Bush Books

This book laid out the facts about Bush, his administration, and the way the media has played into all of his spin and "misleading" facts. This book takes an objective look at the tactics used by the administration spinkled with a few anti-bushisms. If you are looking for an angry anti-bush book this is not for you. Even when presenting infuriating facts about the lies and deciet found in the media and our presidency the authors do not present an angry public anywhere in the book. A book everyone should read if they care about their government and it's use of the media to get their own agendas in place.

The authors make a decent case that Pres. Bush sometimes stretches the truth a bit. Though when push comes to shove, what he says, they admit, is generally correct. That the media doesn't do its job very well is hardly new or unique to the Bush Admin. It is somewhat laughable that the authors choose to focus on Bush's sometimes picayune distortions (e.g., when the basic point he is getting across is correct, and what he is saying is also factually correct -- on taxes for example -- yes, those he picked to highlight his tax plan make the plan look good, but it did cut taxes for all taxpayers, which was his point: 'This cuts taxes, it is a tax cut.'), and choose not to cover Clinton's far greater mendacity. Only one of these presidents was found to have lied under oath and sanctioned by a federal judge amd then later disbarred for doing so (Not to mention lying to the entire country numerous times by his own admissions.). To preserve their alleged neutrality, and to make this book a more fair look at spin that would have supported the purpose of their website and made this a truly nonpartisan book, that would have been read by a broader cross-section of the electorate, the book should have focused on Clinton AND Bush. Since this largely focuses on a President in office, the Kerry portions would have been better replaced with an expand Clinton sections. Especially in light of the fact that the whole phenomenon of spin came into the public eye during the '92 Clinton campaign, with J. Carville and G. Stephanoupolous spinning (and being spun by Clinton & Clinton - see GS' ALL TOO HUMAN) madly to deflect bimbo erruptions they swore up and down had no factual basis. As later events and Michael Isikoff's excellent and fair book, UNCOVERING CLINTON, make clear, this was all spin, and the dawning of a new age of degraded political discourse. Also, if I'm not mistaken on this point, I must point out the irony of the authors' attempts at "spinsanity", unbiased analysis, here and at their website - 2 Democrats, no Republicans - what could be more fair!?

This book BARELY scratches the surface of the lie machine that is the Bush administration. They cause a ten car crash and say they are working on recycling scrap metals..what is missing from this book is the OUTRAGE any decent journalist should feel- they lament that the media sits on its haunches and is spoon fed, but thats where the story ends and begins. Someone needs to get to the bottom of this and find out why major corporate media is allowing this load of manure to be fed to the public- whose pocket is being lined? What ever happened to unbiased, unpaid, investigative journalism? A free press is the foundation of liberty and our media has been patted on the head, given a sucker and told to wander on home. It doesn't take rocket science- listen to the interviews where they just repeat their point regardless of the question- its obvious manipulation- and the mass of America is swallowing it without looking at it.
We should have serious works by the media decrying this, but they just sit and whimper or say nothing to keep "access" open.
No government should be able to pull this!

SHOULD BE READ BY ALL AMERICANS WHO STILL BELIEVE THEY LIVE IN A FREE COUNTRY

In a time when 99.9% of media criticism consists of people saying "I don't like what you are saying therefore you are wrong," Fritz and Co. actually use facts and reason when critiquing the media. Shocking, but effective.

Professor Singer does a great job of pointing out Bush's many hypocrisies and lies. He fairly, but ruthlessly, points out Bush's professed goals and morality are pure deceit. One example: Bush is concerned that embryos must not be destroyed because he (supposedly)values life, but has no qualms about killing foreigners in wars or executing prisoners.

My one quibble is that Singer analyzes the war in Afghanistan without taking into account the benefits of removing the Taliban from power. So what- it's still a great book.

Peter Singer's book is very illuminating,if somewhat influenced by an obviously liberal political agenda.No president in recent memory has done as much moralizing as Bush, but I would hardly call him moral. Singer points out many contradictions in Bush's
statements and policies, but that's not hard to do. His policies are replete with contradictions. The easiest policy to target is the one on Iraq. From repeated assurances that Hussein was in cahoots with Al-Quieda, to a public admittance
of "no Iraqi link to that terrorist organization", Bush clearly showed, not only his incompetence in handling such a delicate situation, by rushing to war when there was no clear evidence of WMD, but by blaming his mistakes on
false intelligence. So, if it's the false intelligence that caused him to err, as he claims, then why does he refuse to admit that he even made an error?
Singer's strongest points in the book, are showing the blatant lack of morals that manifested itself in the President's juvenile behavior, and ever present contradictions.
I only gave Singer a 3-star rating however, because his political motives in writing the book were too obvious.

It is obvious the author is trying to put Bush down even though he claims to be being fair to both sides. One way this book is unfair is Saddam's genocide attempts on the Kurds (whom Saddam killed over 180,000 in just one year many more were killed other years plus Saddam got about a million people killed in a war with Iran he mostly started and Saddam killed many tens of thousands of non-Kurdish Iraqis internally in Iraq). Singer mentions Saddam's genocide attempts but gives no incredibly high but true figures on just what a genocide attempt, the untrained
reader is left to guess how many people Saddam killed. But when the author puts Bush down and talks of another mass murdering spree (this one going on in Africa) and Bush not stopping it the death toll murders of this holocaust get quoted (600,000).

This author mostly complains about how the US did not stop Saddam sooner. He fails to understand (or admit)
that the US military was totally and then semi-paralyzed by the powerful pacifist movement of the late60's/early70's. It was not until 30 years after the Vietnam pullout that the uS was finally able to take total military action like the current occupation of Iraq.

This is a profoundly disturbing book: if Singer is right, George Bush is a president sadly deficient in decent ethics, and if he is wrong it shows the collapse of basic ethics across much of America.

If he is right, and Singer is arguably the most provocative philosopher now in America, then Bush is merely the public face of a cynical cabal that has nothing but contempt for everyone and everything outside their own limited acumen. Bush may have implemented this conspiracy by his delegation of management policies, after all he is congenitally lazy and inclined to rely on others for his successes. Furthermore, the universally admired genius of evil, Karl Rove, shows Bush knows how to pick sinister subordinates.

On this basis, the Bush White House has the ethical standards of the final days of an Enron. This is the substance of the argument on which Singer feasts; it reminds me of good federal prosecutors who are precise, thorough, detailed and with absolute proof. It's a treat to watch such skill and certainty, and Singer is such a man.

But there's a second element, perhaps too speculative for Singer to include. Many years ago I watched a successful "consumer protection" campaign. Once in office, "consumer protection" meant rewarding wise and astute business leaders because they would never ask for anything they didn't need. "Consumer protection" was not what ignorant consumers wanted, but was redefined as creating rich and powerful corporations.

Sometimes, "ethics" are bizarre.

Now, for something completely different. Bush considers himself a "born again" Christian whose sins are forgiven. I've met others who make similar claims and lead utterly disreputable lives -- they know every sin is forgiven because they "have accepted Jesus".

Consider the result if national leaders assume they can do anything because if it is good it will benefit America and harm no others, and if it is harmful to America or others then God will forgive their sins and errors. Some "born again" Christians truly believe this, and thus consider they have perfect ethics. It may be far from the intended meaning; but, with "born again" Christians as with everyone else, errors are possible.

Singer's weakness isn't that he forgets to try to understand what they actually do; it's that he forgets to try to understand what they actually believe.

Singer is a "prosecutor" who is calm, precise, detailed, clear and convincing when proving a very narrow and carefully defined situation. But after reading this book, it's hard not to have the impression that he is using logic to define the ethics of madmen.

Unfortunately, most political books seek to lower the level of political discourse in this nation. Through half-truths, outright lies, miscalculations, and (for lack of a better word), propaganda, other authors only seek to confuse and enrage their readers into blindly accepting their point of view and perception of reality.

Not Peter Singer. He takes a serious approach at discussing the Bush ideology from every point view, and philosophically examines the hypocrisies inherent in his dialogue and behavior. He does this fairly and with great respect to his readers as to not insult their intelligence.

Conservatives should read this to see the intelligent realities for why others object to their ideology, and how Bush is slandering these ideologies. And liberals should read this to realize that there are better ways to approach political debate without sinking down to the level of a pundit.

This book is a great account of what happened. When Enron collapsed, I was in my young teens so I really didn't pay much attention to it. However now seeing I'm in college as a business major I think it is an essential book that should be read by all business majors. It teaches what can go wrong when the wrong moves are put in place. Enron I think did everything possible to cripple itself with out seeing it until it was too late. The book takes off as rocket that a company is about to make it big. It takes from the early stages a company to a giant that falls to shambles.
The company employees the wrong people to the wrong positions. Andy Fastow I feel is the biggest crook outside of Skilling. Ken lay I feel was a good man who truly wanted to see the company prevail but with his blindness did not see the fore coming danger. Fastow reported to Skilling and Skilling just signed off on deals with out looking at them. If he would have seen what Fastow was doing with money from the company, chances are these deals would have never made it. However, with the wavering of the ethic code was just wrong. No company should ever break their code of ethics. If they do get out ASAP. Chances are it will lead to bigger breaks and will cause bigger problems and respect will go down the tubes.
This book is worth the cost and it will teach you what Enron did wrong. They should have just stayed in the Nat gas business and slowly dabble in other businesses instead of jumping into businesses without expertise. Go out and buy the book you should be pleased the way it is put together.

This book offered an unseen perspective into details about ENRON's dealings and people which should illuminate both old and new views about corporate governance, accounting policies, regulatory climate and unseen involvement by parties which contributed to the collaspe of ENRON.

With the recent sentencing of Jeffery Skilling, Mimi Swartz's work takes a complicated story of deciet and betrayal and explains the details in a concise and succint manner. A must read for all business leaders. A great read.

The greatest reason to read this book is to get an appreciation for the scale of the collapse that was Enron. Also, you will get a description of what life was like at Enron on a personal level from an insider's view, as well as their view on what it had to do with the Company's downfall. Yes - this is one person's account, but there's enough factual information to back them up on the important points.

There are many books that are more technically oriented and probably less biased. Unfortunately, for this layman, they don't make very good bedtime reading.

I recommend reading these 2 books together because TSGITR gets really dense in places, making for draining reading, but since the story is too incredible to put down, Power Failure takes it to a lighter level. I do think Power Failure hones in more on Andy Fastow, as co-writer Sherron Watkins worked directly with him, and the photograph of his little art project is downright chilling (you'll see what I'm referring to). Power Failure still has some great meat to chew on however; the proximity that Sherron Watkins had to the main players, particularly Lay and Fastow, lends itself to the amazing characterizations of these guys on paper. The two books follow a similar chronology and highlights, so it is interesting to compare the slight variations of the same episodes. Even though Sherron Watkins makes the most of her edge, being a primary player in the saga, the tip of my hat goes to TSGITR's writers for their downright nasty investigative reporting.

`Slouching Toward Fargo' could well turn the phrase "bush league" from a term of derision into a complement. Free lance writer Neal Karlen spent two years following the Saint Paul Saints, a team on the bottom rung of the bush leagues, and discovered a place where baseball is still fun; a place far enough away from the big corporate business that the major leagues have become that players and fans still remember what the game is all about. Here, outrageous stunts and promotions amuse enthusiastic fans, while the last-chance ballplayers play the game with great passion if not always great talent.
Karlen started following the Saints on an assignment from Rolling Stone. Jan Wenner, Rolling Stone's publisher and founding editor had a grudge against actor Bill Murray, one of the Saint's owners, and wanted a hatchet job article to run on him and his ball team. Karlen, who had worked for the magazine in the past and was no stranger to hatchet job journalism, was promised a handsome fee to deliver Murray and his team carved on a platter.
Despite the worst of intentions, Karlen was infected by the Saints and their ethos of fun and healing through the power of baseball. That philosophy had a positive effect on everyone, from owners Bill Murray (funny man actor and abdicated Hollywood superstar) and Mike Veeck (son of baseball legend Bill Veeck and banished from the major leagues because of his disastrous 1979 Disco Night promotion in Chicago) to onetime superstar Darryl Strawberry making a last ditch effort to return to major league glory, down through the no name guys who were fighting for their last chance to be professional ballplayers. It took hold of Karlen as well; he cancelled the hatchet job story, and instead wrote this book celebrating the fun and joy of baseball.
Karlen's writing is closer to utility infielder quality than superstar slugger, but a utility infielder having a very good game. It would have been hard to make an error with a story this rich. The drama includes the blackballed Darryl Strawberry magnificently working his way back to the major leagues and World Series glory, the first female to pitch in a professional men's league, a legless second baseman, a blind radio color anouncer, two managers sumo wrestling on the diamond after being thrown out of the game by the umpires, a pig who brings balls to the umpires, and the ghost of the outrageous Bill Veeck, present through his ashes in a coffee can and reaching out from beyond the grave to continue his unique brand of whacky baseball fun. Karlen didn't have to be a slugger to hit a home run on this story; he just had to swing the bat, and despite some sloppy editting, his story scores.
If you love the game of baseball, then this book is a must read. If you once loved the game, but have lost your passion for it and become cynical because of the corporate farce that the major leagues have become, then read this book to remember why you fell in love in the first place.

Theo Logos

i didn't think the minor leagues could be as interesting as the majors, but this proves i was wrong.

This is one of the funniest books I've read in a long time. Neal Karlen was a writer for Rolling Stone, sent to St. Paul, Minnesota to "get the dirt" on Bill Murray, iconoclastic actor and part owner of the St. Paul Saints. The Saints are a minor league baseball team, part of the independent Northern League, and operated by Mike Veeck, son of the legendary Hall of Famer Bill Veeck. (Casual baseball fans will most likely recall the senior Veeck for having sent midget Eddie Gaedel up to bat as a pinch hitter. It was only one of many colorful stunts by the games' most creative promoter ever).

Karlen sticks around for a couple of years; the story for Rolling Stone never materializes, but along the way this book emerges, as much about Karlen's crisis of spirit as it is about the Saints and the zany cast of characters surrounding them. But along the way we meet many of those who have given the Saints and the Northern League their unique cachet: on the field performers like former Mets slugger Darryl Strawberry, who temporarily redeems his life and career during a two-month stay with the Saints; former pitching star Jack Morris, seeking one more taste of glory, but on his terms only; Ila Borders, the first female to play in a professional game; and Wayne "Twig" Terwillliger, player and coach for 50 seasons and quiet representative of so much that's right with the game.

There are also wonderful portraits of Sister Rosalind. the nun who offers massages at games; a blind radio announcer convinced he's on his way to the big leagues; an employee of one of the Saints' rivals who earns the title "Most Beloved Woman in the Northern League" and others who find solace, healing and a chance to keep dreaming dreams in this strange, wacky, wonderful firmamenent. I really hated to come to the end of this one. The empty feeling was almost as bad as the night the World Series ends.

Totally winning, both as a portrait of a team (and town) with heart and of a freelance writer who's struggling with the angel (good, real reporting) and devil (fat Rolling Stone paycheck) on his shoulders. The angel wins, and the reader can't help but cheer. Sex, strong women, kooky characters, fiercely loyal fans, minor-league silliness, bratwurst and the honest-to-God love of baseball, which weirdly enough persists no matter how disillusioning the world gets--this book's for anyone who likes Bull Durham, scrappy writers, or independence of spirit in any form. Ignore the minor editing errors; the book's worth it.

I picked this up at my boyfriend's house, read the first few pages, and stayed home on the sofa for an entire weekend because I couldn't put this book down. I'm not a baseball fan, and not from the Midwest, but Karlen's hilarious and equally moving tale of his two years following around this team of wanna-bes, has-beens, and dreamers (some who "made it," some who didn't) had me chortling out loud and even getting teary-eyed at times. This is really a book about Karlen's own search not just for material for his Rolling Stone article (how this book began), but for his own soul as well. Karlen's writing is always entertaining, leaving you wanting more. I'm buying a bunch of these as late Christmas presents -- it's the best gift I can think of. Uplifting, thought-provoking, and one of the funniest books I've read in a long time. You'll never find characters like this in fiction -- what's amazing is they're all real. It should be a movie.

This book gives the a short biography of six different women who have helped in either the election or presidential administration of George W. Bush. Written in 2004, these women are Karen Hughes, Condoleeza Rice, Elaine Chao, Christine Wittman, Gale Norton, and Ann Veneman. The first helped Bush's election campaign and provides with him PR support. The other five served in his administration at top-level positions. All six helped W. portray an image to voters of a compassionate conservate; someone who cares as much for "women's" issues (family, reproductive rights, labor rights, the environment, public education) as the other guy. But, this book shows chapter by chapter, that these six individuals are just as conservative as any red-meat white man, and have helped to implement policies and laws to that effect. For example, ex-Governor Whittman has tapped to head the EPA by Bush. While in that post she relaxed rules governing emissions by factories, and after the 9/11 attacks, overruled EPA officials who wanted to release public warnings about the health risks in and around the crash sites. Many in the public had viewed the appointment of these women as moderating influences on the conservative drive of Bush and his male colleagues. This book proves this idea wrong; the women were just as conservative, and their presence only helped to mollify opposition to the conservative policies of the Bush administration.

Overall, a good book, though it could be a little longer with more references.

How refreshing to read a political book with real voice. Flanders is great on the radio, and just as alive and amusing on the page. She's got strong views, backed up by solid research. A treat to read. After so many books on George, finally a bigger picture. BUSHWOMEN offers a good refresher course on the last twenty years of US history too, and how the Right rose to power. Highly recommended

This provocative and insightful book, written with the candid and
intelligent humor that Laura Flanders is known for, underscores the
urgent need to examine much more carefully the backgrounds and agendas
of the women that the Bush administration has relied upon or appointed
in the interests of creating an illusion of diversity. In a time of
such unprecedented, calculated fabrication of evidence and
dissemination of misinformation on the part of the Bush
administration, the book is also a clarion call to people working in
the media: cease your reliance on the State Department or Pentagon or
"unnamed officials" for your information, and ask the questions that
challenge the lies and spin; investigate; and speak truth to power.

Reviewer: Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, San Francisco, CA USA
The Bush administration surely is the worst regarding core women's issues, such as bodily sovereignty, adequate health care, indifference to unemployment, discrimination against single women, diplomacy rather than militarism in international relations, and dozens of others.
Finally, we are blessed with a feminist deconstruction of this
administration's window dressing pretense of supporting women by
appointing what can only be called Bush worshipping females. Thanks,and congratulations to Laura Flanders for this gift.

This book shows how the women in the Bush Administration are not a sign of the administration's female-friendliness, but a shield hiding how conservative it really is. Flanders devotes a chapter to each of six women in the current administration who use their gender to hide, not only the government's reactionary policies, but their own work. It's also a great read--very funny and clever.

"Disgruntled-Bush-administration-official-writes-scathing-tell-all." It's practically a genre unto itself. At first look, "The Terror Presidency" by Jack Goldsmith, the former head of the Justice Department's powerful and prestigious Office of Legal Counsel, looks like yet another addition to this group, alongside such forgettable pieces as those authored by Paul O'Neill and Scott McClellan. And in a certain sense it is. But Goldsmith has written something that goes beyond simple naming-of-names and assigning blame - and that is what makes this book worthwhile and recommendable.

There are three main themes to "The Terror Presidency." The first has to do with the expansion of judicial influence in national security policy making, which I found educational and thought-provoking. The second recounts Goldsmith's brief and tumultuous tenure in government, which is predictable and accusatory. The third theme concerns the development of a "right way" to circumvent the Constitution and legal restraints on executive power, which I found rather unexpected and somewhat puzzling.

First, Goldsmith writes that a new form of fighting has emerged over the past several decades: death by lawsuit, otherwise known as "lawfare" and which may very well qualify as the fifth generation of warfare. To many senior Bush administration policymakers and frontline participants in the War of Terror this innovative form of conflict is the most terrifying yet devised. The author's general thesis is that Bush administration officials were "excessively legalistic" from 9/12 onward because the shadow of future lawsuits hung over their heads like some 21st century variant of the Sword of Damocles. Not only is the upper echelon of political appointees fearful of fending off - at tremendous financial and emotional cost - some future war crimes indictment under "universal jurisdiction," but so too are the thousands of brave young men and women in national service who are risking their lives for $60K/year to carry out critical missions that their superiors have ordered them to undertake.

Goldsmith stresses that American giants of war leadership like Lincoln and Roosevelt never had to worry about such nonsense. The upshot to "lawfare," Goldsmith writes, is that lawyers have been elevated to an unprecedented level of influence and responsibility in the present conflict. "[N]ever in the history of the United States had lawyers had such extraordinary influence over war policy as they did after 9/11. The lawyers weren't necessarily expert on al Qaeda, or Islamic fundamentalism, or intelligence, or international diplomacy, or even the requirements of national security. But the lawyers - especially White House and Justice Department lawyers - seemed to 'own' issues that had profound national security and political and diplomatic consequences." Needless to say, this is not a good thing.

Second, Goldsmith chronicles his bureaucratic battles with, as he describes them, the sinister legal janissaries of the Bush administration. Strangely enough, in Goldsmith's retelling Attorney General John Ashcroft comes across as an avuncular "good cop." White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales is portrayed as genuine and likable, but intellectually limited and utterly dominated by Vice President Cheney's chief counsel and confident, David Addington, who Goldsmith puts forth as the eminence grise of Bush administration terror policy. Addington is described as the Sith warrior of the Bush administration; an almost superhuman force bent on expanding executive power and, Goldsmith would have you believe, subverting the republic itself. Clearly, Goldsmith's time in government was not pleasant and he has a serious axe to grind with Addington over it.

Third, Goldsmith is highly sympathetic to the challenges and obstacles presented to the current administration and seeks to elucidate how President Bush and future presidents could do a better job of circumventing the law and, when necessary, the Constitution. In fairness, none other than Thomas Jefferson has been quoted as saying: "A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."

So how should the president go about arrogating powers for which he has no official basis in constitutional law? Goldsmith contends that it is wise to consult widely and then just ask Congress for the extrajudicial powers sought. His main point of evidence is The Military Commissions Act of 2006 that granted the president more power over terrorism suspects than even his most zealous advisors had claimed before. The White House only sought Congressional approval after the Supreme Court ruling in the Hamdan decision had forced their hand. Goldsmith clearly sees this reluctance to include others and make policy a participatory process as the great legal shortcoming of the Bush administration. He is completely in concert with the policy ends and quibbles strongly over the means.

In closing, this book may appeal to energetic Bush-bashers and thoughtful foreign policy thinkers alike - albeit for different reasons.

In the book "The Terror Presidency" by Jack Goldsmith, the author gives the best reasoning for allowing torture that I have ever seen. He has also written opinions that give the widest latitude to the government to suspend habeas corpus and trial by jury. Mr. Goldsmith is a conservative lawyer and a college professor, according the book's jacket. (Obviously not of the "originalist" school of thought since it is clear the makers would be appalled by these opinions which are exactly the opposite of their intentions.) Mr Goldsmith's idea is to stretch the Constitution as far as possible in order to deal with the danger of terrorism.

There are other opinions that, according to Mr. Goldsmith, are necessary for the United States. For instance, he states that the US should never recognize the International Criminal Court and uses Rumsfeld's explanation that weak nations could use it to protect themselves against powerful nations. The current administration calls the use of laws as a substitute for "traditional military action," "Lawfare."

One hardly knows what to say to these logical arguments. They certainly do not agree with the notions about this country that I learned at my father's knee. He taught me that we were a nation of laws. The poor and the weak were as important as the rich and the strong. I can't imagine that the founding fathers would say use of military action is preferable to using the courts.

There has been a lot of conversation about using torture "in an emergency." The only rule a civilized nation should have is that torture is illegal period. If one of our agents gets hold of someone who is planning a terrorist attack and knows in his heart that torture would uncover the plot, that agent should be willing to go to jail for ignoring the law. His sentence would likely be short if this torture saved a lot of lives. Civil disobedience to save the nation should also mean taking the penalty for that disobedience. Think how many people have sacrificed their very lives for this country. Secret agents presumably are willing to put their lives on the line for their country.

The depressing thing is that we used to be the "good guys." In the past, if our government was doing something shameful, it tried to keep it a secret. These days we don't even try to hide it.

Everyone should read this book even if it is depressing. Mr. Goldsmith seems to have no clue that he has written a treatise on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and completely ignored morality, principle, law, and the Founding Fathers.

This book is good example of how not even intellectually honest conservative could survive the radical ideology of the Bush Administration. Jack Goldsmith lasted only 9 months as head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) before having to resign.

Goldsmith took office in October 2003. His time in office, though brief, was spent thinking and opining about some of the most complex wartime decisions about executive branch power any administration has ever encountered. Little did he know that people he considered to be fellow conservatives were actually radicals who cared nothing about the separation of powers and did everything they could to undermine it and shape legal opinions accordingly.

That is what all the debate today about a "unitary executive" concerns. The radicals maintained that there were no constraints on a President in wartime. Goldsmith, a real conservative scholar, knew otherwise.

Not many people know of the OLC, or its function and its influence within the executive branch of government (including me until I read this book). As part of the Department of Justice it addresses legal issues facing executive branch decisions. OLC legal opinions, if they approve an executive branch decision, all but confer immunity from prosecution for actions taken by government officials.

Prior to Goldmith's arrival, John Yoo, a friend of Goldsmith's but a radical in conservative's clothing, had already issued the famous "torture (interrogation) memos" of August 2002 and March 2003 under the auspices of the OLC. The CIA called them the "golden shield" and others in government referred to them as "get out of jail free" cards.

Goldsmith's description of Yoo's legal reasoning in authoring the interrogation memos (one for CIA and one for DOD) shows Yoo, not the law, to be an ass. Yoo, an alleged war expert still teaches at Berkeley. If Berkeley grants him tenure after this book, shame on it.

Goldsmith, in an unprecedented action, had to withdraw the memos and subject government officials to legal liability because of Yoo's unbelievably inept legal reasoning. He resigned the same day he withdrew Yoo's memo for the CIA, June 15, 2004. He was no longer welcome in the Bush Administration.

The main villain of the piece is David Addington, Vice President Cheney's (who else?) chief legal counsel. If Addington is a conservative, Genghis Khan was just a peaceful nomad passing through European cities. Addington's extreme legal views on presidential war-making powers held sway in an administration that was panicked after 9/11 and saw Congress and the courts only as obstacles to an effective anti-terror program.

Goldsmith, realizing there were limits on presidential power even in wartime had no chance against Addington's bullying influence. Typical of a radical, Addington's basic mantra was that if you oppose unlimited executive power you are not just wrong, you are a traitor.

Other issues that Goldsmith had to address that are of great interest are the concept of extralegality, a president's prerogative power, indefinite detention of suspected terrorists, rendition, and the Geneva Conventions.

The irony is that, like many conservatives, Goldsmith ends up relying on the actions of a liberal Democrat as the ideal for how to handle controversial issues. He does an excellent job of explaining how FDR used political craftsmanship to enlist Congress, the courts, and the public at large to back the expansion of his wartime powers. Goldsmith indicts the Bush administration for its radically opposite stonewall policy.

Though intellectually honest on legal issues, Goldsmith displays the same antiquated notions as other conservatives in politics. His references to "lefties" at Harvard, "hippies" in Boston (what? they were ad-men) and Scooter Libby falling into a "perjury trap" display a political naif at work outside his area of expertise. He does need stick to the law.

He is also less than forthright regarding the Iraq War. He does not even mention it until almost three-quarters into the book. It is an obvious sign that he is reluctant in having to admit that White House deception in getting us into that war made all further anti-terrorist actions by the administration suspect throughout the world, though he finally does.

Goldsmith's complaint that wartime executive powers have been hamstrung by legal restraints by congressional action after Watergate rings hollow. This is especially true when he concludes that all of the legal problems could have been avoided if the Bush administration had only cooperated with the other branches of government rather than acting in secret and unilaterally in its anti-terror efforts.

If anything, that conclusion makes it seem even more necessary to legally constrain an executive run amok.

The grand irony of the (early - pre-2004) Bush administration's counterterrorism policies, Goldsmith observes, is that although the Bush administration lawyers sought "to leave the presidency stronger than they found it", in fact they "seem to have achieved the opposite". The reason is simply that the American constitutional system really does have three branches of government. Although the judiciary in principle has little constitutional role to play in matters of war or foreign policy generally, the fact that the war on terror has been conceived by the administration as a global war - in which the whole world is the battleground, in which even American citizens on American soil could be named as enemy combatants and indefinitely detained solely on the say-so of the executive - ensures that the Supreme Court cannot be left aside.

The administration's tunnel vision has thus left it blind to the fact that, by seeming to go it alone and refusing to go to Congress for such things as limits, but also authority, to hold detainees at Guantánamo, or specific rules on interrogation that confine, but also legally protect, interrogators, the administration has tied itself in marriage to a far more exigent spouse - the Court. The message of successive detainee cases from the Supreme Court - Hamdi and Hamdan, particularly - has not so far been that the constitution forbids much of what the executive proposes to do. After all, most of this pertains to non- citizens detained outside the United States; and until the Bush administration's spectacularly overreaching legal theories blew up in its face, no one thought the constitution applied to them at all. The message is, rather, that the administration should seek Congressional assent for what it wants to do. The Court has signalled provisionally that it will accept at least some extraordinary rules in the war on terror - provided, however, that the political branches have together given those departures democratic legitimacy. The Court's limits, following the just argued Boumediene case, to what the political branches might do even together are not yet firmly drawn.

But there is no going it alone in a system of divided constitutional powers. If not Congress, it will be the Court - or more exactly, as Benjamin Wittes has noted, the inconstant Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court's swing vote - that endorses policy. In pursuing unfettered executive power to act alone, the administration has made Justice Kennedy its five-star general, its very own Douglas MacArthur in the war on terror. On the infrequent occasions when the administration has been forced by the Court to go to it for authority, it has been denied practically nothing. It has not so far mattered that the Bush administration is a lame duck, or whether Congress is in Republican or Democratic hands.

The administration seems not to have understood that what lives by executive discretion dies by executive discretion. If the Bush administration took counterterrorism as seriously as it took the abstraction of executive power, it would have thought ahead to its own departure from office. If it truly believed that its approach to counterterrorism was correct, then from the first day of its second term it would have engaged with Congress to create institutions to outlive any particular Presidency. It would have thought about the example of the Cold War and how a democracy deals with a genuine threat to a whole way of life. In retrospect, the democratic institutions of the Cold War did a remarkable job of balancing safety and liberty over decades; pure executive discretion cannot possibly promise the same. The administration having undertaken none of these things, US counterterrorism policy today flails without long-term strategic guidance or institutional stability.

Yet any future institutional settlement for counterterrorism inevitably bumps up against the contradictory impulses of government officials who confronted Goldsmith on his entry into the OLC and impelled his departure not many months later. The Terror Presidency says repeatedly that government policy after 9/11 was Bush's instruction to the then Attorney General, John Ashcroft: "Don't ever let this happen again". For Goldsmith, every Presidency for the foreseeable future will be characterized by an "unremitting fear of devastating attack, an obsession with preventing the attack, and a proclivity to act aggressively and preemptively to do so". No matter what might get said in the course of an election campaign, a Democratic administration once in office, "will be even more anxious than the current President to thwart the attack". In order to act as aggressively as the spirit of the age demands, however, government officials in the CIA and elsewhere must have confidence that apparently authorized aggressive actions that turn out to be mistaken, unnecessary, excessive or cause collateral damage to innocents will not be judged after the fact by a different set of standards than those going in. The criminal laws now in place make it very difficult, however, for operational officers of government, whether in detention, interrogation, surveillance or other covert activities, to have such confidence. The criminal laws use vague terms such as "inhumane", "degrading" or "humiliating" that practically invite after-the-fact revisionism, creating legal uncertainties that become insurmountable obstacles to action. Congress and the administration, in the seemingly perverse desire to have it both ways - encourage action but have the option to prosecute it afterwards - refuse to be specific as to what is actually permitted and not. Operational officials therefore respond rationally to the disincentives to act created by legal uncertainty.

Understanding the raison d'être of the torture memos issued by OLC in 2002, prior to Goldsmith's arrival, is nearly impossible without understanding their relationship to the vagaries of these criminal laws. The role of the OLC for some fifty years has been to give authoritative advice to the executive branch on legality and constitutionality. As Goldsmith notes, of necessity its opinions are often secret and not reviewable by any court. This is not as strange as it sounds. It is a part of the executive's obligation to "faithfully execute" the laws; to do that, the executive must know what the laws are and what they mean - a function always delegated, however, to the Attorney General, constitutionally obliged to give advice on "questions of law when required by the President of the United States". In practice, however, this might easily tempt lawyers in the OLC to write tendentious briefs to justify what the executive already intends to do, under circumstances in which judicial review may not be possible.

The OLC has so far insulated its lawyers from pressure by the executive. In matters of national security law, those OLC opinions operate as immunity against criminal prosecution of officials who act in good faith even if, ultimately, wrongly. It is almost impossible for the Justice Department to prosecute an official when that same department's OLC has blessed the conduct. The torture memos therefore purported to define torture for purposes of guiding what the executive might lawfully do. From the standpoint of CIA agents and other officials, these opinions offered immunity for their actions if they acted in reasonable reliance on them. The OLC in 2002 offered opinions on the definition of torture that certainly fulfilled this function; but they did so in ways that Goldsmith could not sustain, drafted as tendentious and conclusory briefs.

Worse, they did so not within bounds of what actual administration interrogation policy might be - waterboarding, for example - but instead within the maximal legal bounds offering the most iron-clad protection possible against criminal liability for anything. Goldsmith says that he was not disturbed by the exploration of the outermost limits of the law against torture as such, but these memos had a purpose fundamentally different from simply setting out boundaries. They more or less authorized anything short of Saddam's infamous meat grinder, and then, for good measure, added that in any case the President was not bound by any of this. The memos were disastrous because they left the understanding that these hypotheticals at the outer orbits of law constituted a statement of the government's actual policy proposals. Goldsmith observes that although the charge is frequently made that the Bush administration is "lawless", it is better understood as the most over-lawyered in US history.

Goldsmith was pilloried in press articles suggesting that he had authored the torture memos. Only later did it emerge that he had in fact withdrawn them. This has caused Goldsmith to be treated in the media as a kind of hero, a whistle-blower, though Goldsmith himself feels uncomfortable with "the Manichean tone . . . one sees so often when press and intellectuals criticize the Bush administration's attempts to balance liberty and security". His discomfort is evident from the fact that he is contributing his profits from this book to charity and that he has refrained from wholesale criticism of the Bush administration. As custodian of the OLC, Goldsmith believed he had a constitutional obligation to offer opinions that were not merely briefs in support of a preordained position. Withdrawing the torture memos also meant, as he well knew, withdrawing immunity upon which mid-tier government officials and agents had relied in good faith. Goldsmith's exit from government was not on account of his being fired; indeed, the Attorney General or the President could have overruled him and did not. No one stopped Jack Goldsmith from withdrawing the torture memos; but having "reversed or rescinded more OLC opinions that any of my predecessors", he writes, many people "lost faith in me. What else might I withdraw and when?"

Many people believe that the terror threat is overrated, the problem is to "manage" rather than defeat it. Goldsmith acknowledges this emerging view, and while rejecting it does not seek to refute it. America will live the Terror Presidency, Goldsmith says, with its dense moral ambiguities unfolding deep within a democracy's many necessary bureaucracies and institutions. The moral uncertainties, lest anyone mistake his meaning, are captured with brutal precision by Goldsmith's own last words on the torture memos:

"Some people have praised my part in withdrawing and starting to fix the interrogation opinions. But it is very easy to imagine a different world in which my withdrawal of the opinions led to a cessation of interrogations that future investigations made clear could have stopped an attack that killed thousands. In this possible world my actions would have looked pusillanimous and stupid, not brave."

(This is taken from my review of this book in the Times Literary Supplement, December 24, 2007.)

I thank Mr. Goldsmith for sharing his experience in the Bush Presidency. The account was informative on the workings of government and the men involved. Well done!

Now I know what FUBAR means!
Wow!Wow! Wow....What a nightmare read!
But something we should all look into.

Sam Seder is right on in this book. He brings the same humor and intellect to FUBAR as he does to his show on Air America.

Great book! Informative and funny. Sam Seder is a good author and radio host!

I want to know when these wackos on the left are going to ease up on my boy George. Okay, so he blew a few hundred billion dollars in Iraq and never got bin Laden. So what if he turned a $7.2-trillion surplus into a $4-trillion deficit? What's the big deal? In the first place he didn't get Obama bin Laden ON PURPOSE! Getting Obama bin Laden would have been a real nightmare. Kill him and he's a martyr, not to mention that we have nobody for an enemy. How can you be an effective Commander-in-Chief without an enemy? Huh? And how can you control Congress! Put us on a war footing and Congress behaves. Otherwise, they become obstructionist. And look what happened when we captured Saddam Hussein. What good is he now?

And as far as the Clinton surplus goes that was money Slick Willie stole from the people who created the wealth in the first place! That's right, hardworking, God-fearing Americans like Dick Cheney and the people at ExxonMobil and et cetera. President George W. Bush gave it back to them. And what's a deficit anyway? That's just money we owe ourselves that the Chinese and the Japanese and others are holding for us in US TREASURES! US TREASURIES! These folks are loaning us money at rates we like. The crypto/pinko Nancy boys on the Left are Econ 101 challenged! They just don't understand globalization and what's really happening.

And they don't get it about Al Qaeda. If Al Qaeda didn't exist we'd have to invent them. You wanna know why we really invaded Iraq? I'll tell you why. So Al Qaeda could establish a presence there. How do you think Al Qaeda could get established with Saddam Hussein murdering everybody who disagreed with him and having a totalitarian hold on the country? We had to get rid of him. We're working hard to make Al Qaeda the new Evil Empire to replace the sorry Soviet one that let us down.

And as far as those so-called "gay anti-gay Republican" congressmen that Seder and Sherrill are having so much fun with, I want to say where's your Christian forgiveness? At least they know they're sick and work hard at trying to get anti-gay type legislation passed and at least they support heterosexual marriage and the Bible even if they like to...you know what. They aren't hypocrites. They know who they are and at least they're doing something about it. You think Seder and Sherrill are prophetic in that they more or less predicted Larry Craig? They created the tragedy that IS Larry Craig. Here is a fine Republican senator, been in the Senate so long that he has some real power on committees and such and can do some really good things for the people in his state, and because of a media frenzy, started by the types that write ultra-liberal books like this, he's going to be out of a job. They don't get it. Anti-gay gays are the RIGHT kind of gays, nothing like those degenerates in San Francisco who voted for Nancy Pelosi.

I will say one thing that Seder and Sherrill got right--and I think it's kind of funny, hilarious in fact. In the appropriately titled Chapter 18, "The Media Is Not Your Friend" they nail the New York Times and its left-wing reporters to the wall. You might call them anti-liberal liberals. I mean that's the essence of the chapter, and Seder and Sherrill got it right, they ARE anti-liberal liberals and that's the best kind. You think a newspaper as dependent upon corporate advertising as the New York Times is going to be going against its corporate sponsors? We just call them liberal to keep them in line, to remind them who pays the bills. It's a way of intimidating them. And they know it. They pretend to be left-wing while actually writing good solid George W. Bush copy (as Seder and Sherrill document). Without the support of the New York Times, invading Iraq would have been a lot harder sell, believe me.

And so what do I think of this book? It's funny, but NOT in the way the authors intended. They think they're reaching somebody other than the previously indoctrinated. But they don't understand one basic fact, nobody but Chablis-swilling and quiche-eating liberals comprehend satire or get irony. People on the Right understand irony as hypocrisy and that's GOOD. It's human to be hypocritical and that's the Right way to behave. So all the so-called comedic devices employed by Seder and Sherrill amount to just a very sorry example of preaching to the devil's choir.

And please use Payday Advance responsibly.

Never has a book exposed the Fascist element of the Right wing and shown how lies of the most dimwit of all presidents continue to lead brainless morons down the path of destruction. There is nothing more pathetic then a "Con"serve-a-tive!

Minutaglio provides a detailed life of George W. Bush, from his birth in New Haven Connecticut to his first election as governor of Texas in 1994. (After that he only describes a few events from his eight years as governor and provides a brief afterword about the 2000 presidential campaign that, strangely, concludes without revealing the results of the Supreme Court decision that finalized the election.)

Yet he fails to demonstrate that W. is only, or even largely, the product of the Bush dynasty. He fails to explain why Bush follows more in the new conservative steps of Reagan than in the moderate, non-ideological path of his father Bush 41. He doesn't mention neoconservatism at all, although Condi Rice is mentioned in the last pages. Yes, he does describe important elements of continuity in the dynasty (education at Andover, Yale, and Harvard; work in the West Texas oil fields; and common political experiences), but he fails to examine the very important differences between the two men, differences that may prove to be even more important.

The book also overlooks the role of Bush's faith in God. He describes his 1986 decision to quit drinking as an effort to avoid embarrassing his father and calls his conversion experience an attempt to reach out to the Christian right. For someone like Bush who has been the most open president about his faith since William McKinley, this is a major oversight. Minutaglio should have explained how and why his faith was important to him and his political career.

As a biography the book is fair and even-handed, describing Bush's wayward years, his maturing, and his achievements in business and politics. It provides good insight into how Bush developed as a man and politician. But it stops as Bush begins to emerge on the national stage as Texas governor.

Minutaglio's writing is also repetitive, narrating the same incidents and characterizations at different places in the book. At times it seems disjointed, and he does a poor job of explaining where certain action occurs. But there are also some really funny stories, mostly at Bush's expense, in the book (e.g. the recycled Christmas cards and the cattle guard's uniform).

Overall, a decent and impartial biography of W.'s pre-gubernatorial life, although the indifferent writing makes it a bit plodding to read at times.

THIS IS AN UNADULTERATED PUFF PIECE THAT EITHER HIDES, OBSCURES, IGNORES OR COMPLETELY FABRICATES A NEW HISTORY & PERSONA FOR GEORGE W. BUSH!

PLAIN & SIMPLE...THIS BOOK IS A JOKE...AND A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME & MONEY (WHICH I'D LOVE TO GET BACK PLEASE!)!!

Maybe I'm slow...or too trusting. Previous reviewers kept insisting again and again that this book was "unbiased". WRONG. From the first page, the author had an attitude about Bush - and the GOP. It gradually became clear that the author is a passionate Democrat, as he approvingly whitewashed all personal Clinton and Democrat party issues and glorified people like Al Gore. The bias abounds throughout the book... RNC party strategists are called "political terrorists", while their DNC equals are portrayed as sincere victims at each turn of the two year campaign. And you Mom's and Dad's out there, tell me: what parent (such as George, Sr) would hug the son he loves (George W.) on the happiest day of his life, but instead of thinking of the incredibly close relationship of family love, pride, and respect that the father and son have always shared, the father is now thinking only of the three times in a lifetime that father/son had been briefly angry with each other. And why remind the reader again and again, as much as four times over hundreds of pages, of each small tidbit of negative information? Was he afraid we would forget? Why did it take me hundreds of pages of wasted time to finally realize that no matter what the Bushes say or do, this author is biased to hate Bush and the Bush family, and to love Gore - and the Democrats - and the RNC. Period. Every possible issue and personal examination is slanted toward contempt for the one, and pride in the other. BOTTOM LINE: This book was promoted DECEPTIVELY. If Mr. Minitaglio wanted to write a hate-piece, fine - but why not be up front about it? My recommendation for busy people who love to read is simply that you beware. Know before you go. I'm rating the book a 3, because my friends who are Democrats may enjoy this book. (but why waste time, since he is already president and there's nothing you can do about it?) BUT... my Republican friends, STAY AWAY from this book, because it is unfair, duplicitous, full of seething, underhanded bias that Bernard Goldberg courageously exposed in his excellent book "BIAS". The bias peeks out from - and underneath - every sentence. Hope this helps reverent readers like me who just want to read, and who just want the TRUTH.

This is a nice book detailing the history of the Bush/Walker clan and the early life of George W. Bush. There is a lot of trash out there about this man and his politics, so it is hard to get a good biography of him. Make no mistakes, Minutaglio reveals a lot of the unsavory side of George W., but it is unbiased and he deals in facts. He also covers the strengths of this man, so the reader can get the good and the bad about him. The author only reveals the facts of his National Guard stint and the glosses over the drug allegations, so the reader cannot judge the current controversy over these allegations. I enjoy a book dealing in facts and not conservative/liberal conjecture. Minutaglio does a good job in this.
I especially like how Minutaglio reveals the personal relationship of George W. with his father. This is probably the most difficult aspect of this book, but the author summarizes their relationship well. Few other authors have attempted this with George W.
For those wanting a good biography of our 43rd President, this is nice book and read. For those wanting to read trash, go elsewhere--there is plenty to pick from.

I bought this book on a lark thinking it might actually be what the cover notes said is was "unbiased", but as soon as I saw Dan Rather's opinion on the book (printed on the back of the paperback I purchased), I should've known this book was not necessarily "the truth" on George W. Bush. Don't believe everything you read or hear from anyone in print or media. I encourage you to be selective and present things in context. . .

Speaking of things in context, I really can't trust this book as gospel because Minutaglio quotes sources in such a sporadic way, footnoting the quotes only to look more credible. The quotes are sometimes ridiculous and misplaced, it seems, but albeit, very entertaining.

That's just it, this book is entertaining and nothing more except to provide a biased peek at what Minutaglio believes is the driving force and reasons for our President's personality, politics, career choices, and other personal decisions.

Juicy. As in gossipy.

I'm glad I did not see the WaPost review before reading Lapdogs. I felt Boehlert did a great job of placing his punches and making the vivid and very depressing case that the former Mainstream Media have foresaken their role as contrarians, fact-finders, and authority-defiers. As most thinking people, and especially those who no longer settle for the MSM as their news source know full well, almost all of these folks at best are sycophants to the Bush administration these days. The arguably provable fact is that there is a very strong bias for the present administration, yet the outdated and disproven meme of "liberal press bias" still echoes in not a few apparently unoccupied skulls.

So, from me, high marks. The dramatic contrast between the mainstream media handling of "pro-administration" issues like Schiavo and "anti-administration" (okay, more accurately, administration venality) issues as exemplified by the Downing Street Memo is well-documented.

This is one of the better summaries and encapsulations of our sorry journalistic meltdown that I have read.

However. I've been accused (okay, praised as part of my job) of being a careful reader. Boehlert's fine intent here is greatly harmed for those of us still hung up on the niceties by truly sorrowful, at least mediocre if not absent, editing and proofreading. I finally came to underlining in annoyance and grief at the remarkably frequent occurrences of a multitude of errors - missing words, wrong words, extra words seemingly left from waffling as to best choice, etc., etc. Beyond distracting.

I have tried to find a straightforward means of sharing my annoyance over D- editing with Simon & Schuster, but as is so often the case, their direct maildrop seems to be closely guarded.

But in the interests of promoting important polemic regarding press meltdown, I will get over it - and you should too.

Track this down and read it. With any luck it will empower and help gird you for the upcoming election storm, which will doubtless feature appalling media nonsense, as they are by now so in the habit.

After reading this book I'm convinced the press is another arm of the Republican Party. Boehlert does a wonderful job exposing the media cover-up of the Jeff "Gannon" Guckert scandal and others.
But it.

Just as I always suspected, the Washington press is more interested in the cocktail circuit than breaking the news. Tim Russert is indeed the blowhard he appears to be.

I have to confess. I had to put this book down several times because I was so disgusted with what Boehlert was writing. As a former newsroom designer, I saw this censorship by the media firsthand before 9/11, and watched how it got worse after 9/11. I have to admit that everything in this book is not news to me.

I don't know whether to cry in disgust or throw the book across the room to the television set (I am not a fan of TV news shows. I have never been one since how can you get your news in thirty seconds or less? To me, it has never been an accurate medium of getting your news.). It is disgusting at how the media literally has rolled over for the current administration and worse.

My favorite quote out of this book is on page 271 of the hardback edition: "In an American culture increasingly drenched in violence, it seemd odd that war imagery, of all things, was treated so timidly." And a quote from the author of "Shooting Under Fire: The World of the War Photographer," Peter Howe: "If war is divorced from daily life as a video game is, we can't make judgments and we find ourselves mired in something we did not expect."

If you are a serious reader wondering why the mainstream media is not accurately doing its job of reporting unbiasedly of all news, good or bad, then you should read this book. Even if you disagree with the author, this is a good book which will definitely make you think about the affairs of this country and how the MSM is failing the American public. It is not doing its job of reporting the facts, it is not doing its job of being neutral; and it is not doing its job of informing the public on which to make educated decisions.

This book really is a must-read for all serious students of journalism and communication majors, in college and after.

7/5/08

Where is it written that the media has to play watchdog for the public good??? I thought the media is there to REPORT THE NEWS, not take positions on matters! I have to agree that coverage online is much, much better than what you get on television. Let's face it, the networks and cable are pretty much superfluous at this point, and have been since the 2000 election. Dan Rather and his ilk should have been gone years ago. However, to say that the news rolled over for Bush is wrong, I think if you inserted the name Bill Clinton instead of Bush you would be on target. (The world was burning down around us, and all we got was Monica L.) I also get the feeling that if Bush were a Demoncrat there wouldn't be all this hand wringing among the chattering media types. Nevertheless, it is a new day for electioneering; but you would think because of this we could produce better candidates than Obama, Clinton and McCain. I feel that due to this hyper-media environment you get these type of candidates: empty suit Obama, harridan Hillary, and nutjob McCain.