Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Endangered America's Long-Term National Security

Rating:
Summary: Right Left or Independent a Part of Citizenship
Review: I suspect that Lt. Col. Patterson's motives for writinig this book were rather altruistic. Otherwise, it makes little sense. With nearly day to day close contact with a President, he was in a great position to observe how that person handled the regular duties of office, including in this case, the "nuclear football"--the case with the codes for launching nuclear weapons.

This account is especially significant since Col. Patterson's observations come after the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the "New World Order" as so frequently referred to by President George Herbert Walker Bush.

Simply put, the seeming arrogance, lack of time response to messages from security personnel, and seeming disdain for this all-important duty puts President Clinton, at least in this dedicated non-political soldier's view, in a questionable position to be "Commander-in-Chief."

We all hope that the politically elected President will take this job seriously. I cannot see where this retired Air Force officer had anything to gain by writing the book. It could have as easily flopped as become a New York Times bestseller. I am not a military man, but I do have a good idea of what it takes to become a Lt. Col. in the Air Force, and therefore I have no reason to doubt Col. Patterson's veracity.

More importantly, there has been no credible refutation of what he saw, including the other military personnel who had the same duty during different shifts. What is more, his observations of the First Lady, now a politician, and Senator with Presidential ambitions, makes this a must read for any informed citizen.

It is neither too long nor difficult to read--an afternoon's read at even a slow pace. Prepare to begin shaking your head.

Many consider Mr. Clinton to be one of our greatest presidents, yet this casts considerable doubt upon such a belief in the presence of unrefuted observation.

Rating:
Summary: Clinton's Hilary-ious Legacies
Review: This book is pretty much interesting. Col. Patterson knows what he is talking about, some things the American people ought to know better. Some lessons to be learned for the future.

Rating:
Summary: Aptly titled, as applied to the author?
Review: Excuse me, but aren't close aides to the president (football carrier, security details) suppose to keep what they saw and heard to themselves, in order not to jeopardize the relationships between them and the POTUS? The president should not have to ask his aides to 'leave to room' to make a phone call or have a national security discussion (which I'm sure Patterson would claim is another 'dereliction of duty'). I'm surprised most who claim to understand national security and praised this book overlooked this. I doubt Clinton involved Patterson is his discussions, so he is obviously drawing his conclusions on hearing snippets of conversations. As adults, as all know how wrong drawing a conclusion from half a conversation can be. And if he is really concerned about what he saw, why didn't he report to his superiors, Congress/DoD or resign in disgust? This isn't Hollywood, to breach this protocol and write an 'expose' book based on personal conclusion for the $$$ seems more of a dereliction of duty to me. Considering Patterson plants his flag firmly in the right-wing camp (note his other titles), the book was clearly written for personal/political gain.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but only part of the story.
Review: In this book the author argues three somewhat distinct points: 1] Mr. and Mrs. Clinton are both in their own ways irresponsible and often personally reprehensible; 2] Mr. Clinton and his administration had little respect for military people or their work, made use of military intervention frivolously, and pursued craven policies and 3] the Clinton administration endangered the security of the US by reducing the size of the military.

The first point is most convincingly made, based on the author's personal experience as a military aide to the President. Mr. Patterson tellingly describes an incident, quite comparable to President Bush's stories for children while the Towers burned, in which Mr. Clinton is too busy playing gold and socializing to call Sandy Berger back with a decision on a bombing attack. The scathing description of Mrs. Clinton makes her husband's extramarital adventures more understandable if not excusable.

For the second point, we must rely on Mr. Patterson's personal acquaintances within the military to gauge the effect of the Clinton years on morale. In this context, the book ought to be read in conjunction with e.g. Mr. Clarke's Against All Enemies, which paints a different and much more favorable picture of Mr. Clinton as a policy maker, and in particular factually contradicts several unsupported assertions made by Mr. Patterson -- e.g., Mr. Clarke claims that the military staff idolized by Mr. Patterson, rather than Mr. Clinton, were the source of the US's weak response to the bombing of the USS Cole. A few case studies on specific military interventions and their results, rather than just snapshots of silliness, would have been helpful. Mr. Patterson appears only concerned solely with the military context, whereas a nation's security is determined also by its relative economic and technological strength (both of which were enhanced under the Clinton administration), and its political standing in the world.

For the third assertion, an appendix consisting of an excerpt from a book by Casper Weinberger is attached. Since this excerpt begins with a strident claim that good intelligence supports the existence of chemical and biological weapons in the hands of Mr. Hussein in Iraq, and as subsequent events have shown, these weapons existed mostly in the fertile imagination of Mr. Chalabi, the excerpt does not add credibility to the book.

In summary, this book is a valuable but fragmentary insight in to the character of a complex and contradictory figure of modern history. In the larger context the reader is led to ask of Mr. Clinton, as one might for other reprehensible but brilliant figures such as Mozart or Wagner: is the man worth the music?