Dick Morris is full of himself. However, this book is worth reading...particularly if you are a political junkie like myself. "Behind the Oval Office: Winning The Presidency in the Nineties," offers a front row seat to White House political strategy. To this end, the one conclusion that all will agree upon with this book is that President Bill Clinton is a slave to the polls.

In many ways this book reveals how shallow politics can get. Morris is an extremely influential political actor in the Clinton White House and is able to expertly navigate the President through the dangerous aftermath of the 1994 Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole midterm Republican advances. Moreover, there is no doubt that Morris laid the foundation for Bill Clinton's second term victory.

Morris does not enjoy the victory...he goes out in disgrace. Nevertheless, this book shows how the author's twenty-year relationship with William Jefferson Clinton and his wife Hillary allowed this couple from Arkansas to survive many political storms. Morris is a master of polling and offers many insights on how polling tracks voter thinking on many sensitive issues. This book is easy to read and a straightforward account of how the "big boys" win in the political arena.

Bert Ruiz

As a political staffer myself, I am always looking for "behind-the-scenes" type of books. "Behind the Oval Office" provides its readers with a thorough understanding of the Clinton White House and the manner in which it has conducted business over the past few years. Dick Morris, in depth, discusses many of the approaches that Clinton took in his attempt to gain successful reelection in 1996. Particularly interesting is Morris' triangulation approach to governing. I would highly recommend this book to others who are interested in presidential politics.

The undisputed master of polling, political stratagem, geopolitical sagacity, and, er... prostitutes writes an amazingly candid look into the Clinton White House worth reading years later. Morris chronicles his triangulation strategy that unfortunately led to Clinton's improbable 2nd term. Morris operated largely in secret as "Charlie" over the phone and later in and out of the East Wing while Clinton's staff worked separately in the West Wing.

Morris tells how Clinton instructs Morris to continue with the subterfuge to avoid the largely ineffective and overly quarrelsome Leon Panetta and Harold Ickes. Without Morris and his insight, Clinton no doubt would not have signed the Republican-sponsored Welfare Reform Act and would have lost in 1996. Morris, who is a foot shorter than Clinton, was tackled by Clinton while in Arkansas, only later to be consoled by Hillary as she told him that Bill only does that to people he loves. With friends like that...

I am not a fan of the Clintons and I emphatically voted against Hillary in the recent New York senatorial election. Nonetheless, I must say that this is a beautifully illustrated, tastefully written book about the White House and the Clintons' life in it. The book is chock full of excellent photographs and the glitter and style of America's most famous address is well covered. The book does not rate a fifth star for one reason: daily life in the Clinton White House is not well covered. If there was a book about the Ford White House, for example, you would have probably seen the photos of Ford preparing waffles for breakfast and daughter Susan, in shorts, tee shirt and bare feet, washing her car. Such personal glimpses of the Clintons are not in this book. Still, this is a wonderful book that belongs on your coffee table. I may not like Hillary but, I like this book.

Loved this book! Fabulously illustrated celebration of the White House's 200th. Annv. Nice variety of behind-the-scenes photos of the First Family and the White House staff, and a sneak-peek into the private places (once not allowed) hidden from the watchful-eye of the "JQ Public," historic treaures now ours to look at for as long as we like and to enjoy! Thank You, Hillary!

For many of us, the White House is a fascinating topic. There are never enough books to read. Hillary Rodham Clinton has given what I love to see: a book that is genuinely democratic, that is, featuring the butlers and stolling musicians alongside the statesmen and superstars (even to giving us the names of tree-decorating volunteers shown in the photographs). Like no other book on the President's House, this one makes it clear that this is the people's house. Of course it is much more. Within my lifetime it has become a magnificent museum of American History. And take note, not just an archive: the book clearly indicates that visitors will see objects received as the legacy of previous presidents and their families. I remember my once-only walk tour of the White House. It went so fast! While many rooms are a kind of blur, I will never forget leaving by the front door and walking down the curved drive to the street! What a rush. If you can't get to Washington or don't know the president well enough to get his personal guided tour, Mrs. Clinton's book is the next best thing.

Liking Clinton, I always felt nagging worry as Whitewater was constantly mentioned. "How the Media Invented Whitewater" INVENTED!! Surely that's biting off more than could possibly be said with confidence and a straight face. Then I read the book. Apprehension turned to outrage. Jeff Gerth of the New York Times went to Arkansas looking for a story. He extensively interviewed Clinton's Commissioner of Securities regarding S&L regulation. Finding Gerth long on opinions and shakey on the facts, the Commissioner wrote Gerth long memos (reprinted in "Fools for Scandal") detailing the facts of regulatory activity, corroboration existed in state government files and the RTC office that had participated in the joint regulation that included ultimately kicking Jim MacDougal out of Madison Guaranty, then the RTC taking it over. With these facts, Gerth went on to write "news" stories that are half false and half disinformation, published at a time when Clinton's 1992 campaign was imploding and this kind of story could have been the last straw. But nobody is tougher than Clinton. Lyons details each basic fact of Whitewater as a business, as a deal, and as a scandal. That it has been turned into a scandal is a tribute to how easily we can become victims of a hoax. Take the case of Jean Lewis, the so-called RTC whistle-blower. Since Madison Guaranty had no assets to recover for the RTC, Jean Lewis was assigned to other Arkansas S&Ls that had cost the government 20x more and did have recoverable assets. Jean Lewis announced to the coworker she was "out to change history" during the fall 1992 campaign and disobeying her superiors and her assigned case load worked full time to follow Madison Guaranty. She referred criminal charges and pressed the Republican Federal prosecutor in Little Rock, who said he would be guilty of prosecutorial misconduct if he brought a case with such a lack of evidence. Did you know that Jean Lewis had a side business selling "Presidential Bitch!" coffee cups with Hillary's picture on them, and on her company's business cards she used her RTC's office phone number? Jean Lewis is a cross between Mary Matalin and Gordon Liddy. She bought a tape recorder, and secretly taped her coworkers as she attempted to get them to make implicating remarks. She testified to the Whitewater Committee quoting coworkers based on her tapes, but adding insult to injury she misquoted what they had said. She testified she had bought this tape recorder after these quoted conversations occurred. Richard Ben-Veniste, the Committee's Democratic counsel, subpeoned the records of the store to find the tape recorder was bought before any of these conversations started. Jean Lewis committed perjury about half a dozen times in her tesimony to the Whitewater Committee. Having watched her testimony that day, and Richard Ben-Veniste's interrogation of her, I couldn't believe she was still being called a whistle blower. Afterwards, she puked from stress, and was too nervous to testify the next day. But the Republican propaganda machine was in full swing, with Jim Leach as pointman, who I lost all respect for as a result of his reckless attacks. Ken Starr, who continued to represent clients in litigation against the RTC even while serving as Independent Counsel, took Jean Lewis as an "advisor" since nobody at the RTC wanted her back. Those big S&L's in Arkansas she was assigned to recover money from? The statute of limitations expired while she ignored her assigned work and changed history. Don't expect Ken Starr to prosecute her for perjury. Don't expect the news media to put her tesimony up to scrutiny. Personal sarcasm not in the book: Arkansas politics, always referred to in the media as "inbred" (read: hillbilly), is an easy target of the "sophisicated" Eastern media. A subliminal message is they're looking down their collective nose at Arkansas - as if no scandal in New York politics? Or no one who would subscribe to a scandal sheet for entertainment? No, everything we print is true. I see why The Star is now quoted in the same company with this media, and reeking of resentment that a little hillbilly from a backwater state, took the government from its self-appointed owners, and "now we'll punish them for being successful" mentality. Arkansas the state has taken such a beating from national Republicans that the Arkansas Republicans started complaining. Negative politics, which we profess to hate, is recycled in the form of smear, scandal and the Rush Limbaugh School of Character Assassination. Bill Clinton is smarter and tougher than can be imagined. He is tough enough to withstand this unbelievably insane assault, and he is the real victim of Whitewater both financially and politically. Finding no substance in Whitewater, we have watched all year while attacks are packaged into another series of accusations. The media parrots the Republican smear campaign, and are insulted at non-cooperation from the Clintons, having distorted quotes and facts. Clinton is smart enough to use the legal protections of the justice system for the innocent. He is also smart enough to keep his mouth shut, and suffer the slings and arrows. Bill Clinton went into business with Jim MacDougal. Other people went into business with Jim MacDougal, such as Sheffield Nelson, Clinton's 1990 Republican opponent for governor, and Jerry Jones, natural gas/real estate wheeler-dealer turned Dallas Cowboys owner. "Fools For Scandal" provides considerable perspective of the business activities engaged in by these people. It's a big story. Don't make the mistake that you think you understand what's going on. Many people are convinced Clinton is guilty of crimes in Whitewater. Ask them what they are, though, and they can't tell you. Ask them why it's illegal to have lost $42,000 in a business venture, which the Clintons did, and they can't explain why that's a crime. Then neither is any thing else. There are other victims in Whitewater, I think. Like Roger Altman, who may have made the mistake of believing what The New York Times reported about the President, and got nervous, like I felt hearing it too. It's always easier to announce the conclusion of a book in a review than it is to recount the facts point by point. I feel the book stated the facts convincingly and the facts were woven together with background and context. If you can find any thing in this book that can't be verified by original documents, I'd like to know. This book is an investigative report where the media is investigated and scrutinized and found untrustworthy. And it took somebody from Arkansas to show us that.

Lyons makes it depressingly clear how the contemporary media, particularly the New York Times and Washington Post, is owned by the Republican party. That fact became obvious to millions of previously naïve Americans in the aftermath of the stolen presidential election, and certainly explains reporter's fascination with Whitewater in the absence of public concern. At the time of Clinton's Presidency, I subscribed to the NY Times, and had no idea how corrupt and biased they were and are, but couldn't understand why they were latching onto the Whitewater story, when there didn't seem to be any substance. I now know better, thanks in part to this book.

It's really quite chilling to read Lyons' account of how processed the NY Time's version of "news" was, how much of the truth they covered up, and how few of the inconvenient facts they allowed their readers to see. The Time's just prints all the news that fits the myth. It's very scary that most other newspapers follow the mighty Times like sheep and just accept their accounts.

I really didn't have much sympathy for Hillary Clinton until I read this book, and now I have some insight into what she endured, and why she made certain decisions. It's a disturbing and uncomfortable truth that Lyons tells, but Americans need to know.

The nucleus of Lyons' book began as an October 1994 article in Harper's Magazine. In it he confirmed what I and others had suspected: There was no there there in the Whitewater story, and that it was a hoax with regard to the Clintons.

Two years later, at around the 1996 elections, Lyons and the editors of Harper's came up with this book. More than just a recounting of the Whitewater saga, this book is one of the most damning indictments of journalistic malpractice ever written. At the core of the book is the behavior of journalists at various newspaper and broadcast media outlets in general, with particular emphasis on the New York Times and the now-discredited reporter Jeff Gerth. Needless to say, Lyons' book got a lousy review in the NYT Book Review, yet nobody has ever refuted anything Lyons wrote. Indeed, his book has stood the test of time.

Breezily written, yet meticulously researched, Lyons' book can be read in a sitting or two. I also recommend the section in the back of the book featuring a discussion with Lyons and a number of other journalists with regard to the lack of journalistic standards in the Whitewater reporting.

This book can also be seen as a forerunner to Lyons' (and Joe Conason's) upcoming book on the so-called Clinton Scandals, "The Hunting of the President." If that book is anything like "Fools for Scandal," it should be very good, indeed. Lyons and Conason will still not be invited to the Georgetown cocktail parties, however.

Read this book!! "Anonymous" hits the nail on the head with this pathetic tale of a misguided lass who doesn't realize the fool she's made of herself. Written in an appropriate, fairytale manner, this "Untold Story" is an entertaining encapsulation of the reasons why Miss Lewinsky is a godsend to the likes of Leno and Letterman. The tragedy is, The First Intern is the personification of a society that is plunging headlong into Existentialist Hell.

I got the REAL Monica's Story and also bought this one with it when I saw it. Nothing less than funny funny funny! Hah! And the illustrations were crack up humerous. This book is a great companion to the REAL Monica's Story, that is...if THIS is not the real Monica's Story.

Judith Regan's Monica's Untold Story is the perfect antidote to the media's self-righteous hypocritcal coverage of the stupidest story of the 20th Century. Way to go Judith! Monica's Story is funny and well illustrated. Buy the book and be the life of your next cocktail party. Add a box of cigars and you have the perfect father's day gift for the CEO in your family. Judith Regan is also the publisher and editor of Howard Stern's Miss America. I never thought Judith would be able to top Miss America, but Monica's Untold Story is so good that she may have done exactly that. The only book I hold in higher esteem is Getting To Howard: The Odyssey of an Obsessed Howard Stern Fan. By the way, if Judith Regan ran for Senator in New York I'd vote for her over Hillary.

Halberstam, as ever, writes so well...I am jealous. However, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed in this book. While it serves as a good overview of Clinton's foreign policy, it skimps on the first Bush Administration

First, the Persian Gulf War barely gets 20 pages, and it is almost all seen through the lens of the Air Force Colonel (John Warden) who planned the innovative air campaign. This is not really new or scandalous - Gordon and Traynor covered this in "The General's War" and you can find it in other sources. The only other mention you get is how tired Bush was from the Gulf War, and how it prevented him from tackling the Bosnia problem. Overall, Considering the subtitle is "Bush, Clinton and the Generals" Bush gets shorted.

Second, while the portraits of the personalities are vivid, there just isn't anything really new or insightful here. Indeed, there were many vignettes where I felt like I had read this somewhere before. Bob Woodward's "The Commanders" is still the definitive Gulf War decision-making work, Elizabeth Drew's "On the Edge" covers Clinton's decision making shortcomings, Ivo Daalder's "Getting to Dayton" covers Bosnia u1p to 1995; Daalder and O'Hanlon's "Winning Ugly" has everything about Kosovo.

As a student of international relations, my standards are a little higher. This book is useful to the extent it consolidates a lot of existing work, but it falls just a little short of being really deep or groundbreaking. Not even close to "Best and the Brightest."

I became a fan of David Halberstam's through his sportswriting, but since I have a longstanding interest in history and current events, I decided to check out some of his political writing as well. Having read this book, I'm glad I did. In "War In a Time of Peace" Halberstam attempts to summarize and analyze the key components of American foreign policy from 1989 to 2001 in a (relatively) brief and user-friendly five hundred pages. And it's a rousing success. Halberstam obviously has a profound understanding of the vast array of forces that shape modern-day politics, and he has an engaging writing style that keeps things moving right along.

The main thrust of the book is an examination of the effect the end of the Cold War had on U.S. foreign policy. Much of Halberstam's discussion focuses on two related themes: first, the decline in importance of foreign policy in American politics following the removal of the Communist threat; and second, the loss of clear-cut foreign-policy philosophies and objectives without the Soviets as an enemy. Halberstam proves his first thesis quickly enough with this fact: the first President Bush, despite his successes in the Cold War and the Gulf War, couldn't get himself reelected in 1992 in the face of the Clinton campaign's "It's the economy, stupid" logic because the American public didn't care as much about foreign affairs as it had even five years ago. The second theme of the book, regarding the ambiguity that accompanied foreign policy in the nineties, is reflected in the debates over just how and how much the U.S. should get involved in battles in faraway places like Somalia and (especially) the former Yugoslavia. Central to these debates was a fundamental question: should America, with its overwhelming military might, use its military as a police force in areas in which it lacked a vital national interest? In the wake of Vietnam, this was not an easy question to answer, and it loomed large over many of the Clinton administration's important foreign-policy decisions. Halberstam goes to great lengths to discuss the complex mix of factors that influenced these decisions in the Clinton years: American electoral politics, international politics, the internal machinations of the military, American public opinion, changes in journalistic practices, advances in military technology, Bill Clinton's personal problems, the legacy of Vietnam, and much more. Halberstam also gives the reader biographical sketches of many of the major American political and military players, as if to try to explain the impact their own experiences had on their views. He's sympathetic to these people, but at the same time Halberstam has a keen understanding of their weaknesses and how they worked against them.

I'm not really what you'd call a foreign politics or current events aficionado, but I think that may be why I found this book such a good read. It has enough detail to provide a comprehensive overview of American foreign policy in the post-Cold War period, without getting too bogged down in minutiae. At the same time, Halberstam demonstrates a remarkable perceptiveness in tracing the links between events and personalities that shaped America's actions. Highly recommended.

An essential overview of US foreign policy in the 1990s. Halberstam has crafted a well written, well researched account of the international policies and conflicts that shaped the 90s. He also deconstructs many of the major players -- Tony Lake, Dick Holbrooke, Colin Powell, Madeline Albright, Sandy Berger -- in great detail, exploring their particular leanings and, most importantly, the events that shaped their individual policies. For this group, shadows of the Cold War and of Vietnam are never far from the surface of their foreign policy.

I agree with reviewers who thought that the author has a liberal bias -- Halberstam tends to view the Clinton administration and the Democratic liberals as kinder, gentler, "aw-shucks" foreign policy doves, i.e. the kind of people who just "happen" to get caught up in nasty little international conflicts. Meanwhile, Republicans are portrayed as significantly more trouble-friendly and hawkish, to use a much-bandied-about phrase. Still, despite Halberstam's leanings, he does not hide the Clinton administration's obvious failings in the foreign policy arena. He is quite brutal at times in his descriptions of Clinton as a petulant man-child who doesn't like to be wrong and, more importantly, doesn't like anyone else to be right either.

The one flaw with this book, if it is a flaw, is simply that it was written before September 11. As such, it has a dated quality to it, like when you read about WWII or Vietnam. The world dynamic was significantly altered by 9/11 and it will be interesting to see if Halberstam picks up where he left off and writes the post-9/11 chapters of this book.

Overall, though, a must read.

Bovard provides us with the big picture regarding the policies of the Clinton Administration, whereas the media has only looked at certain things in isolation. Coming in the wake of the Danforth Commission on Waco, which claims to absolve the government of any fault in the death of the Branch Davidians, Bovard devotes a chapter of his book to the incident. Like many people at the time of the conflagration, I was one of those Americans who thought, "Well, they were a bunch of religious fanatics, whattaya expect?" Therefore, it should be rather sobering to read in "feeling your pain" that BATF agents could have arrested Koresh at any time when he went into town prior to the raid, and that at one point Koresh even invited the ATF to come and inspect the compound, but they refused the invitation. Instead, they opted for a military raid to be covered by the media to bolster the agency's image in the minds of the American people. A lost tv cameraman inadvertently tipped the Davidians off, but knowing this, the ATF tried to storm the compound anyway. The rest, as we know, is history.

Civil libertarians should be troubled by the attempts of the administration to limit privacy over our internet commmunications and in banking. The book also gives a good summary of why the military intervention in Kosovo was such a blunder. Interestingly, I just read in the paper this morning that an American serviceman pleaded guilty to raping and murdering an ethnic Albanian girl in Kosovo. Is this what Clinton meant by a humanitarian intervention? Other areas covered include the War on Drugs, agricultural policy, HUD abuses and gun control efforts.

I had recently read Bovard's previous book, Freedom In Chains, which I gave 5 stars. One of the weaknesses of "feeling your pain" is that Bovard recycles some of the same material. There are even entire paragraphs that look like they were cut and pasted from "Freedom". But since some of the issues he looks at were the same, I suppose we cannot expect him to reword everything he said. This book also differs from Freedom In Chains thematically. Whereas "Freedom" examined the concepts of freedom and liberty and the conflict between liberty and statism in a philosophical framework, his current work looks at how the Clinton Administration's policies have curtailed or threatened to curtail our liberties in a number of policy areas.

While some of Bovard's detractors may dismiss "feeling your pain" as just another Clinton bashing book, Bovard acknowledges that the Republicans would not have had a much better track record on many of these issues if they controlled the White House. This book is a must for anyone who wants ammunition to argue with a die hard Clinton partisan.

This is an important "anthology" of the abuses of the Clinton-Gore administration. To regular Bovard readers, it does cover some of the material that his other works have detailed but is a disturbing litany of statist, unconstitutional, and power hungry moves by this administration. What this summary does is put in greater perspective the actions of the Clinton-Gore administration that range from seemingly unrelated domestic policy such as HUD and farm loans programs to foreign policy such as the WTO and the Serbian war.

The common thread is a executive branch gobbling ever increasingly amount of control over normal people's lives while dishing out intellectually contorted reasoning appealing to people's emotions and fears. Intentions are always more important than results, activity more desired than progress, the end always justifies the means, and the truth is simply a tool to be used, warped, or discarded to advance one's aims. When we are constantly told that "it's all old news" or "just about sex", the casual political observer can't help but sit back and wonder about the lies we don't know about. This is what the book is all about.

I recommend you read the one star review from the person from California ("Hatred, not analysis"). This is an ironic message that illustrates all that the Clinton administration wants you to swallow. The reviewer reminds you that any dissenting opinion is simply "right wing hatred". He/she -- knows -- that the author has his facts wrong but won't tell you how they know this nor site any examples of these errors ("just trust me..."). What the Clinton-Gore apologists want us to believe is that any administration discretion is just a rare, isolated brush fire that really isn't a big issue, has been dealt with and there's nothing to worry about except when one steps back and examines the forest they find that the entire landscape is in flames.

James Bovard's "Feeling Your Pain" covers much of the same territory and the same abuses as his other excellent book, "Lost Rights." Nevertheless, "Feeling Your Pain" still is a very good book, especially in the chapters covering the abuses under Americorps. Bovard basically accuses Americorps of being a liberal indoctrination program which provides little to the communities in which they serve. His chapters on the abuses of the ADA and farm subsidies are also very interesting and show the extent of government waste in America.

I personally feel that Bovard should also be commended for continually reminding his readers about the abuses of civil liberties and human rights which happened at Waco and Ruby Ridge. Bovard's chapters on these almost forgotten scandals parallel those in "Lost Rights," although the chapter on Waco is more in depth to the aftermath of Waco. Bovard also offers extensive documentation of his resources in case readers want to verify Bovard's conclusions.

Basically, the only reason I am giving this book only four stars is because it covers the same material as "Lost Rights." Nevertheless, it still an excellent book from one of America's best liberatarian writers.

The title and pictorial representation leads one to believe that the book would share some light on the past and present exploits of the Clinton's political arranegements. However the book is in fact a catalog of ramblings about unsubstantiated charges of corruption at all levels of government. Additionally an inordinate portion of the text is dedicated to the struggles the Clintons went through in their early lives. It also goes off on tangents that only remotely relate to the Clinton's felonious life style. To the interested student of power brokers this book is replete with redundancies that leads to a boring and sophomoric exercise.

This book detailes the corruption of not only the Clintons but Arkansas and Washington D.C. as well. The book paints a picture of the idealistic and somewhat tortured personal lives of two people who get caught up in the corruption of not only Arkansas, but Washington D.C. The book does get kind of bogged down in discussing tangents to the main theme of the book, the Clintons, but its meant to show what kind of Arkansas and Washington D.C. they came into politically. The book, although defintely not pro-Clintons, avoids purely polemical and emotional language and writing. It is a sad commentary on politics in general and our country when corrupt people can get into high places.

This is an excellent read! If you are unconvinced of the corruption we have had for the last eight years, then this book will cause you to reconsider. It also goes into detail as to how Bill Clinton got into this terrible state.

Anyone who dismisses this book as unsubstanstiated is obviously partisana and also hasn't been paying attention to the news for the last eight years. An objective and reasonable person will see the truth and the truth is what is written is true and well documented. Mind you this is a close friend of Bill Clinton who wrote the book! No agenda - just truth for those who can accept it.

This book highlights the pattern of deceit, drug use and corruption. Frankly, I'd rather not be in denial but admit the obvious about this man. Hopefull the American people will never allow someone of this low calibur ever become President again.

The authors have done the nation a service by laying out the truth behind the Starr-Clinton battle. Kenneth Starr comes across as a very honorable and honest person, although politically naive if not incompetent. The Clintons, their administration and their defenders, come across as absolute low-lifes who would resort to anything to avoid the truth. The book contains very little that's new to those who kept abreast of the situation from internet sources, but may be of considerable value to those who relied on the main-stream media. The only comment in the book with which I strenuously disagreed was the authors' calling Matt Drudge an internet gossip columnist. Now that most of the facts have come out, the Drudge Report was the best site to gather the truth and the whole truth. In retrospect he did the best in-depth reporting of the scandals. That is why I am disappointed in the authors disparaging Mr. Drudge. Do they want us to continue listening to a left-wing mainstream media that not only slants the news, but much worse, censures the news or just ignores many newsworthy items that would be critical of the Clinton administration?

"The Truth at Any Cost" cuts through the hatefulClinton spin campaign against Ken Starr and his investigation ofClinton's subversion of the legal process and trampling of the rule of law and offers a clear-eyed and level-headed look at the truth behind Ken Starr and his inquiry. Starr's character is redeemed by this fascinating and insightful study and the facts it cites surrounding the investigation and how it was carried out, to say nothing of the vile depths the Clinton team went to in an attempt to bring down Starr as its only means of rescuing Clinton's soiled reputation. Ken Starr is shown in fact to be driven NOT by partisan politics, but rather by a devotion to justice and the rule of law. It is clear that what motivated Starr was his indignation over Clinton's contempt for the judicial process. Political motivations are scarcely in evidence in Starr's decision-making. If anything, Starr is portrayed as being too politically tone-deaf. Clinton is the one who comes out looking mean, partisan, hateful and on a vendetta, not to mention guilty of serious criminal malfeasance. It will be difficult for Clinton partisans to dismiss this book, as it is written by two of the nation's premier journalists from mainstream publications not known to be part of the "vast, right wing conspiracy." It will also be difficult for them to maintain the James Carville spin that the Starr investigation was about nothing more than investigating consensual sex. Anyone who comes away from this book still thinking Clinton was an innocent victim, rather than an abuser of his power to deny justice to one less powerful, and that Starr was anything other than a reasonable, fair, scholarly, yet maligned legal mind is too feircely partisan to be taken seriously. The book is balanced in making clear that Starr made mistakes in his investigation, but that they were errors made out of naivete or out of a lack of political sophistication. But there is little in this account to indicate that Starr was ever on a political "witch hunt." You would have to be in severe denial to not see that there was substance to the charges that drove Starr to put his professional reputation, his good name and even his life at risk in his brave pursuit of the truth...

What a great book Washington Post investigative reporter Susan Schmidt and Kenneth Starr expert Michael Weisskopf (of TIME Magazine) have written, titled TRUTH AT ANY COST: Ken Starr and the Unmaking of Bill Clinton (2000). Of the slew of anti-Bill Clinton books recently published, THIS ONE is by far the best, the most readable, the most interesting, the most informative, and the most damaging.

In short, it's a delicious book, so go out and buy it right now for $26. ($39.50 in Canada), and get ready for a good time.

By far the best part of this spectacular tome is Ms. Schmidt's detailing of the Monica Lewinsky affair, in all its lucious and tasty details.

The legend of the Linda Lovelace of the White House will live on in glory, thanks to Ms. Schmidt. Here's what you get:

Details about Monica Lewinsky agreeing to testify publicly about what happened. The background investigation of Monica by the DOD and others. The tale of the famous blue dress with semen stains. The charges against and possible indictment of Monica. The tale of Bill Clinton, his cigar, and Monica. Clinton's (many) denials of his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky. Details of Clinton's sexual relationship with Monica. The place of Betty Currie in all this. The fingerprinting of Monica Lewinsky. The testimony of Monica's friends to the Grand Jury. Monica's gifts to and from Clinton. Mr. Ginsburg, the famous lawyer. The spicy grand jury testimony. Monica's handwritten admission about what went on. The importance of the grand jury testimony. The Paula Jones case and Monica. Vernon Jordan and Monica. Oral sex while Clinton talks to Dick Morris on the telephone (this last also listed in the book's steamier than average index under "Lewinsky, Monica"). Phone sex (also in the index). "Prom Night" (initial OIC interview at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel). Monica's status as "Queen for a Day." Monica's reaction to Clinton's second TV address. Mr. Speights as a lawyer. Stein and Cacheris as lawyers for Monica. Her strategy to lie about her relationship with Clinton and her affidavit about that subject. Her tanturm when Eleanor Mondale saw Bill Clinton. Her testimony given to OIC (Office of the Investigative Counsel) at Ken Starr's mother-in-law's house. Linda Tripp and Monica. Tripp's taped conversations with Monica. Monica's Valentine's Day message to Clinton (very romantic!). Her VANITY FAIR photo, and many, many more splendid details, all guaranteed to satisfy.

The dignity and splendor of the Clinton White House will live on forever thanks to this great book. It is truly a winner. It deals with many other anti-Clinton subjects than Monica, but the handling of Monica is by far the best part of the book and the best treatment of the entire subject to be found ANYWHERE!

Read this book. It's terrific.

Strobe Talbott's latest book does not add much to the understanding of Russia or the role played by the Clinton administration (of which Talbott was its most senior Russia hand) towards that country.

Talbott will not be remembered by the Sovietological community for those things he describes in his book, which seem superfluous and self-glorifying. He will be mostly remembered for three events. The first is the billions of dollars wasted of U.S. aid money that he personally oversaw to Russia. The government of Viktor Chernomyrdin (whose personal fortune is estimated at over 10 billion dollars) squandered much U.S. aid money yet Talbott ignored the many warning signs and continued to advocate lending and aid to the Chernomyrdin government with the excuse that Russia is too big to lose.

Second, Talbott will be remembered for the disdainful way in which he treated the genuine Russian democrats that could have given that country a chance, while assisting former communist officials. Talbott famously under-cut the Russian reformers in 1993 when he quipped that "Russia needs more therapy and less shock," referring to the program of "shock therapy" that the reform-minded finance minister Fyodorov was trying to implement. Fyodorov later mentioned that Talbott had "stabbed us in the back." Later that year, the head of the largest pro-democracy movement in Russia, Galina Starovoitova, pleaded with Talbott for assistance in convincing a foreign TV star popular in Russia, to appear in commercials to help the democrats in the December 1993 parliamentary elections. Talbott refused to even return her calls. However, both the U.S. ambassador in Belarus (David Swartz) and the democratic leader of that country at that time (Stanislau Shushkevich) accused Talbott of using U.S. aid to help communist politicians there.

The third event that makes Talbott memorable are the widespread suspicions and accusations of his prior involvement with Soviet state security, the KGB. Some suspect that Talbott may have collaborated with the KGB to portray the USSR in a favorable light as Time Magazine correspondent (which he did) in exchange for access (which he had). Talbott was evasive in his confirmation hearings at the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the specific issue of his contacts and relation with a KGB agent named Louie.

These three events are not explored in his self-glorifying book, which is why those seeking to understand those tumultuous times read instead some other book, such as the account by former ambassador Jack Matlock.

I have gotten nothing out of reading this book. I am currently a student interested in diplomatic relations having some experience working in the White House and expected a down and dirty book about behind the scenes presidential diplomacy. I read nothing of the sort.

This book bounces from issue to issue, following events as far as dates rather than consolidating the efforts of the president and Talbot into subject by subject chapters.

I was also lost with names. He floods the reader with Russian names, mentioning there titles once or twice in the entire piece. This makes for very hard reading when trying to make sense of the various Vladmirs.

Nothing can be truly learned from the book and would be much better suited to a Tom Clancy reader who is not expecting a plot.

Contrary to several other reviewers on this site who are rather critical, I found this a very useful and insightful book. The fact that it hardly deals with the rise of the oligarchs and other important Russian domestic items is in my view not relevant as this is a book mainly on Russian-US relations in the 1990s. Talbott writes lucid prose and is often entertaining. One gets a good impression of the endless diplomatic wheeling and dealing behind the scenes with the Russians. Talbott gives a very interesting account of his direct relationship with the Russian official Yuri Mamedov, who served as his personal contact at the Russian foreign ministry. The wounded pride of the Russians, basically due to the collapse of the old Soviet empire, was so great that all kinds of irritations about Yugoslavia and Kosovo, NATO enlargement and other issues were basically inevitable, Talbott suggests between the lines. Amazing that things went so well between Russia and the US in this period of great difficulty for Yeltsin on the Russian domestic front. Boris Yeltsin comes through as an unpredictable politician with a drinking problem which was much bigger apparently than I suspected from reading other written accounts of the 1990s. During summits with the Russians, Clinton and his team were always counting the number of drinks Yeltsin gulped down and were often trying in vain to keep the hard liquor out of reach of the Russian president. When the summit was on American soil, that is. In Russia they didn't have this possibility, of course. Talbott writes with a great knowledge of Russian history and a love of the country, but is in no way uncritical of the mess Yeltsin and his team often made in the realm of foreign policy as well. Witness the unexpected transfer of Russian troops from Bosnia to Pristina at the end of the Kosovo crisis in 1999, which as Talbott pictures it, was a clear example of messy and irresponsible Russian decision making. Still, Talbott rightly suggests that Yeltsin as president was definitely preferable to a communist fossil like Zyuganov.

Spin Cycle is a must read for anyone interested in the White house "communications" office and the tailoring of political "news" for the press and those who follow politics. Although the book is ostensibly about the "spin" the White House puts on their own press releasses, statements, and news stories affecting the president perhaps its most valuable service is to show how the Clinton White House has trivialised the presidency by operating in thier campaign mode. Kurtz shows the cynicism of modern politics through the White House release of non-stories and minor stories and announcements as if they had some significance other than to provide a daily story about supposed actions and decisions made in the White House.

Howard Kurtz, aside from being a perceptive media critic, is a very luck man. Spin Cycle went to press just as the Lewinsky scandal broke. Now updated and in paperback, it is a must-read for anyone watching current coverage of the Clinton presidency and wondering how the heck we got here. Kurtz shows that the tensions between the Clintons and the White House press corps go back to the beginning of his presidency. For all his political savvy, Bill Clinton has never mastered media relations, and now, in crisis, he has no good will to call upon. Also central to Kurtz's story is outgoing press secretary Mike McCurry, a man who should receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for his work in the trenches.