|
Amazon.com's Price: $15.00 Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 342.7308780269
EAN: 9780345424877
ISBN: 0345424875
Label: Ballantine Books
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 146
Publication Date: February 17, 1998
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release Date: February 17, 1998
Sales Rank: 933854
Studio: Ballantine Books
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
' One would like to think that the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest Court in the land, is the one island of sanity still remaining. But if what you folks are about to read is any indication, we've all got a lot to worry about. The question that presents itself is whether the near pathological dizziness and irrationality in our society has so invaded this nation's marrow that, like a wild-infectious virus, even the Supreme Court is not immune.'
--from NO ISLAND OF SANITY
Now, in the powerful premiere of the Library of Contemporary Thought, Vincent Bugliosi takes a timely swipe at the Supreme Court's decision in Paula Jones v. Bill Clinton. Famed as the prosecutor of Charles Manson and author of the classic bestseller HELTER SKELTER, Bugliosi argues that the high court has rarely been proved so wrong, so fast.
NO ISLAND OF SANITY is only the beginning of an ongoing dialogue with some of the most original writers working today. Each month, the Library of Contemporary Thought will bring you a different voice on a hot-button topic in American life, politics, and culture. From Mickey Mouse to Tiger Woods, from how we age to how we read, no subject is too controversial or too unlikely for these powerful and provocative books.
Amazon.com Review:
Vincent Bugliosi, the former L.A. County prosecutor who chronicled his successful efforts to put Charles Manson away in Helter Skelter, isn't afraid to let people know what he thinks. Others might be content to label a Supreme Court decision 'incomprehensible and terribly flawed,' but few would go on to raise the question of whether that decision reflected 'near-pathological dizziness and irrationality' on the part of the nine justices as Bugliosi does in No Island of Sanity, a spirited, 132-page essay that launches Ballantine's monthly Library of Contemporary Thought series.
Although it takes 30 pages of a general rant against modern society for Bugliosi to address the case of Paula Corbin Jones v. William Jefferson Clinton, once he starts, he gets right to the crux of the matter: What on earth compelled the Supreme Court to decide that Paula Jones's private lawsuit against Bill Clinton was of a higher priority than serving the public interest by having a chief executive undistracted from his work? The problem, as he demonstrates, is that Clinton's lawyers tried to convince the Court that a lawsuit against an incumbent President was a violation of constitutional separation-of-powers doctrine, in that it would allow the judiciary branch of the government to have undue influence on the executive branch's fulfillment of its duties. The president's team never tried to argue that the public interest was better served by delaying the Jones suit until after Clinton left the White House.
There are individual points on which one might quibble with Bugliosi--for example, whether America really deserves to be taken seriously by foreigners when scandals such as Clinton's alleged sexual conduct erupts. But Bugliosi's central thesis, that Bill Clinton's request to have Jones's lawsuit delayed was not an extraordinary request, and that consideration both of legal precedent and the public interest ought to have led to the granting of that request, is convincingly argued with passionate rhetoric and vigorous factual support.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Better than six months of law school
This book is a treasure. I read it when it came out, and was floored at how well-reasoned, commonsensical and spot on it was.
To me, the "30-page rant" at the beginning of the book, disparagingly mentioned in the editorial review, was truly brilliant. The book's title is "No ISLAND of Sanity." An island is a piece of dry land in an ocean. Before one describes the submerged island, one must discuss the ocean, the context surrounding the island. That is why Buugliosi had to first ... Read More
Rating:  - One important point. One hundred pages too many.
I've read and appreciated several of Bugliosi's books, and he has a way of boiling large issues down to their basics without sacrificing argumentative rigor. This isn't a book, though. It's an article run amok. Bugliosi makes one very good, very valid point: The Supreme Court should have weighed the interest of Paula Jones to have her case heard right away (rather than wait until Clinton's term of office was over) against the interest of the American people to have a President who wasn't endlessly ... Read More
Rating:  - Interesting
Good book, makes you think of how ridiculous things are in the states with regard to litigation. One wonders if this case interrupted Clinton s presidency enough to distract him from perhaps eliminating the master mind of 9/11 -> namely osama bin laden, since he did have a chance to assasinate him at one point.
Rating: - not a classic;makes its point
Bugliosi begins with an irrelevant social commentary.When he gets to the subject,he makes his point well.The Jones v. Clinton decision of the Supreme Court was a tragic mistake,a travesty of justice that has forever altered the balance of power in the three branches of government,and may do untold harm in the future.
Any fair reading of the FERERALIST PAPERS leads one to conclude that the founders could not have intended for a federal district judge to have the power to compel a sitting ... Read More
Rating:  - Vincent Bugliosi Is Not Sane
This book starts out giving Bugliosi's rather skewed view of the world, in which the problems of our society can evidently be traced to the fact that naughty girls where short skirts. Then he promptly proves how smart he is by telling us how right he was in his assessment of the OJ Simpson case. Given that he is obviously an unbiased source, how can one doubt? Of course, one might wonder what this has to do with the Supreme Courts decision in the Paula Jones case, and the answer is, of course, absolutely ... Read More
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 342.7308780269
EAN: 9780345424877
ISBN: 0345424875
Label: Ballantine Books
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 146
Publication Date: February 17, 1998
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release Date: February 17, 1998
Sales Rank: 933854
Studio: Ballantine Books