Synopses & Reviews
When Hillary Clinton spoke of "a vast right-wing conspiracy" determined to bring down the president, many people dismissed the idea. Yet if the first lady's accusation was exaggerated, the facts that have since emerged point toward a covert and often concerted effort by Bill Clinton's enemies--abetted by his own reckless behavior--which led inexorably to impeachment. Clinton's foes launched a cascade of well-financed attacks that undermined American democracy and nearly destroyed the Clinton presidency.
In vivid prose, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, two award-winning veteran journalists, identify the antagonists, reveal their tactics, trace the millions of dollars that subsidized them, and examine how and why mainstream news organizations aided those who were determined to bring down Bill Clinton, The Hunting of the President may very well be the All the President's Men of this political regime.
Review
"The true story of those pursuing imagined demons is more entertaining and instructive than the fevered fantasies spun to frighten us....On the Clinton scandals, this is the book by which to judge all others." The Denver Post
Review
"The story of the Clinton scandals is a tortuous, labyrinthine puzzle, and Conason and Lyons do their best to simplify it. But their cast of characters is enormous, and their research overwhelming. Readers may not ultimately agree with the authors...but they will nevertheless gain a considerably more balanced and complex picture of the road to impeachment." Publishers Weekly
Review
"[The authors'] reporting...makes a firm case that the President and his wife have been pursued by many scoundrels. Most public libraries will want the book, as will those academic libraries wishing to thoroughly document the Clinton years." Library Journal
Review
"Although readability is sometimes lost here in favor of heavy detail, readers who persevere will come away well informed about the Clintons' travails....A book sure to be discussed, especially on the all-news cable channels." Ilene Cooper, Booklist
Review
"It is a dense, penetrating...walk down the back alleys of what Hillary Clinton famously called a 'vast right-wing conspiracy'....Dogged and thorough." The Boston Globe
Review
"It's frightening to realize how easily a loose cabal of often well-financed Clinton haters manipulated a press overly distrustful of government. This [is an] eminently readable and thorough as well as thoroughly maddening study." Seattle Weekly
Review
"A necessary text for anyone interested in how the interwoven interests of Clinton haters, politicians, and the press led to impeachment." Anthony Lewis, The New York Review of Books
Review
"Multitudes of historians will write multitudes of books but a hundred years from now the primary source on the so-called Clinton scandals will still be The Hunting of the President by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons." James Carville
Review
"If you want to know what's really been going on, you have a good book here...you have the Joe Conason and Gene Lyons book which explains how this all happened." President Bill Clinton (speaking of Whitewater)
About the Author
Joe Conason is the national correspondent for the
New York Observer, where he writes a political column that is distrubuted by the United Features Syndicate. He is also a contributing editor for
Talk magazine and a contributer to Salon.com. His writing has appeared in
The Nation, Harper's, The New Yorker, and many other publications.
Gene Lyons won the National Magazine Award in 1980. He has written extensively for Newsweek, Harper's The Nation, The New Review of Books, Texas Monthly, Entertainment Weekly, and many other magazines. His books include The Higher Illiteracy (University of Arkansas, 1988), Widow's Web (Simon & Schuster, 1993), and Fools for Scandal (Franklin Square, 1996). He writes a political column for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.