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Customer Rating:
Summary: Mostly Legal
Comment: Nobody comes out of this story looking particularly good -- in case there were any doubts. Jeffrey
Toobin has carefully gone over the historical and legal issues and can find no one who lacks
culpability. Yes, actually, there was a "vast conspiracy" but it was a conspiracy of lawyers more
than politicians. The system has changed. Dissatisfied with political arrangements we now try to
shape them to our liking by legal means rather than through the political process. If you don't
like someone, you smear him, accuse him, try him, and throw him or her out of office instead of
waiting for the next election. With lawyers as eager intermediaries, Toobin shows us a "hate
Clinton" crowd on the right and Clinton and his advisors on the other. Clinton himself, ignoring
advice, acted in such a way as to seem almost actively helping his enemies. Ken Starr, appointed an
Independent Counsel with almost unlimited powers in the wake of Richard Nixon's "Saturday Night
Massacre", pursued Clinton's history through a real-estate transaction years earlier. He found
nothing justiciable and was about to fold, when it was pointed out to him that there was a vague and
half-hidden link in his charter that would allow him to switch from Whitewater to Lewinsky. He made
the leap without thinking a great deal about it and the result was the pasquinade the whole world
saw on television. Toobin feels that everyone involved should be ashamed of himself. I agree.

Customer Rating:
Summary: A great read
Comment: Lots of folks have found bias in this book, and I suppose if there is a skew it is ssomewhat
favorable towards Clinton, but by no means is this book a Clintonista apologia. I'm somewhere to the
right of Vlad the Impaler, and I found it a riveting read and laying out the facts. Toobin does an
excellent job of writing an engaging account of a period when the President's pants gripped the
nation. You won't be aable to put it down.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Fascinating well researched page turner
Comment: Very objective treatment of the scandals that nearly toppled the Clinton presidency. Hardcore
liberals and conservatives may be disappointed, but the rest of us will appreciate Toobin's witty
writeup of the hypocrites on both sides. A+++

Customer Rating:
Summary: Yawn....
Comment: What this clown calls a 'vast right wing conspiracy' is, in reality, 'the opposition'. When Mr.
Zipper attributed the OK City bombing to right wing talk radio, he earned every diatribe ever thrown
at him times a million.

Customer Rating:
Summary: A classic in the making
Comment: I suspect A VAST CONSPIRACY will become one of the classic acounts of the Clinton impeachment
scandal. Toobin distinguishes himself with thoroughness, factual clarity, and analytical
even-handedness. He is willing to dissect and criticize both sides. His conclusion--that the
Constitution-shredding rage of Clinton's attackers trumped the president's tawdry adultery and
lying--is spot-on, lights out, dead-solid perfect.

High points include a lucid first chapter
that outlines Toobin's themes; fine thumbnail sketches of the personalities involved; and dramatic
recreations of key events, like the interrogation of Monica Lewinsky and former Senator Dale
Bumpers' address to the Senate at the climax of the trial. Toobin sees America's post-World War II
tendency to settle political questions through court decisions as the major cause of the
impeachment. Analyzing this tendency, he demonstrates his even-handedness by noting that it started
with left-wing operatives like those in the civil rights and environmental movements, but that
right-wing activists eventually used the same tactics to try to nullify the 1996 election of Bill
Clinton. Toobin also points out how the thinking of feminists and the Christian right--usually
bitter political enemies--converged in the "character" issue. This, in turn, provided cover for
ratings-hungry media outlets eager to investigate the private lives of those in power. Although
Toobin occasionally resorts to irony or even sarcasm, he never succumbs to the breathless
vituperation of so many in the anti-Clinton camp ...

But I do agree with another reviewer
that Toobin might have devoted more space to the media's role in creating and sustaining the
scandal. It was absolutely vital. From swarming talk show hosts to stars of network news
organizations, media figures did more than their share to keep the story going, despite the fact
that 2/3 of the American people never though the crimes warranted the proposed punishment. (And,
after a year-plus of all-Monica-all-the-time, I'm never again going to be able to hear the phrase
"liberal media bias" without laughing.)

What most troubles me about the impeachment is that
the same thing could happen again. There's now a template: a minority who never accepted the
legitimacy of Clinton's election victories skillfully and ruthlessly exploited media and the courts
to sidetrack the entire country for more than a year. A VAST CONSPIRACY shows the fatuousness of
many of their claims. For instance, the five investigations of the death of Vincent Foster by
agencies ranging from the FBI to the Starr commission came to verdicts of suicide, suicide, suicide,
suicide, and suicide. But to this day, many Clinton-haters insist the president and/or his wife
murdered Foster, then perpetrated a nefarious cover-up. I have no doubt that if Gore had been
president on September 11, 2001, we'd already be deep into investigations and speculation about
impeachment.

Well-organized ideologues of the extreme right are far more numerous and
single-minded than their left-wing bogeymen. I fear they'll use the same techniques to go after the
next Democrat who dares to get elected president.

Until then, many thanks to Jeffrey Toobin,
and five well-earned stars for this excellent book.