A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

What--another book about the messes Bill Clinton got himself into? Well, yes, but with a difference: Jeffrey Toobin's A Vast Conspiracy is the first to provide readers with comprehensive behind-the-scenes details of the machinations of independent counsel Kenneth Starr's team of prosecutors, lawyers for Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones, and congressional members as the president's "inappropriate relationship" snowballed into the country's first impeachment proceedings in over a century.

Toobin's narrative is one of the most levelheaded versions of the 1998 scandal yet published, although he has very few kind words for anybody involved. "No other major political controversy in American history produced as few heroes as this one," he notes, and "in spite of his consistently reprehensible behavior, Clinton was, by comparison, the good guy in this struggle." While debunking Hillary Rodham Clinton's claims that she and her husband were the victims of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" (a claim that ignores Clinton's responsibility for his actions), Toobin does demonstrate how lawyers for Paula Jones collaborated with Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg to build the most damaging case possible against the president. (He also suggests, not without cause, that Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff worked more closely with Tripp and Goldberg than he reported in his own book, Uncovering Clinton.)

While for the most part discreetly judgmental, A Vast Conspiracy sometimes borders on cruel in its descriptions of Monica Lewinsky: after describing a 45-minute discussion between Clinton and his sometime sex partner, Toobin comments, "An actual conversation with Lewinsky may have been the thing that cured the president of his infatuation," and then later, "There were few better measures of Tripp's dedication to her book research and Clinton-hating than the simple fact that she tolerated Lewinsky's inane chatter for so long." Yet his portrayal of Lewinsky as "a genuine, if occasional, sexual partner as well as an obsessed, unhinged fan" is, thanks to his rich storytelling abilities, compelling. (Whether it's true remains to be seen; some readers of his previous book, The Run of His Life, believe that Toobin's portrayal of O.J. Simpson seriously underestimated the suspected killer.) And, although it will no doubt get overlooked amidst all the salacious details of the case, Toobin makes a good argument for how the whole brouhaha was an inevitable result of several decades of "legal activism," in which lawsuits were used to achieve broad political changes. Between Richard Posner's musings on the legal aspects of the impeachment hearings in An Affair of State and Toobin's narrative reconstruction of the events leading up to the impeachment, we have the beginnings of a calm consideration of just what exactly happened to American politics during Clinton's second term. --Ron Hogan

Review

...the main and considerable pleasure of his book comes from watching the astonishing story unfold so it makes sense. -- The New York Times Book Review, Thomas Powers

Praise for Jeffrey Toobin's national bestseller The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson


"His prose is fluent, direct and supple, his assessments pithy and succinct. . . . He uses his legal expertise to assess defense and prosecution strategies, highlight crucial developments and sketch in the background of principle players in such a way that the stories create a mosaic of life."
        --The New York Times

"An irresistibly readable new overview of the whole ugly case."
--New York Daily News

"A well-written, profoundly rational analysis . . . Toobin's book possesses fresh insights."
--USA Today

"Toobin's book is literate, well-researched, penetrating and evenhanded, laying blame where it belongs, offering a reasonable perspective on this shabby case."
--Detroit Free Press

"A gripping and colorful account of the crime and trial that captured the world's attention."
--The Boston Globe

"What makes the book both important and entertaining is the way [Toobin] fills in the gaps left by more partisan authors."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"A real page-turner . . . blunt, sardonic, often morbidly funny."
--Entertainment Weekly -- Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (January 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375502955
• ISBN-13: 978-0375502958
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (135 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #995,232 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

118 of 129 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Makes everyone look bad, January 12, 2000

By A Customer

In spite of all the accusations that Toobin is a DNC lackey and a Clinton apologist (even in the New York Times), I am hard pressed to see where he grants the president any leeway. As an attorney, he carefully distinguishes between legal and ethical questions; as a journalist, he is scrupulous about stating (and hedging) facts. His account is entirely credible, and it appears that he is critical about his sources.

It gets less than a perfect score because Mr. Toobin too often succumbs to the temptation of his own moralizing and gossip, even beyond valid criticism of questionable legal practices here and there. The facts about the individuals speak for themselves.

Undoubtedly, Clinton-haters will also hate this book, since it doesn't support their views. Toobin's main point - that there are political operatives in this country who do not respect the democratic process and instead seek redress in the legal system - is amply demonstrated in the Clinton/Lewinsky/Jones/Whitewater fiasco. This is the real news in this affair, not that presidents have uncontrollable egos (and libidos).

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the whole chain of events and is unafraid of being disgusted even more by everybody.

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Biased But Good, January 18, 2000

By A Customer

Before I read this book, I thought the president should have resigned. After I read this book I still thought the president should have resigned. However, the author doesn't share that view. In some ways he is an apologist for the Clintons and that is rather crudely evident. However, I had no idea how unsavory were the forces aligned against him. Toobin gives us a view into a very unsavory and I think immoral group of characters who in some ways were every bit as wrong and immoral as Clinton. Even though I found myself cringing at times with his defense of the president (and don't doubt it, he defends him) I was cringing at those points in the book which did show that a rag-tag bunch of shady characters was trying to overtrow an election through the judicial process. That is evident from some of the insider-perspectives Toobin gives his readers. It's scary to think that one day, a group like this will succeed against a president I really like.

81 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Placing a Conspiracy in Context, January 18, 2000

By	rctnyc (NY, NY USA) - See all my reviews

Unlike many authors, for whom the Clinton scandals have merely provided an opportunity for self-righteous moralizing, tabloid gossip, or both, Toobin sees those events in historical, political context, as the culmination of twenty years of effort on the part of reformers to hijack the legal system in the service of social change. He depicts Bill Clinton's impeachment as Watergate replayed as farce, in which, employing the very same laws and institutions that had been championed by liberals in the name of social reform, a far right that had been stymied by the judicially-created reforms of the civil rights and women's movements, and defeated by the courts during Nixon's impeachment, struck back against baby-boomer Clinton and his administration by means of a sex scandal.

Toobin sets forth his theory through media reports, personal interviews and the legislative record, arguing factually and persuasively for a "vast conspiracy" far vaster and, at the same time, less consensual, than that envisioned by Hillay Clinton, an unwitting collaboration of right and left that ultimately discredited both, while diminishing the American people's respect for all three sectors of government. He misses none of his story's ironies, depicting the ineptness of the special prosecutor-who-was-not-a-prosecutor, the confusion and outrage of liberal Democrats as the very same tools that they had employed in the interest of social justice were coopted by the right, and the the almost Shakespearian psychodrama of flawed character, bad motives and bad luck that transformed a few tacky back-room sexual encounters into a national political crisis.

A former federal prosecutor, Toobin paints a damning picture of the ineptitude of the independent counsel's office, where confusion and inexperience reigned, while not sparing either the President or his advisors for their bad judgment. While it may make some people angry, this book is worth reading, and worth thinking about.