Rating: 
Summary: Was it just about sex?
Review: I followed Watergate very carefully and I thought that I understood the impeachment process. Ann Coulter's book disabused me of this notion and informed me about the role of the impeachment process envisioned by the founders as understood at the time of the creation of the constitution and by the Rodino committee as applied to Richard M. Nixon.The founders never envisioned that a sitting president would have conducted himself in such a manner that he would not be allowed to appear before the Supreme Court because of his perjury. However, this book clearly shows how and why the impeachment mechanism that the founding fathers designed as an integral part of the structure of our republic should have been applied to Bill Clinton. That this remedy was not used is a great tragedy for our country. The scope of this failure is clearly and forcefully chronicled by this book.
I strongly recommend it to those who seek a broader perspective on the Clinton legacy.
Rating:
Summary: Open Season--The Reason? Treason
Review: Ann Coulter's book was, and perhaps still is the first if not best blast; the clarion call, of the treason trumpet. Yet as it says in Leviticus, "If the trumpet sound, and no one heeds it, who shall prepare for battle?"
Her writing is savvy, humorous, engaging, inescapable and well-researched logic about a man who is amoral at least, though I suspect immoral, even at his best.
In Mr. Clinton's case I believe his whole "raison d'etre," though understandably unstated was the flaunting, not upholding of the Constitution for either his own megalomaniacal aims or in concert with a much larger cadre of conspirators, whose sole aim was the overthrow of our government by abuse of the judiciary, among other onerous malfeasance.
This noble tome, by a member of the much-maligned legal profession,gives this reviewer renewed confidence that there are still those out there who aren't afraid to cry, "The Emperor Has No Clothes!" and does so admirably impugn the perpetrator of the myth and those sycophants who promulgate it who would have us believe otherwise.
Miss Coulter has shown herself to be a patriot in the grand tradition of one of my favorites,Patrick Henry,who said, "If this be treason, let us make the most of it!"
Well, to use, or perhaps, abuse the vernacular, "this be treason" deftly and completely exposed and I ask as did Patrick Henry, "Why stand we here idle?...If this be treason let us make the most of it!" How?
How, indeed!
We use Ann Coulter's marvelous manifesto to light the way as the sole "hanger of lanterns" not in the belfry of the Old North Church, but in the breadth of North America.
In Thessalonians 3:13 we are enjoined to "Never tire of doing the right thing." The right thing is to continue what Ann Coulter has started--exposing evil and eliminating it, "for evil triumphs when good men (and good women) do nothing!"
In a country which claims itself, "under God" we have a moral obligation to do the right thing as God would want.
Rating:
Summary: a lost opportunity
Review: There was a time, as recently as about fifteen years ago, when all the fab' babes were on the other side. Before the current generation of young folks, who not coincidentally came of age during the Reagan years, the Republican Party was seemingly the exclusive province of square men. We were the party of guys like Bob Taft & Barry Goldwater in their horn-rimmed glasses, of bald guys like Ike & Gerry Ford, of crew cut guys like Haldeman & Ehrilchman, of complete doofuses like Nixon. We weren't just the party of men, but the party of old men. We were the Father Party. Sure we had the occasional snappy dish--Margaret Thatcher, Ayn Rand, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Phyllis Schafly, et. al--but they tended to be a tad severe. Democrats, for a variety of reasons, were the party of women, of the young, and of the cool guys (not "cool" from the perspective of other men, but the guys, like the Kennedys and Bill Clinton, who were smooth with the ladies).
I can't pinpoint the precise moment when this all changed, but that it has changed is a certainty, and this became obvious during the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Suddenly, instead of just having our usual bland, middle-aged, white, spokesmen, like Bill McCollum and Arlen Specter (both perfectly adequate, but hardly electrifying), whenever you turned on the television there was another attractive-young-blonde-conservative-woman : Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Monica Crowley, Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, Barbara Olson, to name a few. And not only were they a-y-b-c-w's, they were also extremely bright and frighteningly aggressive. (Coulter, Ingraham and Olson are all attorneys, and clerked for big time judges and Crowley attended the nation's premier institution of higher learning, Colgate University.) It's common enough for TV's talking heads to be chosen for their looks, more than for their intellects, but this crew had the whole package. I saw a couple of appearances by Ann Coulter where I thought her opponents were going to either start crying or hide under a table--she knew more than they did, held her views more strongly, and enunciated them more vociferously.
Meanwhile, who was left to defend Bill Clinton ? Bald guys like Carville. Gay guys like Barney Frank. Severe women like Hilary, Donna Shalala, and Anne Lewis. Dweeby guys like Henry Waxman and Lanny Davis. There may still have been enough women in the Democratic Party for Bill Clinton to chase a few around the Oval Office, but, mirabile dictu, the smokin' hot, brainy chicks in town were finally on our side. And lest this seem like a pure creation of television, we were treated a few years later to the spectacle of the Million Mom March, a bizarre gathering of humorless women being harangued by the likes of Rosie O'Donnell about the evil of guns. The whole thing resembled nothing so much as the "Two Minute Hate" from George Orwell's 1984. They come off particularly badly when contrasted with the competing rally by the Second Amendment Sisters, a raucous conclave of conservative women devoted to preserving gun rights. In this perfect bit of political allegory, the Democrats had become the Mother Party, while the GOP was the party of pistol-packing sisters, and other peoples' sisters at that.
Just how stunning a turn of events this was is readily apparent from the hysterical reaction of the Left Wing press, which has either dismissed or attacked this new breed of conservative women. A particularly vile, but unfortunately not unique, manifestation of this trend was the Salon.com essay suggesting that Ann Coulter needed to find a man. There is, of course, a delicious irony in these sexist attacks on conservative women; just imagine the howls of outrage if the perpetrators were conservative.
Any question though about the talents of Ms Coulter are ably answered in this book, which lays out, with devastating clarity and biting sarcasm, the case for the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Several years after the fact, the presentation of the many Clinton scandals (up until 1998) may seem a tad tiresome, but Coulter lays out the facts (as they were known at the time) in the succinct and logical fashion that a good prosecutor would use. One is tempted to believe--unable, as I am, to escape delusion--that had the actual impeachment case been explained this well, it might have garnered more support. Then too, it is so persuasive that some of the bitterness of her invective seems out of place, however justified. Far be it from me to defend Bill Clinton, but comparisons to OJ Simpson seem overdone, and unnecessary in light of the actual behavior she nails the President on. The other quibble with the book is mostly a function of when she wrote it : she repeatedly attacks the GOP dominated Congress for not impeaching the President, which they, of course, did within months of the publication of the book.
But these criticisms are minor in comparison to the great praise she deserves, not just for arguing the facts so well, but more importantly, for her compelling argument that Impeachment is (was) justified based on those facts. The book's greatest value may lie in this uniquely cogent brief for the proposition that Impeachment was not viewed by the Founders as a radical solution to an unlikely set of events, but was instead intended to be a regular part of Constitutional government, allowing for the efficient removal of a President (or other official) who has not even necessarily done something illegal or provably criminal, but has simply betrayed the public trust. Regardless of your partisan political leanings or your personal opinion of Bill Clinton, it's awfully hard to argue that having sex with an intern in the Oval Office, trying to get her to lie about it in exchange for a job, trying to get her to suborn the perjury of her friend (Linda Tripp), and lying about it yourself under oath (in the Paula Jones case), are not betrayals of that trust. In fact, just strip everything away except for the incontrovertible fact that the President of the United States had an extramarital affair with a twenty-one year old employee : this alone is, or should be, sufficient justification for impeachment. If you doubt it, imagine yourself trying to muster the chutzpah to ask George Washington if he thinks it's sufficient.
This return to first principles is especially useful because the President's defenders ignored all principles and instead argued technicalities ad nauseum (what is the meaning of "is" ? what is the meaning of sexual relations ? etc.), turning the entire process into little more than a legalistic game : no 100% certain criminal liability = no impeachment. To counter this, Coulter looks at the history of impeachments here and in Britain, at the specific meaning of the "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" language, and at the writings of the Founders, to demonstrate that it is not the intent of the Constitution to shield the President in all but those rare cases where he has demonstrably engaged in illegal activity, but instead to allow the citizenry to replace a President whom they can no longer trust.
While noting that this more relaxed standard might be susceptible to abuse, though of course the stricter standard is too, Coulter is careful to argue that the impeachable actions must not be merely politically unpopular or mere mistakes. Though not necessarily a criminal standard, impeachable actions should violate a moral standard. She quotes Madison to the effect that :
The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern and most virtue to pursue the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.
This will sound quaint and unrealistic to many; why after all would we sophisticated moderns even expect a President to be virtuous ? But if we don't expect them to be and we don't hold them to this standard, then we have no one to blame but ourselves when they disdain virtue. As she puts it herself :
[I]mpeachment is not just a matter of legal technicalities. It is a matter of our duty as citizens.
Republicans, most of them anyway, did finally see fit to do that duty, but were never able to convince the public or the Democrats that it was a shared duty.
Unfortunately for the country, it is one of the defining characteristics of Bill Clinton that he eventually proves his critics right, no matter how outrageous their charges may seem at first glance. And so, in the waning days of his presidency we were all treated to a hard lesson in the consequences of not removing such a miscreant from office. Having sanctioned, either explicitly or implicitly, adultery, sodomy, sexual assault, bribery, bank fraud, misuse of the IRS and FBI, obstruction of justice, perjury, spurious and dilatory claims of executive privilege, and even something approaching treason, the public and Democrats were left mouthin
Rating: 
Summary: The book suffers from its timing.
Review: In her rush to publish at the peak of Perjurygate frenzy, Coulter unfortunately produced a book that lacks an ending. The fact that we know "the rest of the story", as Paul Harvey would say, makes this book more of a snapshot than of a complete overview of the impeachment year.
On the plus side, though, Coulter gives excellent reviews of many of the scandals, small and large, involving The Most Ethical First Couple In History.
Rating: 
Summary: See what Clinton is all about
Review: This book clearly shows why Bill Clinton never should have been elected or even considered for president. There were things in the book I did not even know Clinton did. Illegal and immoral things. Coulter shows Clinton has done nothing worthwhile for America while committing his own high crimes and misdemeaners. It's a shame Clinton was allowed to wreak havoc on this great country, but it's better that people like Ann Coulter expose people like him. If you want a chapter by chapter account of Clinton's immoral activities and schemes, get this book.
Rating:
Summary: A Convincing Case
Review: The lovely Ann Coulter has made a very convincing case for why Bill Clinton should have been impeached and removed from office in this book. I am a conservative, but surprisingly liberal on some social issues, so I definitely not a member of Hillary's "right-wing conspiracy,", and I have a lot of respect for the office of the President, regardless of which party is currently holding it. However, I do believe that Clinton's multitude of scandals, particularly the sordid Lewinsky affair, have degraded the standards of the office, perhaps irrevocably. Coulter's books has strongly reinforced that opinion. I am docking the book one star for an offensive reference to assassination and the fact the Coulter is sometimes a bit repetitive in her arguments (this book could have been about 50 pages shorter with some tighter editing).
Rating:
Summary: To Be Brief but Not To Brief
Review: Immediately upon opening "High Crimes and Misdemeanors", the attentive reader realizes Ann Coulter's subtitle ("The Case Against Bill Clinton") is somewhat misleading. Despite The Economist's claim that the book "reads like the closing argument of a long trial by a prosecutor who plainly hates the guilty bastard at the defense table," Ms. Coulter has produced a short polemic that merely rehashes what most of America already knows about the Clinton scandals. When purchasing the book, we were looking for something more scholarly, with appropriate citations to case law and history (something along the lines of the excellent "That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right", Stephan P. Halbrook's superb, Supreme Court-level argument in favor of Second Amendment rights).
Instead, Ms. Coulter relies too heavily on published media accounts of the issues at hand and, for legal perspective, almost exclusively on the Rodino Report (which outlined the impeachment counts against Richard Nixon). As Amazon.com's John J. Miller notes, the best section of the book deals with the founders' thoughts regarding impeachment, and Ms. Coulter appropriately cites copiously from "The Federalist Papers" and constitutional convention debates. Still, this is too little, too late for the serious student of modern American politics who has watched with awe and dread as the Clinton Administration has virtually destroyed the Rule of Law in the United States.
This is not to say that "High Crimes" is not an entertaining and sometimes informative read; there is much here to be enjoyed, learned from and shared. As Judge Robert Bork notes, Ms. Coulter's style is animated and nimble; her passion (and partisanship) for the subject matter is clear. She is a thorough analyst and an articulate commentator; her chapter on the Whitewater scandals is one of the best short summaries available. In many cases (e.g., Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, Vince Foster's suicide), Ms. Coulter slices neatly through the rhetorical flack thrown up by Clinton apologists and lays bare the heart of each impeachable offense. As she does in her occasional syndicated column, Ms. Coulter argues her points effectively and with sly humor; she takes no prisoners.
Still, with the impeachment of Bill Clinton a failed (and not even valiant) effort, consigned to historical debate and perspective, "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" will not stand as even one of the better commentaries on the abhorrent Clinton years. A more scholarly approach would have served the book, the reader and history much better.
Rating:
Summary: One more time
Review: In case my last letter didn't appear up there, due to it's rantings and ravings, here's a new one. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I am sixteen, and it was quite an easy read, contrary to what some people have said in their reviews. Miss Coulter presents something to back her argument that the Clinton administration has neglected to give us for years: FACTS. The vile substance on this page sickens me. People call her immature then they turn around and prove themselves hypocrites by calling her "annerexic", the "only thing thinner than this book's substance". Wow. I'm truly impressed by your mean-spirited accusations. This is a BOOK review I would think the guys at amazon would sensor hateful things like that. Feel free to mail me. Hate-mail is welcome as well, it will only prove your immaturity.
