A veteran White House correspondent gives mixed reviews to his colleagues and the powerful people on his beat. There are several problems with Walsh's chronicle of his ten years covering the presidency for U.S. News and World Report. Walsh remains on the beat and has been careful not to burn all his bridges. The result is a curious mix of unqualified criticism of people with whom he no longer has to deal (such as former Bush chief of staff John Sununu, whom Walsh accuses of ``arrogance and condescension''), and excuses for the mistakes of sources still to be tapped (such as Hillary Clinton, blamed for much of the administration's mishandling of the press but forgiven as an ``increasingly poignant figure''). Another problem is the danger of swift obsolescence in books attempting to be entirely up-to-the- minute. The danger for Walsh is compounded because nearly half of the book is devoted to the still-evolving Clinton presidency. And Walsh rationalizes the behavior of his press colleagues even as he concedes that ``the media's cult of conflict and criticism has gone too far.'' But there is also much to recommend this book. Walsh is a good reporter who has the quotes and citations to support his thesis that presidents who feed the White House press corps (the ``beast'') will be rewarded in kind. He attributes Reagan's long honeymoon with the press to the nurturing given journalists by a savvy staff. Clinton, on the other hand, has been punished for surrounding himself with people who distrusted White House reporters and treated them shabbily. Walsh describes the immense role personalities play in shaping the portrait of the presidency presented to the American people, and many observers of the press will find his revelations interesting. But one suspects that this book will become required reading only at the White House, where it will prove useful as a manual for staffers on the care and feeding of the media beast.
Pub Date: May 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-44290-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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