having operated largely "under the radar screen" from both the media and the public at large.
Sidney (and his wife Jackie's) Blumenthal's story is vividly portayed here - and it's a sickening, vicious, sordid, and ugly tale indeed. Although I follow politics pretty closely, I was largely unaware at the time of what was happening to him. What a sad and repulsive commentary on how politics - and personal smear and vendetta - has degenerated in this country.
Yet despite all its wonderful attributes, this book has some serious shortcomings. In particular, Blumenthal overlooks a number of important truths. I was especially disappointed in his omissions or grossly incomplete coverage of the following topics: how the Clintons frequently lied (or seriously shaded the truth), how they used and discarded friends and former loyalists, how they ostracized those who turned against them, and how the Clinton administration had many failures, faults, and losses - even without the right wing's active opposition.
Furthermore I found the coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign to be woefully inadequate and misleading. Gore's many weaknesses and flaws were largely overlooked; Gore is not quite the wonderful man Blumenthal makes him out to be. Furthermore, by almost any measure, Gore blew a campaign he should easily have won: to be beaten by Bush in 2000 is a serious indictment of how miserable, pitiful, and pathetic a campaign Gore ran. Don't blame Ralph Nader. Blumenthal also overlooks the rather intense disaffection and emotional separation that took place between Clinton and Gore in the final couple of years of Clinton's presidency.
Likewise the very ugly, hostile, and vicious campaign Gore mounted against Bill Bradley in the primaries is entirely ignored by Blumenthal. I thought Gore's savaging of Bradley was despicable and sickening.
Finally, although Hillary Clinton is an extraordinary and remarkable woman, she is not quite the unblemished saint Blumenthal makes her out to be. Many of the problems and nightmares of Bill Clinton's presidency must be attributed - at least in part - to Hillary's attitudes and actions. The blame must be laid at her feet for causing the administration to make serious errors, both strategically and tactically, over eight years. Whatever personal wrongs Bill has done to her, she has contributed in a profound way to many of his political errors and defeats (as well as to his triumphs).
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about the inner workings of contemporary American politics. Another strength of this book is its major focus on how Clinton's presidency tied in with center-left governments in Europe and South America (related to the so-called "Third Way"). If you read this book, you won't be bored and you will be guaranteed to have your emotions stirred!
Rating:
Summary: A rich, detailed history
Review: Sidney Blumenthal gets it right. While Bill Clinton fought for a better America, the right wing and the press fought to bring him down. Many authors have noted this, but Blumenthal's perspective and his independent research (he even interviews one of the House Impeachment managers) raise this book far above the level of a White House memior. Pundits may yawn for the lack of gossip (I heard one claim that the book revealed little that was new), but it does give a brilliant insight to the disconnnect between the real world inside the White House and the bizzare furry whirling out beyond. Blumenthal often recounts the actions of the independent prosecutor, then contrasts that with the actual policy initiatives and budget battles that occupied the time of those in the West Wing. The book is long, richly detailed, and obviously not as much fun as a book by Michael Moore or Al Frankin. But the book is important as a document of an era where so much of this nation devoted itself to destroying a man and his work. Blumenthal gives tremendous space to Clinton's Third Way initiative with other progressive governments. The goal was to create an international forum based on progressive ideals, a forum that in essence crumbled with Bush coming into the White House. Blumenthal cleanly ruptures so many myths about Clinton, exposes the endless investigations - even the ones that eventually turned on him - for their partisan roots. He does not write only as an apologist, but steps back as a historian who often has the luxury of slipping into the first person.
The book is not perfect (but worth the five stars). It tries to cover too much. It is not the best book on the impeachment or how Clinton won back the White House after the "Republican revolution" of 1994, or of how Gore lost the recount battle in Florida in 2000. But it is the best book on the Clinton presidency as a whole. It strikes a conscious balance between Clinton's accomplishments and the ever increasing furry that rose up in his enemies. It is a great and worthy read.
Rating:
Summary: Was Clinton really progressive?
Review: I always thought of Clinton as a moderate not a progressive. Blumenthal apparently thinks otherwise and makes a strong case that what occured during the Clinton years,including the so called scandals, was warfare in which smears were the weapons used by right wingers in the "Clinton Wars".There is a lot of detail about the insanity of their tactics. One person Blumenthal was never able to figure out was Christopher Hitchens although his story of how their friendship became emnity is one of the more interesting parts of the book. I think in future years this book will provide a wealth of information to historians of the Clinton years including those who examine how it came to pass that Congress went so far as to impeach this larger than life president.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting, eloquent, big-hearted, definitive
Review: Simply put, any reader would enjoy the 800+ pages in this very classy, comprehensive book. Blumenthal spends a generous amount of time with each person and event, giving us extended, ruminative passages that are not simply a retelling but are carefully pondered judgements about people. He is very big-hearted and many times tender, as he gives many prominent Republicans a generous, compassionate, judicious portrayal. For example, Bob Dole has had a very interesting life, and Blumenthal leisurely and lovingly includes it, along with his insightful persnality descriptions. He does this for many persons, each one of them taken as three-dimensional. Blumenthal is helped a great deal by the fact that he appears to have simply been in the right place at the right time. Never once did I get the impression that he ever angled for such a central rol. He simply happened to be one man who went through the heart of the storm. Given the enormous importance of his experiences, as well as the brutal and dishonorable treatment of his peers by some very unstable and unremorseful people, it's obvious Blumenthal has a deep need to retell, finally, what happened. Given his reasoned, intelligent, generous, and eloquent style, this book will be a prmanent record, and will stay with you.
Rating:
Summary: If you're not angry, you're not paying attention
Review: Sidney Blumenthal's book plainly details the Neocon agenda to discredit Bill Clinton. I was a casual follower of politics during most of the Clinton administration, and though I generally supported Clinton, I was exasperated at his seeming "nose for scandal". My eyes have been opened since then, and The Clinton Wars impressed me with its encyclopaedic recitation of the smears of that era. His story of his depositions before the independent counsel in the "Whitewater" affair is especially illustrative of the pathological hate that the right has for Clinton. Do you believe the world is better now than it was in November 2000 when democracy was stolen? If you do, then you're really too ignorant to understand this book. If you have a brain, and wish to give President Clinton a fair shake, warts and all, read this book to gain insight.
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