Kowabunga

Hillary's Secret War by Richard Poe is about Hillarys war against the new media and the rightwing journalists of the Internet who have made on-line journalism a success.

I have mixed feelings about this book; some of it I found to be quite interesting and informative, which is what I look for in a book on current events. However, some of it I had trouble with, specifically a few parts where it is reading more like conspiracy theory than hard facts. The conjecture being made in those few points may be on the mark, they just did not come across, for me, as the author intended.

There is a great deal of material on the beginnings of Internet journalism, featuring such pathfinders as Matt Drudge, and the Drudge Report, David Horowitz and Front Page Magazine and Christopher Ruddy and NewsMax.com. It comes as no surprise that all of them had been sued, investigated and/or audited, allegedly at the orders of the Clinton Administration. Yet, in spite of the hardships, they persevered and overcame the obstacles set before them. Jim Robinson and his forum, freerepublic.com, are also prominently featured in the book.

Some of the material that struck me as conspiracy theory is discussions on the death of Ron Brown, Vincent Foster and Steven Kangas. Ruddy's investigation into the death of Vincent Foster is discussed in good detail.

I think what struck me as disturbingly conspiratory was the point where one investigating journalist, L.J. Davis is mugged during his investigation into Clinton corruption in Arkansas, with several pages from his notebook torn out, however, he was not robbed.

The book hints (but doesn't outright claim) that it was a part of Hillary's Shadow Team. Her secret police, STAZI, as it were.

Hillary is described (in my opinion, accurately) as being hard-left, and never having renounced her ties to the hard-left, having study under the likes of Professor Thomas Emerson (known as Tommy the Commie around campus at the time), while at Yale.

Hillary's Secret War touches on all of the controversies from the Clinton Dual Administration, including the sex scandals, which is what most people remember, Chinagate and filegate, both nearly forgotten and ignored by the main stream media machine, to white water and the Kenn Starr Investigations.

It reminds the reader of the event sin the 2000 Florida election and how the DNC (and Gore) attempted to thwart the will of the people and steal the election through corrupt processes such as violating Florida law in regards to hand-recounts. In Florida, hand-recounts must be of ALL ballots, not select subsets of districts as the DNC was pushing to have done, ignoring the heavily Cuban districts that routinely vote Republican. It also touched on the Left-leaning media's interference in the election process when the networks called the election for Gore, even though the polls in Florida were still open.

The epilogue is quite telling, as it covers the attack on 9/11, and is worth the price of the book just to read it, as it reminds us how important it is that we have the right people leading this country, those who can shed the light of liberty throughout the world, and not power-hungry leftists who will stop at nothing to seize and hold power.

Although my take on this book is somewhat mixed, overall, it is a darn good read and should be recommended to anyone on the fence post when it comes to a Hillary Presidential campaign in 2008.