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Summary: Popular in West Palm Beach?
Review: I see this book is popular in West Palm Beach Florida - isn't that where the idiots couldn't figure out how to correctly fill out an election ballot?? Now that explains this books popularity there......!!
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Summary: A Well-Written book that won't help a cynic.
Review: Cynics critical of American politics will find more feed for their fire in The Hunting of the President. The book is extremely well-written and well sourced, and it does not mess around with ideological tangents for or against the Clintons. If a reader wants a detailed observation of the facts surrounding various scandals about the Clintons, this is what you want to read. If someone is looking to improve their opinion of modern American politics, this book will only add to their cynicism as it objectively portrays every player involved as being contributorily negligent in each situation.
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Summary: What You Don't Know CAN Hurt You
Review: When I saw the latest hatchet job by Gene Lyons - who is a Clinton fan who has written a weekly column for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for years - I knew it would be worth a good laugh. Lyons is a fiction writer and this is unquestionably his most fictitious work. Let's consider what Mr. Lyons wants us to believe:1. That the GOP knew back in the 1980s that Clinton would get elected President not once but twice. This of course was why they tried to make sure he'd win the nomination. Yeah, makes sense to me. 2. That lying under oath is okay if you're a Democratic President. I guess it isn't REALLY lying if you don't know what the definition of "is" is. 3. That Clinton is virgin clean. If he thinks so, he needs to go ask Billy Dale, Linda Tripp, Richard Mellon Scaife, and Kenneth Starr about "hunting." This book - in terms of accuracy - can be used to two things. Either as a prominent fiction work.....or as a nice doorstop.
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Summary: A Poisoned Tree
Review: I'm sure that by now, the basic story of the 'Arkansas Project' and the various associated smear-campaigns by Clinton enemies against the former President and his wife are generally familiar to most prospective readers (If they aren't, you're REALLY in for a frightening and very disturbing suprise). Assuming such, I won't belabor those details here. Suffice to say that to my knowledge, this book is the most factual, detailed, and thorough analysis to date of the full sequence of those insidious events, and the full breathtaking range of the mix of crackpots, kooks, paranoids, cons, 'operatives', PR hacks, legitimate journalists, and conventional 'respectable' GOP strategists and elected officials who each somehow managed to play their acknowledged role in this truly shameful, tragi-comic affair. Each played their willing and knowing part to corrupt the reputation of an elected President of extraordinary skills and decency (and perhaps a little more than his share of normal human weakness, as well) on charges that ran the gamut largely from straight-out lunatic fabrication, to merely unsubstantiated and unproven. I defy anyone to read it all the way through without developing real doubts about the viability into this new century of the principles of Representative Democracy, as practiced by a so-called 'informed electorate', in earnest contemplation of the so-called 'issues'. I defy anyone to read it all the way through without developing even more doubts than you might already have about the moral legitimacy of the current White House occupant: Can a "poisoned tree" yield edible fruit? I'm not sure it can, but it may be that the world is slowly learning the answer to that as we speak.
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Summary: The Hunting of the President
Review: "The most successful and long-running `dirty tricks' campaign in recent American history" is the theme of this book by two veteran journalists: Conason, columnist for the New York Observer and Salon, and Lyons (Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater, LJ 8/96) of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Their sprawling tale begins in Arkansas in 1989, as Governor Clinton prepared to run for reelection, and ends in Washington when the Lewinsky story broke in 1998. The authors say little about the Clintons themselves but instead set out to impeach their enemies, some of them unfamiliar names, others as familiar as Jones, Tripp, and Starr. Their reporting, thickly documented with citations to newspapers, books, Congressional and other official reports, trial records, archives, web sites, television broadcasts, videos, print and online magazines, and interviews with sources named and unnamed, makes a firm case that the President and his wife have been pursued by many scoundrels. Most public libraries will want the book, as will those academic libraries wishing to thoroughly document the Clinton years.
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Summary: A Whitewash
Review: A total whitewash. The book seems to do an excellent job of tracing the roots of the information that was made public. Many of the accusations against the Clintons were kept alive by the right. Did anyone ever doubt that? Is that a mystery solved of some sort? But the book glosses over the crimes that the Clintons were accussed of - deciding instead to focus on their critics. That's the focus of the book, and that's fine. But to dismiss the allegations (Many of which are supported by well documented FACT) by brushing them aside is hardly the full story. The book assumes you are looking for a way to defend the Clintons. There is no other way to explain how they thought they could get away with leaving out so many incriminating facts from Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, and the unexplained clearing out of Vince Foster's office the night of his death. If you're ignorant of the details of the Clinton's alleged crimes, you will most likely find this book worthwhile. However, if you're familiar with the facts and were looking for the other persepctive on the scandels, you will find this book to be propaganda, and a rewriting of history through omission. It is unfortuante for some, but the truth remains: you can have your own opinion, but you can't have your own facts.
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Summary: Well pieced together chronology of events.
Review: This book is well put together and clearly outlines the the harsh nature of the political beast that is Arkansas. This book takes you inside the workings of an active slander campaign run in a way that only southern conservatives could do it. Although this book is a little left leaning, Conason and Lyons still manage to put together acurate accounts of what really happened. This book shows the true colors of corrupt politicians and ambitious insiders that tried to take down the Clintons.
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Summary: I knew it! I knew it! Didn't we all?
Review: I love this book. Anyone with half a brain (as it turns out, a majority of us, according to Clinton's approval ratings during this despicable fracas) knew that something was really wrong with the picture of him being painted in the press. And that something was really wrong with the legitimate press giving credence to such ludicrous characters and off-the-wall charges. Now, Conason and Snyder, with meticulous scholarship, have vindicated our good sense. Let's hope we never again have to suffer the likes of Ken Starr's smarmy smile as he picks up his morning newspaper, the "shreiking blondes" who seemed always to be on some political talk show, and perhaps most of all, images of members of our esteemed House of Representatives dressed like college boys going to "interview" Monica Lewinsky. Not to mention the trash we read in the New York Times, and other newspapers we'd always looked up to. Shame on them! Let's hope the press is doing its job these days. Conason and Snyder have put us on notice that we must hold the fourth estate accountable. This is an important book for that reason alone.
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Summary: A Masterpiece!
Review: I must congratulate Mr Lyons and Mr Conason for writing a brilliantly convincing book. It makes a strong case for what Hillary called a vast right-wing conspiracy. As a diehard Democrat, I always believed that those who were criticizing Clinton loudest for his adultery were actually committing the same acts themselves. This book proves they were! This book does not try to apologize for Clinton's cheating (which deserves commendation), rather it explains that these moral lapses are not uncommon in official Washington (or pretty much anywhere in America) and are definitely not the "high crimes and misdemeanors" necessary to impeach a president. Well done, guys!
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Summary: The blueprint for the right wing has been exposed
Review: This is the best all-around summary of the right wing's effort to take down a President they couldn't beat in an election. The importance of this work is that their campaign hasn't ended with the Clintons. The right wing has now seen that anyone can be destroyed by an endless string of unproven accusations; if one accusation is refuted, that's no problem, just fabricate another. This will be their blueprint for any serious oppostion in the future, they're already starting on Daschle. So read it to prepare for the next attacks, because with the right wing it will ALWAYS be hardball, rules are for sissies.
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