Explore the vast range of titles available.

''Ken is definitely a conservative,'' Judge [Patricia M. Wald] said. ''There's no closet liberal aspect to him. But he's wholly undevious and never tries to slip anything by.'' ''He's a very young man who has moved rapidly and skillfully through a lot of different places,'' said Judge Abner Mikva, another former colleague on the Federal appellate court. ''He has a very distinctive and affable personal quality that I think comes from being a minister's son.'' When President Bush asked Judge Starr to leave the bench and become the 29th person to hold the title of Solicitor General, he agonized about what to do for several days, Mr. Starr said. ''I did not seek this job,'' he added. ''I really loved being a judge on that court.''

How is Kenneth Starr's extraordinary term as independent counsel to be understood? Was he a partisan warrior out to get the Clintons, or a savior of the Republic? An unstoppable menace, an unethical lawyer, or a sex-obsessed Puritan striving to enforce a right-wing social morality? This book is the first serious, impartial effort to evaluate and critique Starr's tenure as independent counsel. Relying on lengthy, revealing interviews with Starr and many other players in Clinton-era Washington,Washington Postjournalist Benjamin Wittes arrives at a new understanding of Starr and the part he played in one of American history's most enthralling public sagas.Wittes offers a subtle and deeply considered portrait of a decent man who fundamentally misconstrued his function under the independent counsel law. Starr took his task to be ferreting out and reporting the truth about official misconduct, a well-intentioned but nevertheless misguided distortion of the law, Wittes argues. At key moments throughout Starr's probe-from the decision to reinvestigate the death of Vincent Foster, Jr., to the repeated prosecutions of Susan McDougal and Webster Hubbell to the failure to secure Monica Lewinsky's testimony quickly--the prosecutor avoided the most sensible prosecutorial course, fearing that it would compromise the larger search for truth. This approach not only delayed investigations enormously, but it gave Starr the appearance of partisan zealotry and an almost maniacal determination to prosecute the president. With insight and originality, Wittes provides in this account of Starr's term a fascinating reinterpretation of the man, his performance, and the controversial events that surrounded the impeachment of President Clinton.

A day doesn't go by that Ken Starr doesn't scare the heck out of me. The latest fright came when I read that he had gone to the Supreme Court to demand access to the notes Vincent Foster's lawyer, James Hamilton, had made when talking confidentially to his client. \"Starr will do anything he has to to get a conviction. Frankly, this is the first time the question of dead clients has come up, except possibly for Murder Incorporated. Do you know sign language?\"

I don't know if Ken Starr is guilty or innocent, but I believe in the American justice system, and I have to assume that he is innocent until proven otherwise. This means I will go to the ends of the Earth to prove that he has committed some crime, whatever the crime might be. To get the whole story I may have to subpoena Starr's wife, distasteful as that might be. I have to assume she knows something since I have received information from another source that the Starrs talk to each other at night. If Mrs. Starr refuses to cooperate, then I'll have to turn the case over to the grand jury.