Customer Reviews

No Island of Sanity: Paula Jones v. Bill Clinton: The Supreme Court on Trial (Library of Contemporary Thought)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I have to chime in and agree with what most people are saying here. When he sticks to the point of the book, which is that the Supreme Court erred when it let the Paula Jones lawsuit proceed while President Clinton was still in office, this book is excellent. However, Mr. Bugliosi wants us to believe that this is merely an example of a whole society that's gone "insane" (using rap music, Ivan Lendl, and navel piercing in support of his argument). Hello? Is there an editor in the house? Bugliosi or his editor or someone should have made him stick with the Court's decision and left the rantings to letters to the editors. Fortunately, the book's not that long so it's a quick read. I'd recommend skipping the first section, though, which is just an irrelevant screed.

Bugliosi begins with an irrelevant social commentary.When he gets to the subject,he makes his point well.The Jones v. Clinton decision of the Supreme Court was a tragic mistake,a travesty of justice that has forever altered the balance of power in the three branches of government,and may do untold harm in the future.

Any fair reading of the FERERALIST PAPERS leads one to conclude that the founders could not have intended for a federal district judge to have the power to compel a sitting president to answer a civil suit.Bugliosi uses Fed.69,by Hamilton,to argue that a sitting president could not even be arrested for murder without first being impeached and removed from office.
Bugliosi correctly sketches the true meaning of the case.The Supreme Court now views itself as the "first among equals" and wields the power of judicial review to assert iteslf against the other two branches,with no repect for precedent or original intent.
Bugliosi also takes on the question ignored by Mr. Clinton's lawyers:the need of Mrs. Paula Jones' interests to be balanced against the interests of all other Americans.Even a soldier undergoing basic training enjoys "temporary immunity" from lawsuits,but the President apparently does not.
On the negative side,Bugliosi's writing style is colloquialistic and unfocused.He can sometimes depart from sober analysis and launch into hyperbolic editorialism in the very same sentence.There is too much slang,and too much "tough guy language",and this does not serve to support his thesis in a meaningful way.
I believe that the Rehnquist Court has waged war against the rights of private citizens and against the traditional balance of the separation of powers.Bugliosi argues convincingly that the latter is,at least,the case.This book was written before the Clinton Impeachment.A revised edition is now in order.However,the legal reasoning would be the same.

This is the first book Bugliosi has written that I did not enjoy reading. His basic thesis is sound and would have been fine for a magazine article, but he goes way off the subject and rambles incessantly. His ego has reached immense proprtions; he can't stop talking about how brilliant he is and how stupid everyone else is. There are too many ad hominem attacks and irrelevant analogies that have nothing to do with the book's main subject ( I still don't understand what the Florida Marlins, Kevin Garnett, and Ivan Lendl have to do with the book's critique of the Court).

The only problem with the book is that many people may be turned off by his opening chapters. He has a lot of opinions about everything and he seems intent on telling us all of them. But I will never hold the Supreme Court in the high regard I once did after reading this book. He clearly demonstrates how incompetence can reach the very highest levels of our judicial system.

I've read and appreciated several of Bugliosi's books, and he has a way of boiling large issues down to their basics without sacrificing argumentative rigor. This isn't a book, though. It's an article run amok. Bugliosi makes one very good, very valid point: The Supreme Court should have weighed the interest of Paula Jones to have her case heard right away (rather than wait until Clinton's term of office was over) against the interest of the American people to have a President who wasn't endlessly distracted by depositions and trial dates.

This point is valid, but before we get there we are treated to 25 pages of bragging and ranting about how successful Bugliosi's book about O.J. Simpson was, about how Bugliosi is more insightful than the average person, about how Bugliosi thinks that Rush Limbaugh sucks and that the media are not liberal, and about how society is going crazy. It really doesn't have much to do with the topic of the book, no matter how hard Bugliosi tries to make links.

When the argument starts, it's typical Bugliosi: solid, persuasive argument hampered by relentless ad hominems and name-calling. Bugliosi does persuasively argue that the Supreme Court did wrong by the American people in finding against their number one elected official. But then he keeps arguing it and keeps arguing it. He repeats himself. He adduces a dozen cases to prove a small point, where a handful would have sufficed. And then he makes his same point again.

Save your time and money; avoid this book. I give it two stars for one valid point.

Vincent Bugliosi has done it again. This is another remarkable book from the same guy who gave us Helter Skelter and Outrage. I've read everything Mr. Bugliosi has ever written and he's as great now as he ever was. It's nice to see that someone cares about the sanctity of the office of the President.

Like Outrage, Vincent Bugliosi prosecutes the Court for its blunder in Jones v. Clinton. But this is not the first time the Court has issued horrible and unsupportable decisions, something which the author ignores. Vincent's timing, however, was perfect as the book came out January 15 before the Lewinsky and Ginsburg became household names Overall, a very good book that needed another draft and editing. As Mark Twain said: There is no such thing as good writing only good rewriting, or something like that!

The country is fortunate in having in Vincent Bugliosi a man who has the skills and the energy to hold to account the essentially unaccountable justices of the Supreme Court for their inane decision weakening the office of the presidency. In the thoroughly detailed manner that he used to unveil the prosecutors' incompetence in the OJ case, he methodically assembles the legal precedents and other arguments to show how the Supreme Court completely failed us all in their decision to put one person's interest above 268 million of us in forcing our chief executive to attend to the distraction of a private litigation. His exposure of a supreme court suffused with arrogance and veering out of control is a crucial public service, as is the clear picture he paints of thoughtless sensation-obsessed editors at our leading newspapers. The book is short, highly readable, and a must read for all who may have, as I had until now, assumed naively that the Supreme Court is a special source of wisdom and a crucial foundation of our national strength.

Bugliosi approaches the Paula Jones decision by the Supreme Court as he approaches everything: with an open mind, open eyes, a willingness to do his homework, and an arrogantly brutal honesty in stating his unconventional conclusions. Very thought provoking and very entertaining.

It should be noted from the beginning that Vincent Bugliosi is not afraid to give opinions, particularly about himself. While it was refreshing that no punches were pulled, it quickly became tiring when Bugliosi used the first 30 pages of the book as an opportunity to tell everyone how clever he is. Even more wearying was the way Bugliosi used this book as an opportunity to sell his most recent book Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away With Murder. In the first four pages of No Island of Sanity, Outrage is explicitly mentioned 10 times. I believe it was Isaac Asimov who was quoted as saying "many have called me arrogant, few have called me wrong," and so Bugliosi's self-congratulation is not necessarily a reason to discount his primary argument.

Bugliosi makes two points in this essay. First, and primarily, is that the Supreme Court's ruling - that Paula Jones civil trial against Bill Clinton should not be postponed until after the completion of his term - is so illogical as to defy belief. Bugliosi's secondary point is that only in a world that (in his opinion) is slipping into insanity can this ruling be shrugged off as an anomaly and that this is a sign that the Supreme Court is not immune to the malaise that is afflicting the world at large.

Bugliosi's argument that the Supreme Court was in error is both exhaustive and compelling. Whatever one might think of the author as a personality, one would be hard-pressed to read this book and not come away agreeing with him. Example after example shows how Clinton is not "just another citizen" but rather a man with incredible power and an even more incredible responsibility.

The author's second argument that the world is going to hell in a handbasket is a little harder to accept, mostly because of the examples he uses to support the proposition. I may be biased by the fact that my wife is covered with ink and has her share of piercings but I find it difficult to take the fact that "girl[s] today wear rings not only on their ears and fingers, but unbelievably on their noses and tongue, even their navels" as a sign of Armageddon. In recommending this book I temper it with a warning that it might be best to just skip the "introductory" (read: "let me tell you how clever I am") chapter. Start with page 31 and simply stipulate that Vincent Bugliosi is a brilliant guy.