Inside the White House

Rating:
Summary: Amazing book about the secrets of the White House
Review: Heard the taped version of INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE by
Ronald Kessler . . . this is a fun and gossipy, behind-the-scenes
look at what really takes place at the stately institution . . . Kessler
based his work on interviews with secret service agents,
domestic servants, air force one stewards, military aides,
chefs, and ushers . . . you'll be amazed, as I was, at how
much is actually spent to run the place--many of the
costs being "buried" in numerous budgets that seemingly
have nothing to do with the white house.

In addition, I learned that:
President Johnson had the Secret Service install a buzzer
system to alert him if his wife approached while he was
fooling around with his secretaries.

President Ford's staff, after he lost to Jimmy Carter, showed
its displeasure by eating "anything in the mixed-nuts bowl but
the peanuts. they then threw them all over the place," said
Gerald Pisha, another Air Force One steward.

While the first family pays for the incremental cost of
food--the grocer's bill for a lamb chop--it does not pay for the
higher cost of preparation. Nor does the first family pay for
personal telephone calls, which come out of the annual
appropriation for the Executive Residence, or the flowers,
which cost $252,000 a year.

Rating:
Summary: wanted to give this a 5 rating
Review: i wanted to give this a 5 rating but after finishing it, you notice that carter and clinton are so much more picked apart than nixon, ford, regan and bush. the republicans are held, for the most part, in highter esteem than the democrats. i recommend this book still though.

Rating:
Summary: Trashy, but makes you think
Review: I'll admit, this is a gossipy, trashy book. I'll admit Kessler's writing style is uneven - he often jumps topics with little warning. But I'll also admit I couldn't put this book down - and it really made me think about the too-high standards we often set for presidential candidates. Did Bill Clinton do anything different that LBJ or JFK? No, it's just that we live in more open times now, and the press isn't as willing to cover information up like it did before. I look forward to reading more of Kessler's books.

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: 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: 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: You would've thought I country bumpkin wrote this book.
Review: This book looks to be an in-depth expose of the lives of presidents since Kennedy. However, it quickly turns into a anti-Democrat and Clinton-bashing book. Johnson is portrayed as a compulsive liar and serial adulterer and Carter is described as a disingenuous hypoctite. Reagan, on the other hand, is portrayed as a nice man who was a wonderful human being. While this may be true, it is worth noting that this is the same man who lied to the American people about his knowledge of the Iran-Contra scandal and who left office with the worst budget deficit and highest unemployment rate in American history. This man also declared war on the world power that is Granada and bombed that country back to the Stone Age. The auther seems enthralled by Reagan and repeatedly describes him as a great communicator (which he was) and a man who could make you feel good. Of course Reagan could do these things...he was an ACTOR! That is what actors do! The worst part of the book is the end. Kessler wrote this piece in 1995, just over 3 years into the Clinton presidenc. Yet, criticism of Clinton dominates the book and is almost 2.5 times as long as the chapters on Reagan, Johnson, and Nixon who each served over 4 years. Kessler condemns the press for not investigating Clinton's lies about his philandering and makes the case that since Clinton can't keep his Billy in his pants he is unfit to be president. If that were the ultimate judge of a man's ability to govern a country, most of the world's countries would be left without a leader. Also, U.S. presidents throughout history have had mistresses: Jefferson, Cleveland, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Roosevelt among others. The fact is this book does not reveal any bombshells about president's secret lives; all it reveals is Clinton's healthy extramarital sexcapades. Clinton-haters should love this book, though there are better books available on the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Just a bad, bad book.
Review: This one isn't worth your time. It's pumped full out of hot air and is totally dated besides.