George W. Bush, War Criminal?: The Bush Administration's Liability for 269 War Crimes Book

Let me preface this four-star review by saying that I really enjoyed reading this book purely from an entertainment standpoint - It's well written, interestingly researched, and has a really compelling central character. However, based on its historical merit and contributions to Nixon/Watergate scholarship, I would have to say it ranks much lower.

The Strong Man starts out in a promising way: Based on previously unused primary sources, the author aims to write a biograhpy of former Attorney General Mitchell that stands in contrast to his public image as a tough, unshakable guy who only adheres to the law when it suits him and his colleagues. Reading about Mitchell's early career as a bond lawyer was certainly fascinating, and lays the groundwork for explaining his rise to a high-level cabinet position in the '60s. However, it soon becomes clear that this is a book written by or for Mitchell apologists. In a nutshell, the author asserts he was wrongly blamed/framed for everything from ITT and Vesco to Watergate and the later HUD scandals. This may or may not be true, but reading a 500-page tome that consistantly says that at every turn, government officials, law enforcement, legal characters, and the press all consistently strove to make Mitchell a scapegoat is a little hard to take seriously.

The majority of the book is taken up by Watergate, as the subtitle indicates, but it's little more than a parlor game, pitting Dean and Magruder's accounts of the indicent against Mitchell's. According to the author, on all counts Dean and Magruder lied, and Mitchell was the sole honest player. (Interesting, he also uses G. Gordon Liddy's biograhpy as a true/honest source, as Liddy claimed the Fifth during the trials, and thus, he surmises, his memoirs must be an honest account.)Again, his assessment may be accurate or may be a completely farce, but there's no way really to prove any of it, which I think is the ultimate error in a book like this.

Watergate was so much more than a "third rate burglary" and to reduce it and its players to these parlor games is to ignore its larger ramifications on everything from the power of the executive office and campaign finance reform, to the role of the judiciary and the press in instances like this. Sadly, in trying to vindicate Mitchell, the author reduces him, and Watergate, to a little he-said/he-said footnote in American political history.