Posner, Richard A. : University of Chicago Law School

Richard A. Posner is Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.

[Posner's] analysis of the political crisis surrounding disclosure of President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky is the most trenchant and illuminating yet. His precision about constitutional law and about definitions of perjury, subornation of it and obstruction of justice gives his narrative the tension of a thriller. And his judgments about key players--Clinton, Kenneth Starr, Congressional leaders, intellectual and academic defenders of the president, all the lawyers involved, the Supreme Court (for letting the Paula Jones lawsuit proceed with Clinton in office)--are scathing, unsparing, elegant and witty.

--New York Times Book Review

Posner shows that, despite its lurid and shameful origins, the [Clinton-Lewinsky] episode raised questions of law and morality that are profoundly important to the direction of the country and to our sense of the American political order. His analysis transforms the impeachment into an event of abiding significance. Mr. Posner works with unusual care through each of the moral and legal questions of the impeachment process. He considers all sides and possible interpretations of each event. But he does not hesitate to hand down strong judgements.

--George L. Priest, Wall Street Journal

In so many ways, [Posner] is a perfect man for the task [of analyzing the Clinton-Lewinsky affair], and this book doesn't disappoint...His most valuable contribution is legal. In a way only good judges can do, he manages both to portray the ambiguity of constitutional law--and few areas are as ambiguous as the constitutional criteria for impeachment--and yet not shy away from judgement about what actually happened and what to make of it...Posner deftly takes us through [the] constitutional and political mazes...[and] shows that there actually is a final answer to the question of what perjury and obstruction of justice are, and at least some large common ground as to what might be the constitutional grounds for impeachment.

--Andrew Sullivan, New York Times Book Review

Posner's great asset is his intellectual honesty. He pierces the gaseous clouds of Clinton's defense to make compelling arguments that the president committed perjury and obstructed justice. He absolves Starr of obsessive prurience and vindicates the media's reporting of the case. He ridicules the Senate's performance, as well as the chief justice's robes. But Posner also concludes that the office of independent counsel has died a well-deserved death, that the Supreme Court blew the Paula Jones case, and that Starr got carried away by prosecutorial excess. He skewers the doomsayers of the moralistic Right for wringing their hands over what, to Posner, is still a vibrant republic.

--John Aloysius Farrell, Boston Globe

A bravura performance by United States Circuit Court Judge Richard A. Posner. He deftly examines the endless constitutional, political and social angles of President William Jefferson Clinton's impeachment ordeal...[An Affair of State is a] first-rate dissection of Mr. Clinton's impeachment drama flush with long-headed prudential wisdom and insights.

--Bruce Fein, Washington Times

We fortunately have a distinguished jurist's opinion in An Affair of State which amounts to a retrial of the president with Posner on the bench. One could scarcely imagine a more fitting judge...[Posner] is possessed of one of the most synoptic and probing intellects in the country, or the world. That he does not flinch from raining scorn on the Supreme Court and even on the chief justice (to whom Posner is nominally an underling) suggests the sharpness of mind, independence of spirit and biting wit that make his book an intellectual feast. At last, something good has come of the Clinton-Lewinsky-Jones-Starr affair.

--Jonathan Raugh, Washington Post

An Affair of State is an impressive compilation of the facts and the opinions of one of our nations foremost jurists...[Posner's] description, dissection and reaction to what went right, and mostly what went wrong, in the impeachment process contrasts with the emotional hyperboles that marked much of the impeachment debate. An Affair of State is worth the time for anyone who still has an interest in thinking and talking intelligently about this remarkable episode in American history.

--Michael R. Lufrano, Chicago Tribune

Of [the Clinton-Lewinsky] analyses, the most insightful is An Affair of State.

--David Kusnet, Baltimore Sun

Richard Posner's An Affair of State will hardly be welcomed by President Clinton's enemies; his friends will like it even less. Obviously, then, this book demands our attention...Precision, critical analysis, and devastating wit are the hallmarks of [Posner's] writings.

--Stanley Kutler, Times Higher Education Supplement [UK]

Unlike the unholy mess it dissects and untangles, An Affair of State is a cool little gemstone of logic and reason, a rational antidote to partisan excess, and a short, elegant guide for the perplexed. Among the first of what will be many books to look back at the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, it should be the touchstone against which all others are measured, having no evident bias except toward clarity. Richard Posner does not seem to like most of the people described in this book, much less to share their agendas. One cannot deduce here which party he backs, whom he voted for in recent elections, or whose positions he tends to endorse. This is the strength of his book, and its claim to authority.

--Noemie Emery, National Review

Harvard University Press Web Site, February, 2002

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice for Best Book of the Year, 1999

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, 2000

President Bill Clinton's year of crisis, which began when his affair with Monica Lewinsky hit the front pages in January 1998, engendered a host of important questions of criminal and constitutional law, public and private morality, and political and cultural conflict.

In a book written while the events of the year were unfolding, Richard Posner presents a balanced and scholarly understanding of the crisis that also has the freshness and immediacy of journalism. Posner clarifies the issues and eliminates misunderstandings concerning facts and the law that were relevant to the investigation by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and to the impeachment proceeding itself. He explains the legal definitions of obstruction of justice and perjury, which even many lawyers are unfamiliar with. He carefully assesses the conduct of Starr and his prosecutors, including their contacts with the lawyers for Paula Jones and their hardball tactics with Monica Lewinsky and her mother. He compares and contrasts the Clinton affair with Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, exploring the subtle relationship between public and private morality. And he examines the place of impeachment in the American constitutional scheme, the pros and cons of impeaching President Clinton, and the major procedural issues raised by both the impeachment in the House and the trial in the Senate. This book, reflecting the breadth of Posner's experience and expertise, will be the essential foundation for anyone who wants to understand President Clinton's impeachment ordeal.

Dramatis Personae
Chronology
Introduction
The President's Conduct
Prosecution and Defense
The History, Scope, and Form of Impeachment
Morality, Private and Public
Should President Clinton Have Been Impeached, and If Impeached Convicted?
The Kulturkampf
Lessons for the Future
The Balance Sheet
Acknowledgements
Index