Washington Post review of 'The Death of American Virtue,' by Ken Gormley

[alp227]

By David Greenberg
Sunday, February 21, 2010

THE DEATH OF AMERICAN VIRTUE

Clinton vs. Starr

By Ken Gormley

Crown. 789 pp. $35

Ken Gormley's new book about the Clinton impeachment saga bears the lurid and trite title "The Death of American Virtue," which sounds like a mashup of works by the conservative pundit William Bennett. Happily, though, it's nothing of the sort. It is, rather, something I didn't imagine would arrive so soon: a restrained, fair-minded, soup-to-nuts history of the largely fruitless investigations of Bill Clinton that shadowed so much of his presidency.

Despite the title, Gormley, a dean and professor at Duquesne University Law School and biographer of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, doesn't even ask in this book whether our public morals disintegrated amid Ken Starr's probe of President Clinton's sex life. Instead, Gormley carefully traces the tortuous path that led from an ill-advised 1970s real-estate investment in Arkansas's Ozark Mountains ("a tiny blip on the radar screen of Bill and Hillary Clinton when it occurred") to a political circus that thrilled the Washington press corps, infuriated the American people, forced the resignation of the top two House Republicans and helped make the exposure of politicians' most intimate secrets a distressingly routine practice.

Soon after the crisis, several journalists published instant histories, some of them quite good, especially given their time constraints. But more than a decade later, Gormley is able to add a great deal of new material -- too much to list here -- from key documents and interviews with central players. Some disclosures reside in small but noteworthy facts that deepen the record, such as the material from Jo Ann Harris, a Justice Department official who was tasked with reviewing the Starr team's controversial interrogation of Monica Lewinsky -- and whose damning report on Starr's handling of the case was suppressed from public view until now. Others are seemingly offhand retrospective judgments that actually reveal volumes, such as Starr's admission that he never should have expanded his initial Whitewater inquiry to look into Clinton's affair with Lewinsky. Cumulatively, these details substantially enrich our understanding of the whole episode.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/19/AR2010021902179.html

[bluestateguy]

1. I'm sure it's a fine book

But I won't read it, not for awhile anyway. Thinking about that whole episode can still send me flying into a rage.

[pscot]

6. My first thought

Good grief, why would I want to relive that mess?

[PRETZEL]

2. About a hundred pages in right now,

so far, it's been ok. Nothing special nor were there really any new shocking relevations so far.

Right now, if I could ask two questions of Gormley from what I've read, it would be these.

1) Did his research verify the roles of Scaife and others in the David Hale/Jim McDougal relevations that led to the second grand jury?

2) Why wasn't the role that Jean Lewis of the RTC in bringing the last minute referral fully researched.

[PRETZEL]

3. Little more than half way through,

Still nothing special or earth shattering,

[Captain Hilts]

4. Look up Paul Rosenzweig in the index. He's a UChicago law grad that provided a link between

the two cases.

[PRETZEL]

5. Him and Sol Weisenberg,

About 2/3's through now.

Things are getting a bit better.

There were definately people out to get Clinton, Starr buried his head in the sand and let them go after him while maintaining the plausible deniability.

Still not too impressed though.

[PRETZEL]

7. Finished the book over the weekend,

and decided to re-read the review.

This review is pretty spot on.

Some things are much more evident though,

Would recommend this book, but wouldn't recommend spending the $35 for it.

If you can get it at half price, go for it. It'll be worth it.