Rating: 
Summary: Hopefully A Wake Up Call For America
Review: Mrs Olson's book should be required reading for every middle of the road liberal / conservative. The true die hard liberal Democrats will never bring themselves to think that Royal First Family did nothing but walk on water. And of course the ultra conservative, vast right wing already had them pegged. Its the middle group that needs the learn about just how bad these people truly were.Mrs Olson starts off slowly but by the time I finished chapter 11, I needed a dose of valium. The clincher was the pardon of a Jesse Jackson crony that stole $1.2 million in government grants intended for homeless, minority children and used it to buy a fur coat, Mercedes and clothes for a live in boy friend, among other self indulgent items. Unfortunately, she was only typical of the pardons Bill Clinton granted as favors to friends, family and paying customers in the last days. I had tried to understand why so many seemingly intelligent people (including a lot of my black relatives, friends and co workers) still believe that the Clintons were the next best thing to the second coming of Christ. The quote from Saul Bellows, explains it all, "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance, when the need for illusion is deep." The Clintons were, are masters of illusion.
Rating:
Summary: The Final Days was her own
Review: A tragic accident took an educated articulate young woman by being a passenger in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Barbara Olson's book The Final Days is her research into the Final Days of Bill and Hillary Clinton's final days in the White House. Her style of writing is breezy and sounds so much like her, when I watched her on many of her TV appearances. She did a lot or research in this book and it brings back all the memories of those last days of the Clinton Presidency. She brings up so many things besides the pardons, the executive orders and decrees that Clinton carried out until his final hours. How family members manipulated things to get pardons and the biggest of those was the Rich pardon. We will miss Barbara and her intellect and her strong belief in the law.
Rating:
Summary: Barbara seemed like family
Review: Barbara was a regular on Larry King and other TV talk shows, she seemed like part of the family because she was so in tune with our values. When 9-11 happened we were very saddened to hear of her passing. We wanted to somehow continue our contact with Barbara. Her story of the Clinton's last days is so typical Barbara, remembering her feisty style when expressing her conservative views. Anyone who enjoyed Barbara will enjoy her book. You continue to see her smile throughout the book.
Rating:
Summary: 'He just can't stand law enforcement.'
Review: Jefferson has Dumas Malone, Lincoln has Carl Sandburg, and Bill Clinton has Barbara Olson -- the biographer who, if there's any justice in the world (for him, if not for her), will be associated with his name for the rest of time. Olson's final book is a chronicling of the last weeks of Bill and Hillary Clinton's co-presidency. She gives us a quick, but important, survey of a number of Clintonian outrages, including massive land and power-grabs, Senator-to-be Hillary's shameless and desperate panhandling of expensive gifts before she fell under the Senate's ethics rules, and Slick's international 'farewell tour' of foreign countries -- a field trip that cost taxpayers billions and gained us, diplomatically, less than nothing. But where Olson's analysis really shines is in her efforts to get to the bottom of 'Pardongate,' the wave of commutations, clemencies, and pardons that Clinton dished out, some literally in his last minutes in office. About a quarter of the book is spent detailing Clinton's most outrageous pardon, that of multi-billion dollar tax cheat Marc Rich. The last quarter or so discusses his other pardons, handed out to a rogue's gallery consisting largely of relatives, business partners, ex-girlfriends, Cabinet members, and cocaine dealers. Even as skilled a reporter as Barbara Olson is at a loss to explain why Clinton chose to pardon who he did, or why he consulted so few people before issuing the pardons. One of Olson's theses -- both provocative and believable -- is that Clinton was so outraged at being compelled, on his last full day in office, to sign a deal with the independent counsel admitting his wrongdoing in the Lewinsky case and disbarring himself from the practice of law, that Clinton chose to lash out at his own 'persecutors' by granting clemency to criminals whom police and prosecutors had spent years pursuing. As one of Clinton's own Justice Department lawyers noted, 'He [Clinton] just can't stand law enforcement' (p. 141). Ultimately, Olson helps us put Clinton in context, marshalling observers from Left and Right before drawing her own conclusions. Forrest McDonald, acclaimed historian of the American presidency, asks simply, 'What did [Clinton] get done? Was there any major legislation he was responsible for? ... Everyone approves of what he's doing, but no one can say anything he did' (p. 212). More directly, Andrew Sullivan of The New Republic notes, 'In Bill Clinton, we had for eight years a truly irrational person in the White House, someone who, I think, lived on the edge of serious mental illness. He was and is a psychologically sick man' (p. 199). It's clear to see why -- if reports are correct -- Hillary Clinton was so anxious to get this book silenced following Barbara Olson's death. If, as it's said, people in democracies get the leaders they deserve, we can at least repay the favor by making sure our 'leaders' get the biographers they deserve. There's no question that Barbara Olson is the biographer Bill and Hillary Clinton deserve, and it's just one of many reasons to mourn her untimely death that she will no longer be able to chronicle this venal and dangerous politician ... and her husband, America's most corrupt president. Let this book be (part of) her memorial.
Rating:
Summary: A Sordid Indictment
Review: Barbara Olsen manages to entertain while detailing unbelievably disgusting behavior on the part of the Clintons. She wrote with intelligence and wit. Her account of many of these all too familiar episodes in the Clinton era are a chilling reminder of the extent to which these people would sacrifice principals in pursuit of their unbridled ambition. Almost as enjoyable as seeing Hillary booed at the Madison Square Garden fundraiser.
Rating:
Summary: Unmistakeably Barbara - we miss you
Review: You cannot read this book without thinking of the evil terrorists who murdered Barbara Olson and thousands of others on 9/11. Nor should you. "The Final Days" serves in part as prologue to what happened that day. During the prior administration we let our guard down, our defenses were weakened and a terrible message was sent: for the right price or for political expediency, anyone - even terrorists - could get a seat at Bill Clinton's table. Olson's mention of Osama bin Laden and the impotent manner in which the Clinton administration responded to his earlier acts of terror against us, is both prescient and chilling. "The Final Days" gets into the pardons, the executive orders, the gifts - the whole flurry of last-minute "activity" by the Clintons on their way out of the White House. As Barbara Olson points out, even chronic Clinton defenders found their exit odious. But why were they surprised? When Hillary Clinton needed to shore up votes in New York's Puerto Rican community for her Senate campaign, Bill freed unrepentant FALN terrorists (in September 1999). Was it surprising that on the way out of the White House he pardoned scam artists from New Square after they delivered a practically unanimous vote in their community for his wife? Marc Rich employed an effective strategy by deploying his flashy ex-wife, with loads of money to lavish on the DNC, his library, her Senate campaign, even furnishings for their new home, armed with a sob story about how her ex was unfairly persecuted by ruthless and overzealous prosecutors - a tale sure to pull on Bill Clinton's self-absorbed and self-pitying heart strings, especially as he was negotiating his own plea bargain. He didn't care what the DOJ said, didn't try to find out the prosecutors' side of things. He didn't care that Rich and his partner dealt with terrorist states. From drug kingpins to carnie folk, for the right price or with the right lawyer, as Olson quotes the pardoned Carlos Vignali, "word around prison was that it was the right time to approach the President." How fitting. Although the subject matter is infuriating, I absolutely loved this book. You can hear Barbara Olson's voice as you read her words, remember her mischievous smile when you laugh at her witty digs at the Clintons. I must admit, I laughed a lot. Barbara Olson was fiesty, smart, fervent in her beliefs and very funny. An example that made me laugh out loud, about the Rodham brothers: "Hillary's two brothers seemed to have a nose for trouble. Like the pigs in France who hunt for truffles, they were constantly digging up something that smelled." (p.154) If you enjoyed watching Barbara Olson on the talk shows, you'll love this book. If you didn't always agree with her, read it anyway.
Rating:
Summary: Barbara Olson will be sorely missed. She had a great talent.
Review: What she did so well was tie togther facts that aren't widely reported and put them in a coherent fashion with an overarching theme. She knew her subject well and was able to put it in perspective. The Clintons' pardon machine is one example. (...) How about drug dealers and tax cheats pardoned for money? How about thieves of government money pardoned for 1,000 votes? I especially enjoyed her discussion of money spending by the Clintons. Compare what Ken Starr spent enforcing the law (how many times did the media whine about that?) versus what the Clintons spent on overseas trips with no discernable national policy reason. (...) I suspect this book is just the tip of the iceberg. It appears that Mrs. Olson had a difficult time getting to the bottom of the theft of furniture from The White House. The last chapter discussion of late liberalism is a gem. (...)
Rating:
Summary: The Clinton Hipocracy Revealed, Again
Review: The loss of Barbara Olsen is truly tragic, but her voice continues to tell us how truly depraved the Clinton's are. This book doesn't mince words about the egregious wife of Bill Clinton and the ex-president himself. It belongs on every library shelf as a true history of the Clinton presidency. Mrs. Clinton has obtained the office of senator through a mendacious route that she has followed all her adult life. I will never understand the people who voted for her or why. She is [in my opinion] the epitome of effrontery to every decent American, especially women and Blacks. Barbara Olsen clearly defines Mrs. Clinton for the fraud she is and continues to be. Every book written on the Clinton's defines their unconcealed quest for power and money, other people's money, taxpayer's money by the truckload. The congress and the senate were/are too weak to stop her, especially the Democratic Party. Some twenty authors can't all be wrong just because they tell the truth. A must read book. God, bless Barbara Olsen.
Rating:
Summary: Shocking!
Review: It is very rare that the media only gives you part of the true story. Most of the time the public finds itself literally assaulted by gossip based on fragmentary evidence regarding the moral lapses of people in high power. However, in the case of the Clinton administration, that rule can be thrown out the window. Here for the first time in "The Final Days" is the chronical of the truly abhorent denouement of the Clinton administration. I don't want to give anything away, but let me assure you that you will be startled by the overwhelming evidence of the abuse of power. Why was this not brough to our attention more forcefully in the media? Government tampering? You be the judge. This is the most tremendous comment on the abuse of authority since Ben Jonjak's brilliant "Glorious Failure." However, the effect of "The Final Days" is made all the more shocking because of its status as a work of non-fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended
Review: The editorial review speaks for the content. This is an enlightening read, and highly recommended. I read it through without stopping, shifting from bitter amazement to surprise, as I read many details that never fully made their way into the newspapers (again and again).
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