Rating: 
Summary: You would've thought I country bumpkin wrote this book.
Review: Johnson's part was hilarious. I was crying with laughter. But the rest of the book was boring, just a bunch of gossip. No juicy details. No funny lines. And definitely anti-Democrats.
Rating: 
Summary: More of the Same
Review: Kessler really wants to be a hard-hitting reporter; he takes on the government at every chance he gets, the CIA, the FBI and now the President. Unfortunately with this book he tended to pick the low hanging fruit and gave us more of the same old stuff, the "shocking but true" and the "they don't want you to find out" info. He rattles off some well-used stories about many of the last holders of the office meant to show that power corrupts etc. The only thing I found new was some of the descriptions of the everyday employees of the White House and their daily jobs. Overall this is an average book. I would suggest the better book would be "Shadow" by Woodward - not the best but an improvement over this book.
Rating:
Summary: More of the Same
Review: Kessler really wants to be a hard-hitting reporter; he takes on the government at every chance he gets, the CIA, the FBI and now the President. Unfortunately with this book he tended to pick the low hanging fruit and gave us more of the same old stuff, the "shocking but true" and the "they don't want you to find out" info. He rattles off some well-used stories about many of the last holders of the office meant to show that power corrupts etc. The only thing I found new was some of the descriptions of the everyday employees of the White House and their daily jobs. Overall this is an average book. I would suggest the better book would be "Shadow" by Woodward - not the best but an improvement over this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Notning new in DC
Review: Look at it for what it is, gossip. I did enjoy the presentation of one fact; Clinton, came to power at a time when the press was story hungry. Since Nixon, the press has gone for the throat. We, in America, do not cover up the lives of our leaders. We place everything on the table for the world to judge. Too bad, we are all so fast to judge. It's a fair look, into a hard lifestyle. I did enjoy the book.
Rating:
Summary: A good read, unless you have already made up your mind.
Review: Most people will not enjoy seeing their heroes revealed as the human beings they are, full of faults and failures. Nor will they like the principle players in the Whitehouse game appearing weak and petty. Kessler raises may interesting questions, and details some disturbing behavior. Whether these stories are true or not, and they most likely are as I have not heard of any libel suit filed against Kessler for this book, is not the real point of the book. The creation of an institution that allows this sort of behavior without accountability is the real story, the more disturbing aspect of the book. Mr. Kessler should be commended for raising an issue with the secrecy that surrounds the most "visible" member of our national government.
Rating: 
Summary: 20/20 vision through the bottom of a Coke bottle
Review: Ronald Kessler is out to shock. And shock he does: learning that Lyndon Johnson kept three secretaries on the payroll to supply him with sexual favors in the Oval Office was a more frightening enough display of presidential arrogance than anything Bill Clinton did. But Kessler is playing sloppy historian and journalist here. One cannot keep on making accusations about every single president in the last forty years, and then not identify the source beyond "a Secret Service Agent said." While there are a number of responsible citations by name, by not revealing his sources more concretely, Kessler violates the rules of the game: always get confirmation from more than one source, and always cite your sources. It's one thing to protect your sources for a daily newspaper, when exposing the source can get him fired or hurt. It's another thing to do it in a book that wants to be taken seriously as history. That said, this is the thinking person's version of the National Enquirer. You simply have to separate out what has been attributed to a reliable source, and what has been reported as hearsay. All in all, a guilty pleasure at its most reliable, and one best used as a source for stories to tell gullible friends. Another sign of our times, where the juiciness of the tale is the top priority.
Rating:
Summary: Mix one part gossip, one part history, one part scandal rag
Review: Ronald Kessler is out to shock. And shock he does: learning that Lyndon Johnson kept three secretaries on the payroll to supply him with sexual favors in the Oval Office was a more frightening enough display of presidential arrogance than anything Bill Clinton did. But Kessler is playing sloppy historian and journalist here. One cannot keep on making accusations about every single president in the last forty years, and then not identify the source beyond "a Secret Service Agent said." While there are a number of responsible citations by name, by not revealing his sources more concretely, Kessler violates the rules of the game: always get confirmation from more than one source, and always cite your sources. It's one thing to protect your sources for a daily newspaper, when exposing the source can get him fired or hurt. It's another thing to do it in a book that wants to be taken seriously as history. That said, this is the thinking person's version of the National Enquirer. You simply have to separate out what has been attributed to a reliable source, and what has been reported as hearsay. All in all, a guilty pleasure at its most reliable, and one best used as a source for stories to tell gullible friends. Another sign of our times, where the juiciness of the tale is the top priority.
Rating:
Summary: Disgraceful
Review: Rumors, innuendo, and speculation. Terrible editing and direction. This book is a mess. Thank goodness I got this off the bargain rack. Did Mr. Kessler work for the "Washington Post" or the "National Enquirer"??
Rating:
Summary: Cheap, unorganized, and largely off-topic
Review: The author skips back and forth from topic to topic. Is he talking about the White House budget? Or the sexual escapades of Presidents? Or the infighting of presidential assistants? Or perhaps the competition among White House residence staff? Or life on Air Force One? Or administration-press relations? Perhaps contingency plans for responding to nuclear attack? Maybe Secret Service tactics and resources? You never know what may turn up on the next disorganized page. He dwells at length on the sexual escapades of the Presidents, crediting almost every rumor as true (somehow exempting Bush). There is some good discussion about White House budgets, and how the grandeur and privileges of the White House affect governmental decision-making. One particularly interesting passage is on how White House chefs refused to follow presidential orders to stop serving heavy French cooking and serve lighter American food. "When they wanted a lighter meal, [the chef] said he was going to teach them how to dine." What really brands this book as glorified gossip-mongering is the very lengthy digression into Clinton's supposed sexual wanderings with Flowers and others _as governor of Arkansas_.
Rating:
Summary: Less than expected.
Review: The book was primarily gossipy and offered little that I have not heard or read before. I expected more insight and little known aspects of the presidents covered in the book than what I got. Overall, a disappointment.
|
