Rating: 
Summary: It's not the sex, it's the fascism.
Review: THOTP exposes the rabid segregationists, loonie multimillionaires, corrupt jurisprudence and unprofessional reporters at the heart of the investigatory madness that culminated in impeachment. In the end there was no Whitewater scandal, no Filegate scandal, no Travelgate scandal, and no credible claim of sexual harassment. There was only a blue dress, which - thanks to the nightmarish gibbering of a press corps gone mad - was elevated into grounds for overturning two elections. Lyons and Conason go a long way toward explaining how it happened.
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Summary: Extremely enlighting
Review: Well written, well researched, well documented and no anonymous sources. This book is very interesting as well as very enlightening about the media and how their lust for scandal sometimes overcomes their need for accuracy. Pretty easy reading, although there does seem to be quite a few people named LARRY and also BROWN and this can be confusing at times. A great book, worth the money to buy it and the time to read it. Also: I thought I knew pretty much all there was to know about Clinton and his "scandals" (being the politcal junkie that I am) but this book provided some very new, juicy details.
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Summary: Spreading the Poison
Review: Beginning in late 1993, I began to read news reports in my local newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News, which contained serious but unsubstantiated allegations about an Arkansas land deal known as Whitewater and the possible criminality of the President and his wife. There seemed to be quite a few of these "news articles" and I began to wonder if all of that smoke did not have a substantial fire at its center. Four years later, I start "pulling" the articles on Whitewater and by now, the numerous "Gates" being investigated and reported on in the daily newspapers, from the archives of the Mercury News and about twenty other Knight-Ridder newspapers across the country. One of the things I learned that a large proportion of these stories were by four reporters -- Jeff Gerth and Stephen Labaton of the New York Times, Michael Isikoff and Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post. This was an interesting experience, and can be duplicated by anyone reading these words. This is what I discovered: In the San Jose Mercury News alone from October 31 1993 to March 31, 1994, there were a total of 163 stories. Of these, 158 had been published in a 106-day span of time from December 16, 1993 to the end of March, about 1.5 stories a day or two stories every three days. It became even more interesting when I "pulled" the "Whitewater" and "Madison Guaranty" stories from twenty Knight-Ridder newspapers in the 62 days from October 31,1993 to December 31, 1993. There were no less than 83 unique items, about 1.3 items a day, and of course many of the newspapers were publishing identical stories during this time. When you look at the coverage in this way, it looks more like indoctrination rather than reporting. What were the sources of these unsubstantiated allegations? Joe Conason and Gene Lyons describe these sources in The Hunting of the President as a loose cabal of "longtime Clinton adversaries," "defeated politicians, disappointed office seekers, right-wing pamphleteers, wealthy eccentrics, zany private detectives, religious fanatics," and in my view, the primary culprit -- "die-hard segregationists. . . . " Here, as in the rest of the book, Conason and Lyons restrain themselves from going beyond what they can prove or substantiate from sources -- a demonstration of journalism as it should be practised in this age of "infotainment." But this cabal had a powerful effect on this country and its politics because as Conason and Lyons tell us in detail, the once-respected New York Times and Washington Post not only published unsubstantiated allegation after unsubstantiated allegation, they also withheld any exculpatory information. Like sheep, the rest of Mainstream Media passively followed. And here is the real danger the authors expose. The cabal was the source of the allegations which acted as toxins poisoning political discourse in this country. But the Mainstream Media was continuously pumping these toxins into the blood stream of America. Without the criminal carelessness and disregard of the Mainstream Media, the press, the TV, and talk radio, the cabal would have affected only a small hate-filled audience on the right. Instead the poison was spread throughout the country, and into every metropolitan area, city and small town.
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Summary: Scandal of Scandals
Review: This book answers the question, was it a coincidence or a conspiracy. That lurking behind every media driven Clinton scandal are the same 5 or 6 usual suspects. In the press, objectivity is ignored, misleading headlines and false predictions are commonplace. But like a cult predicting the end of the world when that day passes all is forgotten. Not a peep from the mighty columnists or the prime time talking heads, just more of the same. Conason & Lyons book shapeshifts us to a fly on the wall where we see stories change, look on in disbelief as rumors are spread. We witness the collusion & deceit, sit in on strategy sessions of the sophisticated & powerful network of Clinton haters. As they continue on their inquisition to destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton. If after 52 million dollars, a decade of investigations, special prosecutors, independent counsels you`ve ever asked why. Then The Hunting of the President unveils the scandal of scandals a must read.
Rating: 
Summary: How The Media Hunts Everyone Not Just Clinton!
Review: The authors refer to much of what was passed out by Clinton operatives who wrote a similar report about a Vast Media Conspiracy. This report was really a thesis on just how stories grow in the media, but it was depicted as a plot against the Clintons by Clinton political agents. Nothing could be further from the truth as to hunting a person no one expected to become a president. The book has a quizzical suspicion, but what is puzzling to me are some non-refutable facts. For example, the media did not hire clumsy security chiefs whose bungling removed over 1200 FBI private citizens files. I accept that this was a mistake as the President eventually claimed, but it still happen. If incompetence is not a conspiracy neither is reporting on it! Clinton's enemies did not force him to misrepresent his memory under oath in a sexual harassment case with a host of witnesses and victims? Two Federal judges have stated in court papers that Clinton gave false testimony under oath, the other Federal Judge he intentionally violated the Privacy Act. This is not obeying the Rule Of Law and no political or personal enemies made him do it! In fact, many feel the media has held back on stories until they are broken elsewhere. No media or enemy of Clinton forced him to tango with a Intern on government time! No press agents caused Hillary to invest in Cattle futures, fired innocent travel staff employees and refused to talk about Whitewater records under subpoena ending up in presidential private quarters. Now we have several E-mails missing and again the Clinton's blame staff for ineptitude but these authors would blame enemies? There is no question Clinton has his adversaries and overcoming the many slings and arrows they hurled towards him in his life is his shield. At the same time, he and Hillary handed such antagonists enough material to cause themselves trouble of their own making. There is no worldwide targeting plot on his character as the authors try to point out in vain, to say the least. Clinton was not even considered a major candidate for the presidency in 1990 so why hunt him at all? Simple logic combined with historical facts do not support the authors title whatsoever! What the authors have done is show how stories grow on their own and did a fine job using much of the material distributed by Clinton's political and inside media supporters. Nevertheless, this same mechanism is used against all occupants of the White House, both political parties and especially among media competitors. Every president and first family has been experiencing nothing but an explosion of uncontrolled journalism every year and it will continue. The book outlines how it is done, but Clinton was no more a victim than Reagan, Carter, Nixon and others. Calling this book a new revelation is about as accurate as calling the bible a book written by paranoid schizophrenics who talked to G-d, that is a too unduly simplified and craven conclusion, but one could argue it is accurate. This book claims such things based on such banal inferences. The authors are good men, great writers and respected journalists and the book is worth reading, and knowledgeable people will become more intelligent. The disappointment comes when the authors try to apply it only to the Clintons. These kind of things happen in democracies, always has been, and always will be, where people can listen, read and decide for themselves. Happen to Themistocles who was exiled by popular vote with a campaign by his enemies after saving Athens from the Persians. The men who assassinated Caesar did so because they thought they were saving the Republic! Politics sometime makes good people of all professions do bad thing in saving G-d and country. The authors wrote what most in politics, journalism already know as a standard practices, but it is not a conspiracy, just public relations! The Clinton's were no more hunted than other leaders of our time, the only conspiracy was when the Clinton's proclaimed one, before it was just called politics!
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Summary: Southern Son Gone Bad
Review: "Justice Jim" Johnson, a noted segregationlist from Arkansas, and several times candidate for governor of Arkansas, a staunch supporter of Reagan/Bush, then Bush/Quayle, ran the "official publication of the White Citizens Council of Arkansas". The April, 1956 edition had a tornado labeled "Mongrelization" sweeping down on a frightened mother and her baby. Thus, the political climate of the south, especially Arkansas, where Bill Clinton, a young man out of college for the summer, shook "Justice Jim" Johnson's hand, and said in no uncertain terms to him: "You make me ashamed to be from Arkansas". "Justice Jim" would later write of Mr. Clinton: (how could my beloved state <Arkansas>, produce) "a president of the United States who is a queer mongering, whore-hopping adulterer; a baby killing, draft-dodging, dope tolerating, lying, two-faced, treasonist activist". The "cultural" war was on, eventually culminating in the impeachment of Bill Clinton after years of orchestrated lies brought to a dubious fruition by Lee Atwater and his cronnies. The Hunting of the President is an excellently presented argument, based on well-researched facts, of how the "liberal" media turned away from its job and ethics, to fuel the fire of bringing down the president, whose only folly was: Mr. Clinton did not perceive fully the implications that his private life would be used to subvert the judicial process for political purposes. Thanks to this book, we now know what we always suspected: to the Right Wing, Mr. Clinton was a southern son "gone bad", and no price, or no lie, was small enough to use in their relentless march to remove this gender equality, racial equality, man from office. The Hunting of the President is a clear and present danger to the Right Wing. Of course the authors will be villified. I predict, however, the book will shine far into the future, where historians of an era where the president's office has been diminished, and the balance of power tipped dangerously toward the judicial, will look upon our time and shake their heads and mutter: "This is where it all started".
Rating:
Summary: Joan
Review: Conason and Lyons have written a well-researched and thought-provoking book. After Watergate, laws schools began to teach ethics to budding attorneys since so many lawyers involved in that scandal appeared not to have any. Perhaps journalism schools should now do the same. The real scandal exposed in The Hunting of the President is the failure of the media to check facts before a story is released and additionally, to fail to retract when they got the story wrong.
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Summary: The Truth Comes Out
Review: Like many Americans who felt that justice has gone awry in this country over the last four years of a right wing attempt to impeach a President, here are two very credible journalists, Gene Lyons and Joe Conason, who give us the facts. Judge their journalistic findings as you will, but they are far more grounded in research than any of their detractors, or anything their detractors have produced.
Rating: 
Summary: Dense and Fascinating
Review: This is the kind of book that tends to provoke extreme reactions, above all because it shows that many of the Clinton critics in Arkansas were unsavory characters themselves, most commonly racists and right-wing fanatics, who did not hesitate to manipulate the national media. There seems little doubt about the general truth of this observation, and it raises what for me is the central issue in this book: why were respected newspapers like the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, or the television networks, so spineless in dealing with these local sources? Why were they unable to sustain even the most minimal standards of investigative reporting? The authors document case after case where wild rumors were accepted by these media and published as credible without any effort to check the facts. If you have any remaining belief in the intrinsic integrity of the national media, this book should shake the foundations of that belief. Just to take one little illustration, why hasn't the New York Times even deigned to review Conason and Lyons? You can figure the answer out for yourself.
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Summary: What journalism is all about.
Review: Lyons and Conason did an outstanding job of researching the facts for the book and presenting them in an easy to follow manner. The real indictment of this book is about the media. The celebrity media never did there homework and were conned by those involved. I heard the authors on WLS on March 23rd. The talkshow host who invited them was fired by ABC the next day. You can not get a better recommendation than that.
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