Lipstick On A Pig Book

Lipstick On A Pig Book

From: Amazon Review

I enjoyed the book and I read it in three days. It was easy to read and the best parts are the stories she tells about her life in the Pentagon and other high profile jobs.

The story of Senator Mc Cain's actions around the Keating scandal were informative and the chilling recall of the events at the Pentagon during 9/11 kept me reading when I should have been working.

Clarke's style is irreverant (she says she is a "smart-ass" but this is after all a high class review) and she is direct. The stories of background on the process of embedding journalists in the military during the Iraq conflict are history that I'm happy to know about. The concept of putting journalists in combat and its effects are historical and this author was at the center of the decisions and the events.

The story of the Pentagon on 9/11 (Clarke was there) is told in an emotional manner. she brings home the destruction and the bravery and dedication of the Pentagon people. she brought it home to me, a guy from the Midwest who only watched the events on TV.

A fair amount of the book involves the author's work with Sec of Defense Donald Rumsfield (SecDef as she calls him in the book). She worked with him during pretty tough times and she still admires and respects him. Since the book was published after she left his employment, I think the opinions expressed are valid. Like Rumsfield or not, he is an important and powerful man and it was interesting to learn about him from someone who saw him function on a daily basis. Personally, I think he is pretty scarey on TV but he serves the country. He is not in the job for financial gain (I read he is loaded) and it is not a springboard to the Presidency or vice-presidency. He evidently works long hours because cares about the Country and the military. I like him a little better after reading the book but still don't plan on sending him a Christmas card (or getting one for that matter).

There are plenty of high ranking military people (actually men) mentioned in the book. Clarke has high praise for most if not all of them. I found it surprising that a woman serving in a high position in a men's world, during high stress times has such universal good things to say about the military and its leaders. She describes them as intelligent, talented and most of all dedicated.

Either she just wrote about the good ones or our military commanders are generally high quality. My guess is that if there was dirt to spread it would be in the book since it does help sell books and this is a Washington DC insider. Besides, she has no trouble taking dirty shots at lawyers in the book.

There are parts of the book that serve as advice for communications professionals and much of that was lost on me. I did understand the message of tell the truth and tell it quickly. Further, if you know you have to tell the truth when you mess up, you are less likely to mess up on purpose. She also advises people in power to stay in touch with the common person. Great advice and now we just have to import some common people out to Washington so that our leaders could get in touch with them.

Enough of my editorial. I like the book and I am glad I read it. In a sense of true disclosure, I read it because while I do not know the author, I have met her a couple of times. She was interesting and down to earth. In a true spirit of candor, the book is much better than I expected. I think you would enjoy the reading.

Lipstick On A Pig Book