Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story by Michael Isikoff

Review

First at the Washington Post, and later at Newsweek, Michael Isikoff researched the stories that helped turn Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Linda Tripp, and Monica Lewinsky into household names. Uncovering Clinton is his version of All the President's Men, a play-by-play account of how he put the pieces together and gradually came to the conclusion, based on the allegations surrounding Bill Clinton's sexual behavior, that the president of the United States was "psychologically disturbed."

But Uncovering Clinton is also about how Isikoff had to fight with his own editors to get his reporting into print and how he fell victim on multiple occasions to online gossip columnist Matt Drudge, who stole Isikoff's thunder by printing items about stories that hadn't run. He also found himself caught up in the machinations of Linda Tripp and her literary agent, Lucianne Goldberg, as they schemed to manipulate the president and his paramour into a compromising situation. Isikoff is up-front about the frustrations he experienced on the journalistic trail; although he wanted to think of himself as another Seymour Hersh when he set out on the Jones story, he writes, "instead, I was starting to feel like Geraldo Rivera." Even though just about everybody knows the basic story at this point, Uncovering Clinton is still as lively a read as any political thriller--and all the more unsettling for being true. --Ron Hogan