The book starts out with the L.D. Brown story. Brown was a close confidant of Clinton when he was Governor Clinton of Arkansas. Brown, with Clinton's help, attained a job with the CIA. Brown quickly became entangled in the Barry Seal/Mena drug trafficking operation. Brown is an important figure because he can link Clinton into the drug operations. This part of the book is essentially the same account that can be found in Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton". If Brown is to be believed, this is a devastating indictment of Bill Clinton and sets the tone for Tyrrell's examination of the Clintons.

The rest of the book traces Bill's ascension to the White House. We get an account of Bill and his education at Oxford and Yale, where he quickly hooked up with what Tyrrell calls the "Coat and Tie Radicals", which are those New Left hippies that smoked dope and engaged in Marxist thought on the weekends, but spent the rest of their time carefully cultivating their public image so as to land good positions in government, law and corporate America. Tyrrell shows that during the time between the 1960's and the 1990's, these Commies never changed their attitudes or beliefs. They simply waited through the Reagan years for their chance to impose their warped values on America. Their beliefs can be summed up in what Tyrrell calls the "kultursmog", a choking mess of touchy-feely and Marxist/Socialist ideas that clouds traditional American values. Tyrrell continues his assault on the Clintons by showing their financial scams, their rabid pursuit of power over everything else, how they are products of the corrupt "Ole Boy" network of Arkansas politics, and how the first year of the Clinton presidency, 1993, was an utter disaster for America. Tyrrell outlines all of the scandals and flubs that made the Clinton presidency the most corrupt and inept administration in American history. Tyrrell also looks at Clinton's childhood, throwing aspersions on Clinton's mother Virginia, who is portrayed as a loose woman without any morals. He also points out that we can't be sure who Clinton's father really is.

A separate chapter offers a treatment of Hillary Clinton and reveals the true colors of our illustrious First Lady. She is exposed as a closet Communist who clerked for a well known Marxist lawyer who defended the Black Panther Party. Hillary also edited a journal at Yale that was extremely hostile to authority figures. One edition depicted police officers as racist pigs who should be killed. Hillary's infamous behavior is also closely detailed. Apparently, our First Lady has a temper problem, and likes to heave objects in fits of volcanic anger.

Tyrrell explodes the Clinton mythos and shows them to be two black holes in power suits. The portrait painted here reveals them to be grasping, petty, manipulative power seekers without a shred of decency. They dragged America through the mud, and the country will forever be stained by the Clinton legacy. And this was written in 1996, well before the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke.

It's important to note that Tyrrell uses an astounding vocabulary throughout the book. Words such as foozle, avuncular, and lumpen predominate. The style is also extremely snide and can get pretty ugly. Tyrrell pulls no punches in this treatise, and liberals will scream bloody murder while reading this, if they can finish it in the first place. It is, without a doubt, a polemic, and should be read accordingly. I have to give it five stars for its sheer audacity. I'll read it again.

The book does not flow as quickly as his last book "Den of Thieves" nor is it as gripping. It is, however, a very well constructed and researched book. If you are interested in this particular issue then I have not come across a book with a better non-partisan telling of this story. If you are looking for an overall detailed account of the election or the first four years in the Clinton White House I would suggest the Woodward books "The Agenda" and "The Choice" and the Elizabeth Drew book "Showdown: The Struggle between the Gingrich Congress and the Clinton White House".

The book details the business partnerships the Clintons had with the McDougals from the 1970's on the 1990's and its fall out. The story stretches from Arkansas to the White House and even goes a bit into the suicide of Vince Foster.

Stewart makes no judgments as to whether any impropriety occurred in any business dealings, so this is a good place to start for an objective reader who wants to make up his own mind about the whole sordid mess.

Overall, Not So! is OK but it could have been better if there was more cohesion.

Shortly after winning the presidency in November of 1992 over incumbent President George Bush Clinton soon had to both come to grips and realize that his work was cut out a lot more for him, than he, or his campaign staff could've ever realized. Ultimately, he had to accept the fact that he would have to do some drastic compromising from his campaign promises. Clinton of course campaigned to be a "New Democrat" who would restore the economy to the forgotten middle-class and overturn the Reagan-Era greed of the 1980s, by investing in jobs, education, and health insurance reform. After meeting with Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, he soon realized that it wouldn't be so easy. As it would turn out, taking bold action to reduce the overwhelming national deficit would become the top-notch priority of his economic recovery plan, and would hog up most of his budget. Therefore his beloved domestic investment agenda would have to be sacrificed. Including his promised tax-cut for the middle-class.

So even before, let alone after Clinton took the oath of office, Clinton had his work cut out for him. He had to realize
early that his approval ratings would sink miserably and there would be disenchantment among his strongest supporters, let alone the American people. In many ways, two camps developed in his White House. There were the fiscal conservatives such as Robert Rubin, Leon Panetta, David Gergan. Then there were those from his campaign staff who wanted him to continue with his campaign pledges of investment such as Paul Begala, George Stephanapolis, and James Carville.

Greenspan's influence over the new president was amazing. Although it was from a neutral point of view, Greenspan
made Clinton understand how it was crucial that Clinton tackle the deficit. Or else long-term interest rates would never come down and the economy would never take off. Without the economy taking off, no way would Clinton ever be able to get back to doing the things that he was elected to do, let alone re-elected in 1996. Clinton had to come to accept that he would have to sacrifice many things, among them, his political popularity, but know that the long term effects would pay off dividends for both him politically, and for the US economy.

Fortunately for him, it did apparently work out for the best, and he did (with the extreme help of a Republican Congress
balance the federal budget in 1997) reduce the deficit and gave us a budget surplus. What should also be strongly considered is that he did this, at the behest of cutting the DOD and the intelligence community, which contributes to events such as September 11th, 2001.

What is also amazing about this book, is that Woodward gives you a fly-on-the-wall view of the battle to pass this
budget through both the House and the Senate. It also gives you the word for word account of a bitter phone conversation between Clinton and Nebraska Democratic Senator Bob Kerry, in which Clinton tells Kerry to go f--- himself, when Kerry refuses to vote for his budget, which turned out to be the crucial vote.

As it would turn out, Kerry would vote for it, making it a tie. Gore then gave the over the top vote and the budget was
passed.

This book was very, very good, and that is why I was able to go through it so quickly.

-Nicholas J. Vertucci

The book is poorly titled, it should be "Web Client Programming with Perl and LWP".

If you take out the endless and repeated perl listings, and quite childish introductions, that are also repeated, the book shrinks to half it's size.

However taking these to facts into account, what's left is both facinating and enlightening, but not worth the $30 list price. I'm glad I got via Amazon at a discount!

I'd recommend this book to anyone who does Perl programming and wants to build quick, simple and easy web 'bots to scavange the net for information on your behalf.

Interviews with people from all walks of life give the reader an up close and personal look at Bill Clinton -- the man. It's candid, compassionate and real. Excellent read!

At the timethe book was issued, I noted what must have been a very painful episode in the subject's life, at least as Brock reports it.

According to Daivd Brock, for her entire life, Hillary Rodham's mother urged her daughter to excell at academics. Yet when Hillary received the singular honor of giving the commencement address at her college, an event that brought her national attention at a young age, Brock reports that Hillary's mother was not in attendence. That struck me as what must have been a particularly bittersweet moment in the young Ms. Rodham's life. To work so hard for approval and then receive none.

Several years later, in a biography that received cooperation from the First Lady, Gail Sheehy reported that it was Hugh Rodham, Hillary's beloved father, who had skipped her famous commencement address in lieu of other pressing activities.

Mistaking the subject's mother for the subject's father strikes me as a rather serious factual error for a biographer.

Ruddy is relentless in his pursuit of the truth about the Clinton Administration and his ability to reveal the stories that the liberal press left out is simply some of the best reporting I have read in a very long time, after reading the book you'll be asking yourself why you never heard this information before.

Ruddy busts through the blind press to give you stories about the Teamster scandal, Chinagate, Janet Reno and what she did to help cover-up scandals. Ruddy also shows that the Monica scandal was more than a "personal" affair and it's only the tip on the iceberg in the sex scandals throughout the political life of Bill Clinton.

Ruddy is more than a reporter, he's a pit bull when it comes to uncovering what the media has hidden. His capacity to stop the ever running spin machine and give you the true story is what Chris Ruddy is all about.

From insights into the real Bill and Hillary to the strange deaths of Ron Brown and Vince Foster, to the media bias, to the selling of secrets to China and the illegal campaign contributions this book is filled with interesting and sometime amazing stories. Very well done Christopher Ruddy!!!!!