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on January 4, 2000
I found this book to be a dreary rehash of the legal briefs and excuses of Clinton's vast coterie of apologists. I did not find a single new fact in it on this sordid chapter in our history. Mr.Toobin swallows wholesale the spin of Clinton defenders, and passes it off as his own reporting, providing NO footnotes or attributions. He also, obviously, has stolen whole passages left and right from Uncovering Clinton, the definitive book on this subject written by the journalist Michael Isikoff. Yet, Mr. Toobin has the audacity to portray Mr. Isikoff--an objective reporter who painstakingly detailed his sourcing and ethical struggles in covering the story--in a negative light. This is an appalling piece of pseudo-journalism that deserves quick oblivion.
on March 24, 2000
I give these books (Lyons and Toobin) negative twenty (-20) stars.
In this case the cover tells us a great deal about the book (after you read it). Clinton waving the finger at the nation telling us he did not have sex with that woman.
Mr. Lyons, and this author as well, think that a small group of well-funded right wingers are the ones who put that finger in history. They made him wave his finger and lie, you see.
There is no credible evidence of him actually doing anything wrong, no matter what the scandal (Chinagate, Filegate, Whitewater, Troopergate, Fostergate, Travelgate, Mena, Lippo-gate, Hubblegate, the Train Deaths, Bloodgate, E-mailgate, Dollygate, Paulagate, Janita/rapegate, Nannygate, IRS-gate, INS- gate, you name it), its all partisan tripe. All evidence in these charges can be discredited by nitpicking a few details (and it all can be traced back to the nuts that made it up in the first place). As the charges come up, just nit-pick em down (and of course, trump all rules of logic and attack the source).
Everything that's left (or that Clinton seems to have gotten caught with) can be blamed on the secret right wingers who make it up off the top of their heads, and made him do it. I guess Mr. Scaife got on the phone and told him to wave the finger and lie.
Partisan bigotry and face-saving needs to end. Intellectual honesty and accountability need to make a comeback for BOTH Republicans and Democrats.
In this case the cover tells us a great deal about the book (after you read it). Clinton waving the finger at the nation telling us he did not have sex with that woman.
Mr. Lyons, and this author as well, think that a small group of well-funded right wingers are the ones who put that finger in history. They made him wave his finger and lie, you see.
There is no credible evidence of him actually doing anything wrong, no matter what the scandal (Chinagate, Filegate, Whitewater, Troopergate, Fostergate, Travelgate, Mena, Lippo-gate, Hubblegate, the Train Deaths, Bloodgate, E-mailgate, Dollygate, Paulagate, Janita/rapegate, Nannygate, IRS-gate, INS- gate, you name it), its all partisan tripe. All evidence in these charges can be discredited by nitpicking a few details (and it all can be traced back to the nuts that made it up in the first place). As the charges come up, just nit-pick em down (and of course, trump all rules of logic and attack the source).
Everything that's left (or that Clinton seems to have gotten caught with) can be blamed on the secret right wingers who make it up off the top of their heads, and made him do it. I guess Mr. Scaife got on the phone and told him to wave the finger and lie.
Partisan bigotry and face-saving needs to end. Intellectual honesty and accountability need to make a comeback for BOTH Republicans and Democrats.
on February 2, 2000
There is a very easy way to see if this book is biased for or against Clinton: Check the facts. Toobin even misquotes Clinton's own words in his testimony! I lost count of all the lies in this book. One thing for sure though, after all the Clinton controversy has died down, Toobin will be remembered as a corrupt "reporter."
on January 14, 2000
There should be a zero star rating - this would certainly get it. This is not the worst book ever written on a political subject but it ranks as one of the most lapdoggy treatments of a significant part of our history. It may not have been written in the White House but it looks like they approved the drafts - even with that it still raises some significant issues about the President's behavior. It also raises whether the Congressional Leadership actually exercised any.
Much better and more factual book is from Richard Posner.
Much better and more factual book is from Richard Posner.
on January 21, 2000
There he goes again. In his book, Toobin continues on with the same worn-out excuses to cover Bill Clinton's contempt for the law. The mainstream press will adore this book because it is full of the same propaganda they fed us for fourteen months during Monicagate, but it makes for lousy history. If you are looking at buying this book, I would recommend you spend your money on a good novel or something.
on January 11, 2000
Yet another so-called journalistic take on the impeachment that makes Clinton out to be a good ol' boy who was victimized over and over and over again by a vast right wing conspiracy. Never mind that Clinton lied to a federal grand jury, never mind that he tried to fix a civil lawsuit, never mind that he used the power of the entire executive branch to slander every woman who came out with the truth about him, never mind that he hired private investigators to dig up slime on his accusers, never mind that he bilked 60 million dollars from Madison Guarantee Savings and Loan, never mind that 15 of his closest friends and business partners are now felons in the very same business deals he himself had his hands in, never mind that he charged the White House Travel Office employees with extortion, which a jury threw out in just 12 minutes, never mind that he lied point blank to the American people, never mind that he diddled with an intern in the Oval Office, and never mind that Clinton is an alleged rapist. You don't need to read this book. Get the jist of it by reading this: Bill Clinton is a big, fat victim.
on January 9, 2000
While reading the reviews of this book I was reminded of how deeply the Clintons have mesmerized the press and the so-called political pundants. I bought this book because I thought Mr. Toobin had dealt fairly with O.J. Simpson. I am disasppointed to see that he has fallen 'under the spell' of this corrupt administration and is spinning his views along with the other Clinton lapdogs.Shame on you, Mr. Toobin for not mentioning BOTH of the Clinton's lying, or their misused and disrespect of the WHITE HOUSE. I would suggest to open-minded readers, read this book. You will immediately become aware of how deeply the Clinton doctrine has become ingrained in our society.
on March 3, 2000
Toobin has long been a Clinton cheerleader and an extremely dubious "legal scholar" on Good Morning America. With this book he hits new lows.
Even I, who tried to avoid as much of the Clinton situation as I could, spotted a half dozen or more outright falsehoods in his book as well as conclusion after conclusion which was supported by neither fact nor logic.
This is a true work of utter, utter nonsense which only the most ardent (and close minded) Clinton supporter could actually believe. The "most powerful man in the world" is a victim. Give me a break.
Toobin's words are routinely lousy on GMA and his words in this book are no better - probably worse.
The only reason I give this book one star is that I couldn't give it fewer.
Even I, who tried to avoid as much of the Clinton situation as I could, spotted a half dozen or more outright falsehoods in his book as well as conclusion after conclusion which was supported by neither fact nor logic.
This is a true work of utter, utter nonsense which only the most ardent (and close minded) Clinton supporter could actually believe. The "most powerful man in the world" is a victim. Give me a break.
Toobin's words are routinely lousy on GMA and his words in this book are no better - probably worse.
The only reason I give this book one star is that I couldn't give it fewer.
on March 25, 2000
There is a part of human nature whereby we are given to taking refuge in the sort of platitudes that enables us to profess compassion without having to be compassionate, which means to suffer with the suffering. There are forms of self-worship that insist on the inherent superiority of those whose esteem is defined by a gravitation to intellectual trendiness and who need to view morality as little more than arbitrary man-made "rules" to those who find the possibility of immutable principles of how human beings ought to order their lives together, which are transcendent to time, place, and human vanities. Liberalism, rooted in pious self-worship, is an intolerant religion, profoundly hate-filled towards those not taken in by its claims of virtue. Bill Clinton, both an icon and acolyte of this religion, personifies the hopes of those who need to preserve the myth of a liberal right to dominate culture in all areas from social experimentation to a preservation of the guilt-free prerogatives of the sex revolution, including the imagined right to exterminate lives deemed inconvenient. His exoneration, no matter cowardly and dishonorable his behavior, is a Sacred cause to the religious left.
To this end, Jeffrey Toobin has written an extraordinarily silly book. It amounts to shameless trivializations of wrongdoing by the President matched by shameless demonizations of those producing solid evidence of such. Whitewater was merely "a failed land deal," the White House travel office was only a "so-called" scandal where the "integrity-minded" Clintons "moved swiftly to replace career officials who worked there," indifferent, Toobin shows himself, to even bother to explore the nepotism involved. He claims it is "dubious at best" that any crime was committed during the White House's wholesale appropriation of confidential FBI files on Retired Republican political appointees, in spite of numerous episodes of slander emanating from the West Wing. The list of unexplored imputing evidence is endless. His dismissal of Clinton's perjury is evidence that it is not only Clinton who is unfit to be practicing law. Toobin ultimately shows no capacity, and this explains the book's popularity amongst easily-led liberals, to seriously deal with the meaning of Clinton's status as a sexual predator, his very probable status as a rapist, and the connection this has to the focal point of the Culture war, the need for abusers of sex to exterminate and support the extermination of unborn lives.
To this end, Jeffrey Toobin has written an extraordinarily silly book. It amounts to shameless trivializations of wrongdoing by the President matched by shameless demonizations of those producing solid evidence of such. Whitewater was merely "a failed land deal," the White House travel office was only a "so-called" scandal where the "integrity-minded" Clintons "moved swiftly to replace career officials who worked there," indifferent, Toobin shows himself, to even bother to explore the nepotism involved. He claims it is "dubious at best" that any crime was committed during the White House's wholesale appropriation of confidential FBI files on Retired Republican political appointees, in spite of numerous episodes of slander emanating from the West Wing. The list of unexplored imputing evidence is endless. His dismissal of Clinton's perjury is evidence that it is not only Clinton who is unfit to be practicing law. Toobin ultimately shows no capacity, and this explains the book's popularity amongst easily-led liberals, to seriously deal with the meaning of Clinton's status as a sexual predator, his very probable status as a rapist, and the connection this has to the focal point of the Culture war, the need for abusers of sex to exterminate and support the extermination of unborn lives.
