Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating Book Even Though Written by a Hillary Apologist
Review: Tomasky's book will be the first and last book you need to read about the year 2000 New York Senate race. Well written, fast paced, often humorous and wonderfully insightful, Tomasky's book is both interesting and entertaining. Political junkies will thoroughly enjoy this book, especially with the facinating insights the book provides into the unique eccentricities of New York politics. As a New Yorker and long time observer of New York politics, Tomasky is uniquely equipped to relate Hillary's race to New York's political past and the expectations that past imposed on this race. Tomasky's book is largely about how such conventional wisdom was shattered by the unexpected outcomes of this race. Additionally, Tomasky's observations of the quirkiness of New York's politics is one of the most interesting aspects of the book. Tomasky shows that politics is a very different proposition in New York than much of the rest of the country. Tomasky sprinkles the book with engrossing tales of New York's political history and its personalities which makes for very colorful reading and provides more than a few chuckles. The downside of the book is that Tomasky seems a bit overly enamored with Hillary. Tomasky is very exhaustive in detailing Hillary's missteps in the campaign and makes clear she exercised some very poor political judgments, especially early in the race. Tomasky clearly puzzles at her lack of openness and availability to the press. But for the many more malignant furors that erupted during the campaign related to Hillary's ethics, Tomasky always seems to develop some alibi or another for Hillary to exhonerate her, such as when her husband issued clemency to Puerto Rican terrorists. Tomasky seems to brush off any notion that Hillary would have known about this action ahead of time because her campaign was surprised by the move. But what Hillary knew and what the campaign knew and when they all knew it may well have been two very different things. Tomasky fails to recognize this, and leaves unanswered why after years of asking for clemency President Clinton suddenly granted these terrorists their request in the middle of his wife's campaign in a state with a large Puerto Rican population. With all the many outstanding questions about Hillary's very checkered ethical past, Tomasky seems to dismiss these as nothing more than the product of the overactive imagination of "Hillary haters." He seems unconcerned for how Hillary's demonstrated lack of honesty and candor, as well as the many outstanding questions about her role in the Travel Office affair and shady Whitewater business dealings, effect her ability to be a trustworthy leader. Tomasky taxes credibility a bit by seeming more offended by the New York state GOP mentioning the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in an anti-Hillary campaign ad or Trent Lott reminding Hillary she needs to be a humble freshman Senator than he does about the demonstrated inconsitencies in Hillary's claims about the Travel Office affair that appear to be bald-faced lies. Additionally, Tomasky is a little overly harsh in his assesments of Lazio's campaign. While Tomasky amply demonstrates that Lazio ran a very ham-handed race, much more than I was previously aware of, Tomasky seems to have little good to report about Lazio or the race he ran. Despite Tomasky's obvious leanings, this book is well worth the read. I really enjoyed Tomasky's intelligent and witty writing style and were the book a little more balanced, I'd rate this book with 5 stars. But Tomasky has managed to take what could have been a very cumbersome topic and made it a breezy, readable, concise and well-told tale of one of the more interesting political races in recent memory.
Rating: 
Summary: Love Hillary or hate her, this book is rancid
Review: With friends like Michael Tomasky, Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn't need enemies---and God knows she has them, as we learn in excruciating detail in another book written by another reporter who should stick to quick, easily edited copy. Tomasky's focus on the New York press' reportage and not the subject at hand is perhaps the biggest shortcoming in Hillary's Turn. Then again, the media coverage appears to be the only aspect of the 2000 campaign that he grasped. The author's fawning, insipid descriptions of the candidate, and his one-dimensional attacks on her opponents, makes for the mirror image of an anti-Clinton diatribe, albeit more poorly written than most of those wretched screeds. Tomasky even refers to Jerry Oppeheimer's fluffy but largely sympathetic State of a Union as a hatchet job, which probably says more than will I or anyone else who reviews this pathetic "I was there" vanity project. Tomasky strikes me as one of those reporters whose editor accedes to demands that the copy not be changed so the public (and, importantly, management) can see how pathetic the writing really is.
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