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Title: Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Endangered America's Long-Term National Security by Robert Patterson ISBN: 0-89526-140-5 Publisher: Regnery Publishing Pub. Date: March, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.26 (427 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An Essential Read For ALL......Especially as 2004 Approaches
Comment: The importance of this unique and insightful book lies not in what it tells us about the past but what it warns us about for the future. It's not about Republicans or Democrats, not about personal attacks on a former administration. No, it's a warning to us all, as Americans, about the sorts of leaders we SHOULD be electing to office. Col Patterson does not identify himself in regards to a particular party. He does not engage in the tried and old persecutions of former President Clinton. To his credit, he points out the very many ways we have failed in terms of our national security policy and handling of the military during the Clinton Administration without resorting to name calling and personal attacks. This is the political book of the year and maybe years to come.
Many of you spam conservative works on Amazon like its a game. Your time would be better spent actually reading the book and educating yourself. There are lessons learned here that if we fail to embrace, we will be doomed to repeat.
"Dereliction of Duty" will be displayed in my book shelves for years to come. It's a well written, engaging, well researched tome. More importantly, it's a must read for all Americans who seek education and more enlightened trips to the polling booths.
The Clintons and their ilk are not going away. Just the contrary, they continue to control Democratic politics in this nation. Do yourself a favor. Get the real insight from someone who was there by their sides 24/7. You'll never view your vote for the presidency the same again.
Rating: 5
Summary: A shocking look at abuses of power and position.
Comment: I couldn't put this book down, and it's obvious to me that the people who gave it negative reviews did not read it. I'm in active duty in the military and have been since near the end of Reagan's term. Lieutenant Colonel Patterson makes no bones about it: he was a fairly junior Air Force officer who saw the Clinton White House day in and day out for a few years (one idiot reviewer said Patterson was disgruntled for being passed over for promotion to one-star general... Patterson wasn't even up for that promotion, the next rank after Lt Col. is Colonel, then you get a star). No, Patterson admits to not being Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense and says that on a personal level, Clinton was likeable and treated him fine.
What Patterson does expose is how the administration treated the military (and anyone else they considered beneath them). He was witness to or party in incidents where Clinton groped a female enlisted airman on Air Force One, talks about how downright mean Hillary was to people, how the Administration abused military resources on a grander scale than any previous President's, to go on countless boondoggles across the world. He gives very specific examples of how Clinton lacked any foreign policy vision, damaged national security (including losing his copy of the nuclear launch codes), and helped create an environment that made 9-11 inevitable. How the President looked at all younger women like they'd just walked into a singles bar. He shows how the "Friends of Bill" abused White House personnel and other presidential perks, and how the whole administration just lacked what most of us would call "common courtesy."
Rating: 3
Summary: Who Was Bill Clinton?
Comment: William Jefferson Clinton is a president who will be studied in photos, films and books for generations to come. He may be the most famous man in America. This famous man was given an opportunity to lead the greatest and most powerful nation on earth and in due course he turned his administration into a "carefree `saxophone, dark sunglasses, and boogie-down anything goes'" parade of self-interest, so says Lieutenant Colonel Robert "Buzz" Patterson in his Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Endangered America's Long-Term National Security. Through Patterson, the reader is privy to many occasions when Clinton's view of national security was no better than fluff and circumstance.
Patterson was one of the military aides who carried the "nuclear football," which is an attaché case containing America's nuclear launch codes. He, or whichever officer was assigned to carry it, was supposed to be at the president's beck and call 24 hours a day in case of a nuclear attack. From this vantage point, Patterson, in eight quickly moving chapters, spins a highly grim yarn. One of the job functions of the president is to keep a set of nuclear codes on his person at all times no matter where he is, but, at one point, when Patterson comes to him to replace last year's codes with new ones, he discovers that Clinton has lost them. Clinton said "I don't have mine on me. I'll track it down, guys, and get it back to you." [p.56] He never did and, despite a frantic search, the old codes were never found.
The book is both a political and a personal tale. We learn much about the Clinton Administration but we also learn much about Lieutenant Colonel Patterson. He is at first awed by the White House and slightly awed by Clinton himself. "I was immediately impressed by his presence, his charisma, and the way he looked me straight in the eye. I couldn't help instantly liking him." [p.44] I personally don't know President Clinton and if I stay in my current tax bracket I undoubtedly never will, but I suspect that Patterson's first impression of him is quite similar to what the majority of others have experienced. Clinton, as we all already know, casts a mighty spell indeed.
Many stories told about Clinton cite his reported mental pathology as their focal point, sometimes he is described as having antisocial personality traits or as being the adult child of an alcoholic. Patterson does not do this. His analysis does not include a clinical angle but the conclusions that he does make are based on common sense which seems to be abundantly available to twenty year, highly decorated, Air Force veterans.
The strongest sections in Dereliction of Duty are when Patterson lets events speak for themselves and the narration has a "just the facts" approach. The facts in isolation are able to speak bombastically without further support or qualification. The incidents that Patterson witnessed are unusual as they depict a president who was criminally irresponsible and unable to sacrifice an infatuation with his own life long enough to allow time for managing our nation's defense. By the end of the book, the reader is profoundly grateful that Clinton's inattention, passivity and indecisiveness did not get us involved in a nuclear conflagration (where those lost codes would have actually been needed).
Again and again Patterson illuminates that Clinton had no business being our commander in chief. On September 13, 1996, Clinton attended the President's Cup golf tournament in Virginia and, while the president mingled and gladhanded, an opportunity presented itself to thwart the Iraqi massacres of the Kurds. Sandy Berger, at the time the National Security Council deputy director, called repeatedly to get the president's okay for launching air strikes against Iraqi positions. Patterson tried many times to get his attention but Clinton viewed golf and socializing as being his work for the day. He dismissed Patterson and refused to speak to Berger. Nighttime air cover was soon lost and the strikes against Iraq were never launched.
A wonderful tidbit of insider information is conveyed in the story of "Operation Bojinka." As he was organizing the notes in one of Clinton's Presidential Daily Briefs, he found reference to an "Operation Bojinka" which was Osama Bin Laden's plan for using airplanes as flying bombs and kamikaze instruments. The author unearthed this helpful find during the summer of 1996 which makes one wonder how the press could have used reports like this one against the current president and concluding that "he knew the attacks were coming." By the same measure or standard, Clinton would have known five years before 9/11.
The most egregious error made by Clinton was when he turned down the opportunity to take out the same Osama Bin Laden. It was in the fall of 1998 and Bin Laden was located and our forces had a two hour window in which to act. Berger attempted for a hour to locate Clinton but was told he was unavailable. Finally, when they located him, Clinton would not act. He wanted to study and consult with other staff members about the issue. By the time he was done mulling it over, Bin Laden was gone. Had a dirty bomb been in Al Qaeda's hands before 9/11 the indecisive and uninterested, President Clinton may well have really managed to have dropped the nuclear football.
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Title: Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror by Richard Miniter ISBN: 0895260743 Publisher: Regnery Publishing Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Treason : Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism by ANN COULTER ISBN: 1400050308 Publisher: Crown Forum Pub. Date: 24 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years by Rich Lowry ISBN: 0895261294 Publisher: Regnery Publishing, Inc. Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat by Zell Miller, Smyth, Helwys Pub Stroud, Hall Pub ISBN: 0974537616 Publisher: Stroud & Hall Pub. Date: November, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Off with Their Heads : Traitors, Crooks & Obstructionists in American Politics, Media & Business by Dick Morris ISBN: 0060559284 Publisher: Regan Books Pub. Date: 17 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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