by Andrew Coan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 10, 2019
A useful study that suggests possible outcomes and what is at stake.
A legal scholar provides necessary context for the challenges facing a special prosecutor as he investigates a sitting president.
Coan (Law/Univ. of Arizona) finds the very concept of a prosecutor who can be fired by the president investigating the president to be “deeply strange,” but he suggests that the people will decide when the prosecutor or the president have gone too far. Not that he finds much comfort in this idea given the polarization of the current political climate: “It is difficult to imagine the supporters of a populist president punishing him for firing a special prosecutor—or otherwise abusing his power for personal or partisan ends. That should scare any American who cares about the rule of law.” Otherwise, the perspective appears to be as nonpartisan as the special prosecutor is supposed to be, though those supporting the Trump investigation have rarely felt the office to be. The Nixon administration pushed a “Watergate as vendetta” campaign against Archibald Cox, just as Trump has proclaimed the investigation by Robert Mueller a “WITCH HUNT.” In some historical cases, the prosecutor’s reputation became more tarnished than his target. “When Kenneth Starr was appointed to investigate Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Whitewater land deal, he was a well-respected lawyer and former judge,” writes Coan. “When he resigned the position five years later, he was a tragic hero to the political right. To most of the broader public, he was a reviled and villainous figure.” Examining a history that dates to the Grant administration and encompasses Teapot Dome, Harry Truman, and Iran-Contra, the author reiterates that the American people are the ultimate arbiters of wrongdoing: how far is too far for the investigation to extend, how long is too long, and how much political consequence a president might face for firing the prosecutor investigating him. Historically, balance and compromise have generally ruled the day, but these aren’t times of balance and compromise.
A useful study that suggests possible outcomes and what is at stake.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-19-094386-8
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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