Rating: 
Summary: lame duck reporting
Review: Reagan was much too busy building up terrorist camps in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Afghanistan to worry about the consequences. After the first WTC bombing on his 38th day of Presidency, Clinton (who led America during its most prosperous decade EVER) swung into immediate action...don't believe that? Maybe you could ask Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad or Wali Khan Amin Shah. All of whom Clinton put behind bars without the help of the smarmy Republicans more interested in the presidents sex life than national security. Maybe conservatives would like to ignore Clinton's successful scuttling of the assassination of the Pope, the assassination of George Bush, the plan to simultaneously blow up 12 jetliners, the plan to blow up LAX, the plan to bomb Seattle, the plan to blow up our UN headquarters throughout the world, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, but that doesn't mean that he didn't. Some other FACTS of note, Clinton signed an executive order for the assassination of Bin Laden, attempted to get Bin Laden from the Sudan (who were not prepared to hand him over despite what you hear from FOx) and DOUBLED the budget for fighting terrorism. But I guess facts don't really appeal to conspiracy hacks who would rather America go down in flames than admit that Clinton isn't evil anyway.
Rating: 
Summary: Sadly everyone blundered
Review: Sadly, everyone blundered - how much easier would it have been, for example, if George Bush Sr had gone all the way to Baghdad in 1991, when easy and conclusive victory was well within his grasp. No, it is wrong to place partisan blame - everyone made mistakes and that means, one would hope, that everyone could then learn from them to prevent such atrocities from happening again. Religion is a major player in world affairs, and Democrats and Republicans alike all failed, alas, to see it. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003)
Rating: 
Summary: The Eighth Pillar of the RIght Revisited: Blaming Clinton
Review: In my perusal of the book I happily found it quite free of the vapid insults that grace so many other works in the anti-Clintonista pantheon. In Losing Bin, Laden Miniter attempts factual and logical evidence. He attempts, but he does not do such a good job.First, in the early pages of the book he describes an attack in Yemen (December 29,1992)prior to Clinton's taking the oath of office. It absolves Bush senior of guilt because of his lame duck status. Because of the attack Clinton, Miniter argues,should have known about Al'Qaeda and Bin Laden. A full nine years later he puts no similar onus on George W Bush for his neglect of Bin Laden prior to Sept 11. On Sept 11 the Bush junior presidency was eight months old. When the first attack on the World Trade Center occured in the winter of 1993, the Clinton presidency was six weeks old. Reliable sources say that Ramzi Youssef and his confederates had been planning the deed for three years. Where was Bush I and why do we see no book castigating him? (rhetorical question) Remember that many of the folks behind the first attack are now serving long prison sentences. I guess that is another Clinton failing-- that he actually put some bad guys in jail on his watch. In fairness, Miniter does credit Clinton's successes in thwarting the millenium bombing of LAX, mentions the capture of Shiek Omar and the intelligence coups that saved the Holland Tunnel in New York from a rush hour terrorist assualt. He bemoans the fact that thousands might have died had these assualts succeeded. The fact that those folks did not die should reflect well on Bill Clinton and his administration. Remeber 3000 died in Bush juniors presidency. Instead he views Clinton as a political cream puff afraid to act. He claims Clinton refused to take Bin Laden from the Sudanese in 1996. According to Joe Conason, Bin Laden was never offered to us. The Sudanese offered him to the Saudis. Clinton lobbied the Saudis; the Saudis said "no." The story is old right wing pap, and the reader should know that. Further corroboration can be found in an Oct 3, 2001 article by Bart Gellman and the book The Age of Sacred Terror by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon. Why would the president not take Bin Laden if he had the chance? Clinton made many attempts on Bin Laden. The missile attack in 1998; an invasion by a CIA led Pakistani commando unit in 1999 that was cancelled because of a military coup in that country; a rocket attack on his truck convoy in 2000. Miniter calls the October 12, 2000 attack on the Cole an act of War, and Willie Limp Wrist (Clinton) did nothing. He likened it to the sinking of the Maine (a bad choice because the Maine may have been a set up). He calls it the worst peace time loss of American sailors lives since the Maine. He bashes Clinton for the Black Hawk Down incident in Mogadishu early in 1993 where 19 service men were killed. He calls Clinton for leaving. He conveniently forgets the 253 marines that died in Beirut in 1983. They went unavenged. What did Reagen do; he cut and ran. Always Clinton is supposed to act. If he acts, he wags the dog; if he does not act, he is complicit with terrorists--talk about a catch 22, a double bind. No less a figure than Paul Bremer, Bush Juniors top Iraqi adminitrator, said Clinton "rightly focused on Bin Laden."
(Dec 24 2000) Robert Oakley, Reagan counter terrorist expert, called the focus an "obsession." Sandy Berger told his successor to the National Security Advisorship, Conde Rice that "terrorism
and al'Qaeda specifically will take up most of her time." She did not listen until it was too late for 3000 people. I could deconstruct further. The truth is that claims and counter claims are often merky (Here I do believe that Miniter is working as a right wing propagandist,plying his wares to useful idiots). Lets try logic: *If Clinton bears responsibility for the 1993 WTC attack after just six weeks in office, should not Bush Junior after eight months, ample warnings, bear even greater culpability? *If Clinton is responsible for Bin Laden whose first manifestation was three weeks before his presidency, why is Bush Junior a victim when he had almost nine years of the "Osama Show" to learn from. Why did he not hit the ground running to correct Clinton's malfeasance? *If Clinton bears responsibility for events that happened on the Sept 11 WTC attack eight months into Dubya's presidency, shouldn't Bush I (his dad)bear responsibility for the WTC attack just six weeks into Clinton's presidency. The attack was planned for three years on dads watch. *If Clinton is duplicit for not acting more decisively on the Cole where 17 died and in Mogadishu where 19 died, why is Reagan praised as a terrrorist warrior when he let 253 marines die in Beirut. The truth is that Mr. Miniter is the latest in a long line of Clinton bashers who scapegaot the 42nd president to cover their own culpable behinds. If they did not have Bill Clinton to bash they would have to examine their own sorry selves; and that is just too painful.
Rating:
Summary: More crap from the crap factory
Review: Read this book if you already hate Clinton; or if you love Ann, Rush, and Timothy McVeigh. Let's face it, the very concept of this book is flaccid, like most 'ideas' ("brainfarts" is more accurate) from the soft-squishy right. The neo-neanderthals would have us believe that Clinton dropped the ball on something that didn't happen on his watch. Oh well. The only thing that truly works against terrorism is cutting taxes for the rich, isn't that right? The doctrinaire republicans must be sweating. I talk with my republican neighbors often, and more and more of them reject the "blame Clinton" ideology.. in fact, most are planning to drop their own decades-old voting habits.. and drop the gop next time around. Bush promised to "get" bin Laden "dead or alive" more than 2-years ago.. where is he? Where is Saddam? Where are the WMD's? Around 2,000 people have been detained in the "war on terror".. only 4 are charged.. Where are the bad guys? Where's the federal budget surplus? Why are veterans benefits disappearing? Where did the 2.7 Million jobs go? Where's my 401k? Where's the recovery? Where's the middle class (poverty increased while personal income decreased for a second straight year in 2002)? Where are the charges against Kenny-Boy Lay? What happened to hope? Where's the republican outrage over the chickenator (too scared to debate Gray Davis) Arnold "governor gang-bang" Schwarzenegger (whose alleged "business experience" apparently consists of running the ill-fated planet hollywood restaurants)? Books like this are designed to keep the neo-cons trapped in the tunnel.. God help them if they actually SEE the damage that's been done.
Rating: 
Summary: Why This Book is Outstanding
Review: Here's a list of the reasons this book is simply outstanding: 1. It has the goods on what Clinton did and didn't do from Clinton's own people. High-level, in the Situation Room kinds of people.
2. It has the goods on what Clinton did and didn't do from court records, government documents, and extensive research.
3. It has the goods on what Clinton did and didn't do from the CIA and the FBI. Even from foreign intelligence services that were involved!
4. It's fair. It really is. The author actually tells you the things Clinton got right, even though there are very very few of them. But you can't blame the author that there are so few things Clinton did right! But the fact that it's fair makes the failures even more powerful.
5. It's a serious piece of work. Lots of fact and little opinion. That's the way indictments should be.
6. It deals head-on with the "Reagan/CIA created bin Laden myth," and debunks it. (That's for all the reviewers pretending to have read the book who complain the book doesn't deal with that issue.)
7. You learn alot about how all the pieces fit together right up to the Oval Office.
8. It's a page-turning read.
9. It's suspenseful.
10. It has fascinating characters.
11. And the final reason that it's outstanding is that it's got the Clinton lovers running scared for all the reasons above. P.S. If you want a test for someone who didn't read the book writing a review, just look for the words "polemic," "rant," "boring," "screed," "badly researched," etc. You get the picture
Rating:
Summary: Meant to say MONTH and a half, okay?
Review: Sorry for the typo. Love having someone who hasn't read the book say I'm displaying my ignorace, especially what it DOES NOT CHANGE THE POINT! Somehow the lefties bring Coulter, Hannity and Limbaugh into this discussion, when the most damning witnesses against Clinton in this book are Burger, Clarke, and Woolsey, Clinton appointees all. The point is that Clinton's War on Terrorism was like the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, etc. A news release, but not a war. The people who complain about Iraq aren't at war, either. It's like saying, "what did the Germans have to do with Pearl Harbor, anyway?" Albright says in her book they needed "actionable" intel before they would hit Al Queda, in other words, something like warrantable proof in a court! She's even proud of it! Yeah, I read HER book, too!
Rating:
Summary: What a miserable failure
Review: If you want to know who the miserable failure is, to use the Democratic invective name-calling, then look no further than Bill Clinton. Clinton was offered Bin Laden on a silver platter by The Sudan. His inept liberal cabal of Reno, Albright, Berger, Christopher, and the rest of the liberal sophists issued a resounding "NO" - not unlike the myriad of women said to Bubba before he violated them. Miniter reveals appalling new incontrovertible proof of how Clinton was offered Bin Laden yet again by the Pakistanis when he landed in Pakistan in a stop-over on his way from The Sudan - and much to no one's surprise, he rejected the offer. 9/11 could have been just another normal day in the annals of history - if not for the utter abomination that was the Clinton White House. Disgraceful.
Rating:
Summary: Response to Forsmark's review
Review: This is written in response to Mr. Forsmark's review. As a bief aside, I agree generally that persons writing reviews should read the book. I haven't and do not pretend to have. However, I would like to note that having read reviews of Mr. Franken's book, that his detractors have clearly not read it either. (I gave the current book 3 stars for now. I did not want to skew the average) However, the world trade center bombing happened February 26, 1993. THAT IS 38 DAYS INTO CLINTON'S admininstration. It's unwise to complain about the ignorance of others when you so readily display your own. If you get your news from sources other than Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity, et al., all of whom have demonstrated a reckless disregard for the truth (if they are not blatantly lying) you would realize that Clinton did more to fight terrorism than any administration before or since. The sad fact is that if he were still in office 9/11 probably would not have happened. The republicans fought Clinton all the way on any spending for terrorism and Bush wasted time and money on his silly star wars defense plan. I plan to read this book and will write a fuller review when I am done.
Rating:
Summary: Gag!!!
Review: ... Miniter is not only blatantly biased and pushing an obvious right-wing ...agenda, but his writing is just painful to wade through, it reminded me of bad college-newspaper editorial writing. All polemic and half-truths in the service thereof, but unlike some conservative writers like George Will he doesn't even have the saving grace of a witty or fluid prose style ... Safire and Will are at least decent wordsmiths; ...
Rating:
Summary: Actually read the book-- and an occasional newspaper!
Review: Now that I've read the rest of the reviews, I realize I was too kind to the rebuttals. Not only have none of them read the book, many have never read a NEWSPAPER! One can't spell Afghan, another says Bush Sr. should have responded to the first World Trade Center Bombing-- which happened a YEAR AND A HALF INTO THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION!! The publisher is reviewed, the author's background is trashed, but none of the one star reviewers even PRETENDS to have read the book. Shouldn't Amazon at least make them fake it?
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