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And the Horse He Rode in on: The People V. Kenneth Starr
President Clinton's most stalwart supporter, the nationally prominent pundit offers his critique of Independent Prosecutor Kenneth Starr and his investigation of the president, charging Starr with waging a politically motivated, financially wasteful campaign. 150,000 first printing.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1998
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About the author
James Carville
36 books47 followersJames Carville is an former U.S. Marine, political consultant, commentator, actor, media personality and pundit. Known as "the Ragin' Cajun," Carville gained national attention for his work as the lead strategist of the successful presidential campaign of then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton. Carville was the co-host of CNN's Crossfire until its final broadcast in June 2005. Since its cancellation, he has appeared on CNN's news program, The Situation Room. As of 2006, he hosts a weekly program on XM Radio titled 60/20 Sports with Luke Russert, son of NBC's Tim Russert. He is married to Republican political consultant Mary Matalin.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 30, 2011
Finally, the other side of the story!
Read
August 24, 2011I'm right, They're Wrong.
I enjoyed it.
I enjoyed it.
November 14, 2012
I wish James Carville would write more books - I need a dose of complete partisan reality and now that Molly Ivins is gone and Al Franken is a senator...
February 20, 2020
I have always enjoyed political celebrity James Carville. After reading, And the Horse He Rode in on, I still enjoy political celebrity James Carville just as much. But the book is a disaster of a “brief” or “thought piece” in defense of President Clinton & only plays more rickety-ly 20 years after that impeachment. Like these times, it reflects an atmosphere of silly, overinflated puffery from then. Since the 1998 impeachment has looked comically inane and petty since at least 9/11 (maybe before, even in conventional wisdom), the fact Carville penned such a juvenile, weak ‘non’-defense at the time makes it like a present sense impression.
The tome clocks in at 170 pages, but Carville could have wrapped it up in 10. He has no grounded arguments, just the same rumormongering, guilty associations & loose causation he accuses the Whitewater investigation of cobbling together to get Clinton into a perjury trap. Carville mentions a righty sugar daddy about 90,000 times, that Starr was a “tobacco lawyer” about 80,000 times (he should have optioned that howler - b/c he had to know perfectly well that’s not how modern lawyering works), that Republicans were sex-obsessed & how oh-so-private intern cigaring ought to be about 800,000,000 x thousand times - like an anti-chastity virtue whammy…but #MoveOn is not such a good look for the #MeToo era, eh? And on + on + on.
It would be kind to call Carville’s effort a polemic, but he obviously wasn’t really even doing that. JC’s War Room was a spin room - with two bins: one full of glitter and the other full of mud. And all Jimmy does is paint Bubba with glitter and toss mud at old Ken. Like any good political operative, it’s not about facts, but about shading. As an example, NO ONE thought Ken Starr was impartial or that the House wasn't politically motivated at the time. But Carville invents that strawman to play up the good guy stuff for Bill and downplay any character balance for Kenny. Of course it’s not convincing - he as much as acknowledges it won’t be in the first chapter. It almost felt like stress release for Carville. And all that’s fine - the book was cute. The whole process was stupid anyway & I trust most of '98 DC knew it.
One funny side note is how cleanly sides switched in 2019-20. All that Carville does in 1998 was like Giuliani or Kelly Ann Conway territory in 2019. And every holier-than-holy, preserving the American way for the children Starr utterance & motive ran the gamut from Schiff to Nadler to the Speaker. The moral of the story ought to be: unless a future President hands nuke-ya-lir codes to a Russkie / Chicom / Dr. Evil committee and encourages them to launch missiles in exchange for a dacha in Sochi + condo in Macau, maybe Congress ought to leave that constitutional tool alone for a while. Maybe fixate on amendments or something for a few decades instead. They won’t, but they should. As a parting comment: I would enjoy checking out some of Carville’s policy books - maybe where he wasn’t in such a weird, compromised rhetorical position.
The tome clocks in at 170 pages, but Carville could have wrapped it up in 10. He has no grounded arguments, just the same rumormongering, guilty associations & loose causation he accuses the Whitewater investigation of cobbling together to get Clinton into a perjury trap. Carville mentions a righty sugar daddy about 90,000 times, that Starr was a “tobacco lawyer” about 80,000 times (he should have optioned that howler - b/c he had to know perfectly well that’s not how modern lawyering works), that Republicans were sex-obsessed & how oh-so-private intern cigaring ought to be about 800,000,000 x thousand times - like an anti-chastity virtue whammy…but #MoveOn is not such a good look for the #MeToo era, eh? And on + on + on.
It would be kind to call Carville’s effort a polemic, but he obviously wasn’t really even doing that. JC’s War Room was a spin room - with two bins: one full of glitter and the other full of mud. And all Jimmy does is paint Bubba with glitter and toss mud at old Ken. Like any good political operative, it’s not about facts, but about shading. As an example, NO ONE thought Ken Starr was impartial or that the House wasn't politically motivated at the time. But Carville invents that strawman to play up the good guy stuff for Bill and downplay any character balance for Kenny. Of course it’s not convincing - he as much as acknowledges it won’t be in the first chapter. It almost felt like stress release for Carville. And all that’s fine - the book was cute. The whole process was stupid anyway & I trust most of '98 DC knew it.
One funny side note is how cleanly sides switched in 2019-20. All that Carville does in 1998 was like Giuliani or Kelly Ann Conway territory in 2019. And every holier-than-holy, preserving the American way for the children Starr utterance & motive ran the gamut from Schiff to Nadler to the Speaker. The moral of the story ought to be: unless a future President hands nuke-ya-lir codes to a Russkie / Chicom / Dr. Evil committee and encourages them to launch missiles in exchange for a dacha in Sochi + condo in Macau, maybe Congress ought to leave that constitutional tool alone for a while. Maybe fixate on amendments or something for a few decades instead. They won’t, but they should. As a parting comment: I would enjoy checking out some of Carville’s policy books - maybe where he wasn’t in such a weird, compromised rhetorical position.
June 1, 2021
Maybe it’s that the Clinton era is so far in the past, but this was pretty tedious reading.
March 7, 2010
Found this little book at the Salvation Army and was curious. I think Mr. Carville is a pretty sharp ole boy from Louisiana and wanted his POV on Whitewater, especially after seeing the documentary "Hunting for the President" which is pretty much the same subject. It is truly a shame that politics has taken its dark and ugly turn after Watergate.....
May 14, 2010
I wish James Carville would write more books - I need a dose of complete partisan reality and now that Molly Ivins is gone and Al Franken is a senator...
November 2, 2013
The story behind Ken Starr's persecution of Clinton is really shocking.
February 17, 2016
A wonderful historical account of the "crimes" of Kenneth Starr against Clinton.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews