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A review by greatlibraryofalexandra
The Last of the President's Men by Bob Woodward
4.0
A continuation of the (insane, unhinged) account recorded by Woodward and Bernstein in 1974.
Woodward resents this without giving any idea of his own opinions of Butterfield, which is fantastic. It is (like its predecessor) a sweeping read that engages you in a "conversation" style of reporting, giving an almost "outsider" look at the Watergate scandal from a guy who sort of blew it all wide open by just answering a question truthfully. Its also a quick read - the meat of the book is barely 200 pages; the rest is scanned documents from which Butterfield/Woodward took their facts.
Its chaotic and poorly organized and at times boring; at times, I couldn't figure out if there was a thesis to this or if it was a sort of deathbed confessional on Butterfield's part (although Wikipedia indicates that Butterfield is in fact still alive - 96 years old).
Reading this was wild because the portrait of Nixon was so unbelievably bizarre. Multiple times I felt actively gaslit, as if Butterfield was playing some kind of joke on us - his descriptions of Nixon are so whack that I seriously considered the possibility that Nixon was some sort of alien cyborg. Butterfield, too, comes off as almost sociopathic - he is unable to explain his motives, and like a good journalist Woodward refrains from editorializing and attributing any to him, so the whole result of this book is a hodgepodge of unbelievable reflection on a potentially deranged president.
When I do get to Nixon in my presidential biographies reads, I am going to choose my author very carefully. Suffice it to say I may actually go down a Watergate rabbit hole now, too. I hate to keep using this word, but it really describes it - this entire affair was UNHINGED.
Woodward resents this without giving any idea of his own opinions of Butterfield, which is fantastic. It is (like its predecessor) a sweeping read that engages you in a "conversation" style of reporting, giving an almost "outsider" look at the Watergate scandal from a guy who sort of blew it all wide open by just answering a question truthfully. Its also a quick read - the meat of the book is barely 200 pages; the rest is scanned documents from which Butterfield/Woodward took their facts.
Its chaotic and poorly organized and at times boring; at times, I couldn't figure out if there was a thesis to this or if it was a sort of deathbed confessional on Butterfield's part (although Wikipedia indicates that Butterfield is in fact still alive - 96 years old).
Reading this was wild because the portrait of Nixon was so unbelievably bizarre. Multiple times I felt actively gaslit, as if Butterfield was playing some kind of joke on us - his descriptions of Nixon are so whack that I seriously considered the possibility that Nixon was some sort of alien cyborg. Butterfield, too, comes off as almost sociopathic - he is unable to explain his motives, and like a good journalist Woodward refrains from editorializing and attributing any to him, so the whole result of this book is a hodgepodge of unbelievable reflection on a potentially deranged president.
When I do get to Nixon in my presidential biographies reads, I am going to choose my author very carefully. Suffice it to say I may actually go down a Watergate rabbit hole now, too. I hate to keep using this word, but it really describes it - this entire affair was UNHINGED.