Politics

If you are looking for a scholarly biography of Hillary Clinton this in not the book. This is a story of a BBC foreign correspondent who was attached to the State Department (U.S.). She has an office in the press section at the Harry Truman building in Washington and flies every where with Clinton on the Secretary's plane. Kim Ghattas was born in Lebanon (half Lebanese/Dutch) during the civil war and the occupation by Syria. She grew up wondering why the U.S. didn't help them. Kim provides a thoughtful commentary of the varied trips, with insight brought from her own life while growing up in Lebanon during the civil war. I found it interesting to have behind the scene look at what the travelling group of reporters face during trips such as, unexpected changes in itinerary, running out of food, no place to sleep, sudden changes in weather etc. It is also interesting that Clinton and her staff faced many of the same problems. It was apparent that Ghattas admired Clinton but that did not stop her from covering mistakes made by Clinton. Ghattas makes it clear from the beginning with an interview with Clinton what the goal of her term as Secretary of State was. To rebuild American relationships with all countries and improve the image of America. She set off on trips to visit heads of states but unlike other Secretaries she went out to meet the people of the country and held town hall meeting with students, and women. She answered all questions and "listened" to what the had to say. I really liked her response to complaints by the Pakistan student who complained America was controlling them by giving them money. She told him they did not have to take the money. That set them back a bit and they had no response to that. In the book she faced many challenges such as China, Israel/Palestine and Netanyahu; sinking of South Korean naval corvette Cheonan by North Korea, Wiki-leaks (that causes enormous work by Clinton and her staff detailed in the book) Arab Spring (Tunis, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria), Japanese Fukushima reactor melt down. In her interviews with Clinton Ghattas said Clinton was implementing "Smart diplomacy" and this had not been tried before. The book shows the dedication and hard work of the thousands of people in our diplomatic corp around the world. It also demonstrated from an inside view how hard the staff around Clinton work so she could have all the latest information and taking care of every minute of every day of her work life. The key item in the book is that the view point is from an outsider looking in at America, she provides comments and insight into the feelings and view points of the people Clinton visited that an American would not have. Makes it interesting indeed. The test of all her work with China came to ahead with the blind lawyer seeking asylum in the U.S. Clinton handled it quietly and expertly so relationship with China was not effected and human rights applied. Kate Reading did a good job narrating the book Regardless of your personal or political opinion of Hillary Clinton, the Obama administration or America's current military involvement this book is worth reading on several levels. .

I just finished this book and I see in today's newspaper some of the people that are in the book have a grant from the government to build a new firewall. They are to start from the beginning to create a new way of protecting computers instead of patches. Mark Bowden's well written book allowed me to understand the problem and the importance to the new firewall. The conficker worm is the largest most frighting malware I have heard of. This book reads like a sci-fi book only it is all real. The conficker has created the largest bot-net ever seen and no one yet knows what this worm is going to do or when never mind how to stop it. Just imagine what would happen if some one shut down all the Internet traffic and crashed all the computers. This is a great book and Christopher Lane did a good job narrating the story.

Sandra Day O'Connor reads her own book which in a way adds more to the book. The books chapter are dividend into topic relating to the court. O'Connor chose items that had a major effect on the future course of the court. Such as how the appointment of John Jay as the first Chief Justice effected the court and without him the court may become insignificant. She also told stories about key justices that had major effects good or bad on the court as well as court cases that add to the role or power of the court such as Marbury vs Madison. She told about the justices that were the first like her being the first women, Thurgood Marshall, the first black and L. Brandeis, the first Jewish justice and so. She also pointed out that not all justice were good such as McReynolds who was of the old fashion white southern gentelman. She said he led the court in the most descents and was a races and anti semite and was against every bill FDR put up for the new deal. I found the last section on what the justices did after retirement interesting. They service on the circuit courts and O'Connor rotates around the country serving on the various circuit courts. I also found it interesting what she pointed out about, that at times the dissenting opinion eventually became the law. Great to learn about the court from someone who was on the inside and could provide that little extra insight.