Customer Reviews

Citizen Perot : His Life and Times

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4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a thoroughly readible biography of one of America's key personalities. Gerald Posner has done excellent research. This book documents the highs and lows of Perot's life and personality. Here is a man of extreme talent, who knows how to get results. I am convinced more than ever that he could have been President. He would have shaken up the government for more good than bad. Perot's populist political ideas still have great merit even though he has basically passed from our political scene. I am surprised that I should be writing the first customer review of this book three years after its publication. I strongly recommend this book because it is good history, good writing, and completely documents Perot's impact on many significant happenings during the past 40 years.

This book is full of left-handed compliments and has a decided bent toward the negative where Ross Perot is concerned. I have lost respect for Gerald Posner because of his mission to use the sleight of hand to cast Mr. Perot in the negative. This is not a fair or balanced view of an interesting, complex and heroic man. In a number of cases, where there is a choice to portray an event in either a good or bad light, it appears Mr. Posner always chooses the latter.

I'm not a fan of Ross Perot, but Posner has no respect for him. If you read between the lines of this book, you'll see that Ross Perot is a fighter, inovator and gets what he wants(usually).
Posner is continually making statements that make Ross Perot look like a dufe. (Is dufe a word?)
It was an easy read and I learned a lot about Perot, if you read nothing else, read the last chapter which really shows that Ross has changed this country.

This book is very slanted. After interviewing Ross Perot the author presents mainly the negatives and does not speak with any of the volunteers and voters who supported Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996.

Never was I so relieved to complete a book. It read like a "broken record" that could not move beyond its place of being stuck in the grove of negativity. The "behind-the-scene" theme was an effort to discredit Mr. Perot by accentuating his idiosyncrasies, which amount to nothing, but under the scrutinizing and skewed microscope of Posner, Perot becomes a crazed man.

Unfortunately, Posner has overemphasized Perot's fallibility and failed to bring out his humanness and humaneness. It is not a balanced book.