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22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Thoughtful Look at a Serious Subject , November 8, 2006
In the interests of full disclosure, I was sent a copy of this book by the author and asked to review it. I'm glad he did becauise I probably would never have found it on my own. Books on Mrs. Clinton are plentiful. Some are hit pieces. Some are laudatory. This one is dispassionate and sobering.
Mr. Filger is no Right Wing writer (and therefore not a member of the vast Right Wing Conspiracy which was born from Mrs. Clinton's mouth in defense of her husband's filanderings).
One only has to read his take on the decision to go to war in Iraq and the execution of that war to understand that. George W. Bush, Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are fully filigreed by Mr. Filger concerning their involvement in what he clearly considers was an egregous error... "America's invasion of Iraq in 2003 was anchored in neocon delusions. Born of the ambition of a reckless and ignorant man, under the influence of a narrow minded clique of bloodthirsty noncombatants and propelled by outright deception of the American people, the enterprise was doomed to failure." Is that plain enough for you?
Filger then goes on to show how Mrs. Clinton manuvered herself to be in support of the war for political reasons and how she has since that time somewhat inartfully tried to extract herself from that position.
Chapter and verse follow which trace Mrs. Clintons attitudes, deceptions, duplicity and ambition. It is sobering and it is delivered in such a way that one has no doubt as to it's veracity. Likewise sobering is his warning that if Mrs. Clinton's political ambitions triumph, the demise of America is assurred.
His final warning is chilling..."Should the American people in their rightousness render a decision in 2008 that reverses the pattern of the past twenty years, renewal and revival await a long-suffering nation. If however, the people fail to exercise their constitutional and civic duty at the ballot boxes with discretion and wisdom, thus allowing Hillary Rodham Clinton to triumph, only ruination and national demise can follow in her wake."
It will be worth your time to see how the author arrives at this conclusion. You may agree with it or not, however he will make you think about the matter seriously. As we all should.
Post Script: I would have preferred a different title and a different cover. This is a serious book which appears somewhat frivilous in it's appearance. Just my opinion.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Essential insights, but with some weaknesses, December 31, 2006
Like another reviewer, I was contacted by author Sheldon Filger and invited to read and review "Hillary Clinton Nude." This is a valuable addition to the shelf of books about HRC. While it has a number of significant weaknesses, this volume also has significant strengths. It's up to the individual reader to decide how best to balance the two.
Perhaps paradoxically, "Hillary Clinton Nude" is both passionate and dispassionate: passionate in the strength of the language, in the author's commitment to his principles and beliefs, and in his conviction that the election of President Hillary Rodham Clinton would be an unmitigated disaster for the United States. At the same time, though, Filger is dispassionate in that he -- unlike many other writers on HRC -- is not a member of the fabled "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy." In fact, the vituperation Filger directs at Hillary is rivaled only by the scorn he directs at George W. Bush. "Hillary Clinton Nude" cannot, therefore, be dismissed as a GOP hit-piece or a brief on behalf of some other, competing, presidential candidate.
The author makes a persuasive case that lacking any demonstrable skills, training, opinions, or even basic understanding of the vital issues of economics and international relations, the only thing HRC can build a presidential campaign on is nostalgia for her husband's years in office. As Slick Willie's most attentive student, Hillary is mastering, Filger argues, the Clintonian Method of obfuscation, name-calling, smoke-and-mirrors, and (especially) a highly selective use of history, including but not limited to outright lies about facts, situations, and people.
Sheldon Filger is committed to setting the record straight, and so devotes considerable ink to laying out the facts about half-forgotten Clintonian scandals like the White House travel office firings, Hillary's commodities-futures windfall, Pardongate, and of course, Monica and impeachment. Of course, Filger thereby leaves himself open to the Clinton-defenders' time-tested charge that he is "obsessing over old news" while HRC herself is focused on the future. Given Filger's thesis of the importance of Clinton-nostalgia to HRC's own presidential hopes, however, I think he's done exactly the right thing.
As I said, however, this book also has a number of weaknesses. Some of them, I admit, are matters of taste. But there are substantive omissions as well.
For one thing, Filger's prose is, if not purple, certainly redolent of lavender: "Given the constellation of storm clouds gathering on the horizon of the new century, having a mediocre and politically ambitious megalomaniac figure making the key decisions of state is an alignment with catastrophe. It is also a rash gamble with history. If, indeed, the contemporary world resembles the apocalyptic dynamics that existed in the summer of 1914, then the admixture of nuclear armaments portents [sic] a cataclysm that will be vastly more devastating to humanity" (p. 179).
As another matter of taste, I wasn't thrilled by the cover illustration by Molly Crabapple. It makes it too easy for critics to dismiss the whole book as an unattractive hit piece while ignoring the substance within. Certainly, I'm not going to leave this just sitting around on my desk at work.
Among the substantive topics Filger doesn't address, one key one is Hillary's alleged "move to the center" in the Senate. It seems obvious that this is part of Clinton's decades-long effort to disguise her true radicalism, but it will also be a centerpiece of her presidential campaign. A discussion of this question would seem to be in order.
Most fundamentally, I did not come away from this book with a clear idea of whether Filger believes that, deep down in her soul, Hillary really *believes* in anything more than her own ambition. For the vital distinction, I've always believed, between Pudge and Ruffles (wish I could remember who coined those nicknames) is that whereas he is an opportunist with no firm beliefs, Hillary is a true ideological warrior.
Other writers, from Barbara Olsen to R.E. Tyrrell, have done great work tracing Hillary's growth as what Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn described as a "Christian Social Romantic." In this understanding, HRC's Methodist upbringing was filtered through the tactical genius of Saul Alinsky to create a person driven by a true spiritual fanaticism. I think this is the only real explanation for HRC's distinctive drive, her determination not just to confront, but ultimately to destroy, anyone who disagrees with her or opposes her utopian vision: she sees them, in a very real sense, as fundamentally, theologically, evil. I believe that this is the key to understanding Hillary Clinton. I'm not sure, though, whether Sheldon Filger agrees.
Finally, I need to point out that this book lacks footnotes, endnotes, bibliography, and index. Clearly a lot of research went into preparing this, but it is impossible for a reader to track the author's sources.
This is a quite long review because I appreciate the author's request for my opinion of his work. What Sheldon Filger has produced is a strong, well-argued, and unquestionably important book. With some work on what I consider the book's shortcomings, a second edition could easily warrant four or even five stars.
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11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Presidential Credentials??, October 24, 2006
Filger plainly points out that celebrity status alone does not make a person capable of running a country...ruining a country maybe! Well researched, well written. Lets hope this book gets read by every American before voting day!!
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