Friends in High Places: Our Journey from Little Rock to Washington, D.C. (Hardcover)

by Webster Hubbell (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
It seems that being a Friend of Bill is all too often just the first step on that slippery slope to disgrace and the hoosegow. Take, for example, Jim McDougal, Susan McDougal, and Webster Hubbell--all former First Friends now facing stiff prison sentences. Susan McDougal has refused to talk about her case at all, while her ex-husband Jim is saving his material for a grand jury; Webb Hubbell, however, has decided to bare both his soul and his legal difficulties in Friends in High Places, an account of his rise in Little Rock and fall in Washington, DC. In a nutshell, Hubbell--a former law partner of Hillary Clinton's--confessed to stealing almost half a million dollars from the law firm and its clients. His book purports to reveal the full inside story. Readers looking for dirt on the Clintons will be disappointed--Hubbell takes full responsibility for his crimes, absolving the White House of any knowledge about his shady financial dealings.

Review
For five years now, a ceaseless series of scandals has dogged the highest officials of the Clinton administration. What, if anything, can be learned from the story of Webb Hubbell, the single high-ranking official who went directly from the Clinton administration to washing windows in a federal prison?

Hubbell's jaunt to and hard fall from the pinnacle of power, Vincent Foster's misery and tortured end, Hillary Clinton's metamorphosis under the spell of power--this is the stuff of melodrama. But for the last five years these people, and others like them, have been running the government of the United States. What convictions, if any, do they hold, and toward what ends have they sought power?

In the department of political ideas, Friends in High Places is wafer-thin. On several occasions Hubbell describes himself at the dawn of his career as "idealistic," but what he means by this is left unclear. The officeholders from Arkansas who flit in and out of these pages appear similarly insouciant, similarly ambitious, and similarly apolitical (if that is the right word). Even the Clintons, though clearly of a more activist hue, come across as 99 parts ambition and avarice, one part '60s radicalism.

Empty ambition is an old story in American politics. It hardly explains every alliance the Clinton administration has struck, or every policy it has advanced. But it does go some way toward explaining the malfeasance, the improprieties, and the constant stretching and bending of the rules that by now have become our national daily fare. -- Commentary, Gabriel Schoenfeld

In the genre of confessionals, Friends in High Places falls short because the issues that make Hubbell an important interesting figure in the career of the Clintons go largely unaddressed.... his book is also particularly disappointing because rather than provide the inside account it promises, it recounts incidents and conversations that are at best trivial and at worst misleading. -- The New York Times Book Review, Stephen Labaton

Product Details

• Hardcover: 342 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co; 1st edition (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688157491
• ISBN-13: 978-0688157494
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,523,337 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truth that is Better than Fiction, January 14, 2000

By A Customer

This is an excellent look into the world that revolved around Webb Hubbell in Little Rock and Washington DC. Mr. Hubbell is an adept storyteller who cuts through all of the partisan politics and simply tells the truth about his relationship with The President and First Lady. Mr. Hubbell also does something few men are willing to do nowadays. He accepts responsibilty for his mistakes without casting blame and doesn't try to glorify his standing with the Clintons or blame Kenn Starr for his failures. A good read that provides one of the only truly first hand accounts of the Clinton's days in Little Rock.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars the hazards of credit card debt, February 15, 1998

By A Customer

The value of the book for me was how Mr Hubbell handled his debt load...he stole. He told himself he would pay it back but you know how that goes when you get caughtup in DC politics. His discription of prison life was the most interesting and enlightening part of the book. This autobibliographic public confession was a plea for forgiveness to all those back in Arkansas.

3.0 out of 5 stars Part autobiography, part coverup, part conspiracy - but where's the punchline?, May 19, 2008

By	Ricahrd A. Salzer (Chesapeake, Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Webb Hubbell's Mea Culpa leaves out the
best parts and he rambles on about how
hard he, Bill and Hillary worked to get
to Washington, District of Corruption.

But Webb, where's all the stuff that Jere-
miah Films and Tom Valentine's guest Larry
Nichols covered about Hitlery Klinton's
shredding documents at Rose Law Firm, et,
al.? I could go on. I got this book for
pennies on the dollar at the local Ches-
apeake, VA library. So since I didn't pay
full price, I don't feel cheated - monetarily
wise. But intellectually, being no political
fan of the corrupt Klinton regime, I have been
taken, so to speak with Webb's failed attempt
at 'woe is me.'