Unhappy reading for Republicans or political naïfs, The Hunting of the President is the story of a sustained and well-funded effort to discredit and defeat Bill Clinton, dating from his gubernatorial days in Arkansas and eventually leading to his impeachment trial. Award-winning journalists Joe Conason and Gene Lyons have crafted a tale as compulsively readable as a political thriller--paced, and at times worded, like a summer bestseller. Although they provide ample evidence of backstabbing, revenge, deceit, conniving, and "dirty tricks" in the struggle to oust Clinton, arguing that "the better the president and the country did, the more his adversaries appeared willing to endorse almost anything short of assassination to do him in," they also acknowledge that Clinton's reckless behavior, along with the "panicky, defensive, and occasionally less-than-perfectly-honest" responses of the White House press office, didn't hurt his opponents. Investigative journalism at its juiciest, The Hunting of the President is a surprising valediction to a far-from-angelic public leader who often outmaneuvered his enemies with otherworldly skill. --Regina Marler


From Publishers Weekly
Conason and Lyons (Fools for Scandal), veteran journalists respectively for the New York Observer and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, argue that if the opposition to the Clintons didn't quite constitute a "vast right-wing conspiracy," as the First Lady famously alleged, it was at the very least a "loose cabal" of "Clinton adversaries,... an angry gallery of defeated politicians,... right-wing pamphleteers, wealthy eccentrics, zany private detectives, religious fanatics and die-hard segregationists." They reveal how notable right-wingers like Richard Mellon Scaife (heir to the Carnegie Mellon fortune) and Jerry Falwell bankrolled the muckraking that led to scandals like Whitewater and Troopergate, neither of which, the authors claim, ever produced evidence of Clinton misconduct. Conason and Lyons also point out the ultraconservative credentials of Paula Jones's supporters, including Kenneth Starr, who privately abetted the harassment suit before he was appointed as a supposedly independent counsel. But what disturbs Conason and Lyons even more than the zeal of these conservative critics is the conduct of the national press. They make a case that their colleagues at the New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere colluded with the most unsavory elements of the fringe right to bring unverified and frequently libelous allegations into the center of the mainstream media. 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 that the tactics of the Clinton enemies were worse than any mistake made by the president, but they will nevertheless gain a considerably more balanced and complex picture of the road to impeachment. 16 pages b&w photos. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
"The most successful and long-running 'dirty tricks' campaign in recent American history" is the theme of this book by two veteran journalists: Conason, columnist for the New York Observer and Salon, and Lyons (Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater, LJ 8/96) of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Their sprawling tale begins in Arkansas in 1989, as Governor Clinton prepared to run for reelection, and ends in Washington when the Lewinsky story broke in 1998. The authors say little about the Clintons themselves but instead set out to impeach their enemies, some of them unfamiliar names, others as familiar as Jones, Tripp, and Starr. Their reporting, thickly documented with citations to newspapers, books, Congressional and other official reports, trial records, archives, web sites, television broadcasts, videos, print and online magazines, and interviews with sources named and unnamed, 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.---Robert F. Nardini, North Chichester, NH Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Many people laughed when Hillary Clinton said there was a right-wing conspiracy out to get her husband. This book, along with Jeffrey Toobin's recent A Vast Conspiracy (2000), makes the case that, although the conspiracy may not have been vast, a group of dedicated anti-Clintonites was determined to bring his presidency down. Unlike Conspiracy, which is quite a breezy read (with an incredibly helpful list of characters to refer to), Conason and Lyons' book becomes quickly bogged down in the quagmire of Arkansas politics and doesn't really come up for air until Monica slithers into the Oval Office. Although readability is sometimes lost here in favor of heavy detail, readers who persevere will come away well informed about the Clintons' travails and the people who tried mightily to bring them down, some motivated by ideology others by profit and sport. Perhaps most disturbing, the authors show how news organizations, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, were compromised by their hunger for scoops and, worse, often ignored information that was contrary to positions they had already taken. A book sure to be discussed, especially on the all-news cable channels. Ilene Cooper


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

"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

"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

"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

"If you want to know what's really been going on, you have a good book here...you have the Joe Conascon and Gene Lyons book which explains how this all happened." --President Bill Clinton (speaking of Whitewater)



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

"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

"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

"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

"If you want to know what's really been going on, you have a good book here...you have the Joe Conascon and Gene Lyons book which explains how this all happened." --President Bill Clinton (speaking of Whitewater)



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

"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

"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

"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

"If you want to know what's really been going on, you have a good book here...you have the Joe Conascon and Gene Lyons book which explains how this all happened." --President Bill Clinton (speaking of Whitewater)



Book Description
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.



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.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In this book, veteran journalists Joe Conason and Gene Lyons uncover the amazing truth behind the millions of public and private dollars that have gone into investigating the President and First Lady starting in 1989." "Conason and Lyons 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 and Hillary Clinton." "The Hunting of the President is a synthesis of this remarkable period in American history. In the course of their research, Conason and Lyons sorted through a remarkable amount of information and misinformation, and cleared away the underbrush, creating a work of nonfiction with all the pull of a novel. The Hunting of the President may very well be the All the President's Men of this political regime.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal