Review by Martha Quillen
Politics – August 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
ALTHOUGH THE FOLLOWING BOOKS are not “from,” “for” or “about” Central Colorado, they are about what a lot of us are discussing in our region as the 2004 elections draw near; so here’s an overview on popular (and not-so-popular) political tomes.
These days, current events seem to be inspiring more political books than Watergate. In early July, Amazon.com listed a whopping 494 titles for George Bush (which included a few about W.’s Dad) and 258 about “George W. Bush.”
In contrast, John Kerry’s name only produced seventy-seven results, and those included a large number of ringers, like the Ultimate Baseball Book by John Milito and Kerry Banks. But that’s as it should be, since there’s little reason to create an enduring library of literature on John Kerry — until after it’s clear whether he’ll endure.
There are two notable Kerry books available, though — Tour of Duty by Douglas Brinkley and John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography by the Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best. And there are also several books written by the candidate himself, including A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America. There’s also a soon-to-be released book which promises to skewer the candidate: The Many Faces of John Kerry by David M. Bossie.
Most of the current crop of political treatises, however, are about George W. Bush, and many seem aimed to influence the upcoming campaign, which means that the majority of them will be obsolete soon. So the logic of the day is “Get ’em while they’re hot” (although they will certainly be cheaper when they’re not — and we predict an avalanche of remaindered political books before Christmas.)
Readers who want to study up before the election, though, don’t have much time left. On the other hand, however, very few of the available books would help them decide how to vote anyway. The majority of these books preach — blatantly and fiercely — to the converted.
Currently, a bevy of Bush-backing books champion the President, including: The Right Man by David Frum; Team Bush: Leadership Lessons from the Bush White House by Donald Kettl; First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty by Bill Minutaglio; Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism from Inside the Bush White House by Bill Sammon; A Charge to Keep by George W. Bush; George W. Bush: A Heroic First Year by Jeffrey Rosenberg; Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry, and the Bush Haters by Bill Sammon; Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane by John Podhoretz; A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush by David Aikman; and The Faith of George W. Bush by Stephen Mansfield and numerous other authors.
But Bush-Bashing books are dominating the pack. They include: Bush Must Go by Bill Press; American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush by Kevin Phillips; Bushwhacked by Molly Ivins Obliviously On He Sails: The Bush Administration in Rhyme by Calvin Trillin; The Three Little Pigs in the White House by Dan Piraro; Against All Enemies by Richard A. Clarke; America Unbound by Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay; The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind; The Lies of George W. Bush by David Corn; The President of Good and Evil by Peter Singer; Is Our Children Learning?: The Case Against George W. Bush by Paul Begala; 50 Reasons Not to Vote for Bush by a dozen authors; Bush’s Brain by James Moore, et al; The I Hate George W. Bush Reader: Why Dubya is Wrong About Absolutely Everything by Clint Willis; and Imperial Ov
THERE ARE ALSO numerous books by famous people, which may or may not have been written primarily to put their name forward during this bizarrely copious Book Boom, including: Worse than Watergate by James Dean; Bush at War and Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward; and Had Enough? by James Carville. With these volumes, you can reflect on the legacy of both Bush and the author.
Another group of recent polemics includes books that tend to be a trifle broader in scope, but they appeal to the same political furor. Good examples are Dude, Where’s My Country by Michael Moore and Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism and Liberalism by Sean Hannity.
SOME OF THESE BOOKS really revel in political bashing, and practitioners like Al Franken, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Ann Coulter delight in rude, antagonistic, in-your-face harangues. A favorite topic of this type of diatribe is other writers, and thus titles include: The Way Things Aren’t: Rush Limbaugh’s Reign of Error by Steve Rendall and others; The I Hate Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity… Reader: The Hideous Truth About America’s Ugliest Conservatives by Clint Willis; The Oh Really? Factor by Peter Hart; Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man by David Hardy and Jason Clarke; and The Official Handbook of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy by Mark Smith. Appreciating these books is a bit like enjoying British comedy, some readers will, and some won’t. But such books should always be matched to the reader’s own political affiliation — or they may cause high blood pressure and paroxysms.
In Amazon reviews, most of the Bush books, whether pro or con, gleaned four to five stars (out of five possible stars). But for the most part the liberal books earned their dazzling star-count by getting five stars from liberals and one or no stars from conservatives, and since they were liberal books, more liberals read and reviewed them, so they usually fared nicely — and the same principle held true for the conservative books. So even when a book was rated at three stars, individual readers had usually rated it as either a four-to-five star book or a zero-to-one star book.
In our experience, however, most of the political books we’ve sampled this season were interesting, but far from magnificent (and we’ve yet to read one that deserves the five stars that so many Amazon readers applied).
Recently, a friend told me that she saw no purpose in reading any of this stuff — since it seemed to her that none of the people she knew who read these books ever changed their minds about political issues.
And she has a point.
Presently, liberals and conservatives seem to embrace two wholly different sets of books, which champion incongruous and contentious ideas on life, love, ethics, morality, beliefs, budgets, styles, music, education, and customs. In fact, popular political pundits are often so antagonistic, you have to wonder whether Al Franken and Rush Limbaugh could agree on whether water is wet. In such a combative political climate, few books even try to address readers from both political parties.
And thus Americans have embraced two markedly dissimilar versions of recent history. Today, liberal and conservative politicians, journalists, and media outlets disseminate an incredibly disparate body of information — and they frequently don’t even agree on simple facts. Thus, most of us distrust a large proportion of what we read.
So why should anyone bother to read political books? Or articles? Or even newspapers, for that matter?
Yet Ed and I both keep on reading this stuff — and wanting more. And personally I’m eager to check out some of the above-mentioned books that I haven’t seen yet (like Senator Byrd’s book and Dan Piraro’s cartoons.) I also want to read a few volumes that have been generously endorsed by conservatives, such as Winter in Kandahar by Steven E. Wilson (since I keep trying to give conservative viewpoints a fair hearing — despite the fact that most of the conservative books I’ve read thus far have merely insisted that as a Democrat I’m evil, corrupt, immoral, and ungodly).
SOME OF THE APPEAL in all of these furiously partisan political publications is obvious, though. In the midst of a political campaign, it is definitely nice to know that others agree with you. And these treatises, on both sides, can offer effective fortification.
But I suspect that there is a much bigger reason why Americans are reading political books as voraciously today as they did during the Watergate scandal — and that’s why I figure reading a sampling of these books is well worth the time.
In 1972, the war in Vietnam was waning; political participation by women and minority groups was surging; and our nation was changing — rapidly and thoroughly.
Now, in the wake of 9/11 , our nation seems to be transforming once again. And as I see it, a national discussion on where we stand today and where we should be going is not only imperative; it is long overdue. This torrential volume of books, I suspect, are just the beginning of a very necessary political debate. And even though many of these works tend to be irritating, combative, and divisive — much like our political climate — they are nonetheless defining the issues.
FURTHERMORE, the emphasis seems to be changing. Many new and soon-to-be-released books are, no doubt, just as biased as their predecessors, but a lot of them sound more information-oriented and focused, including: The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet by Jim and James Mann; The Folly of Empire: What George W. Bush Could Learn from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson by John Judis; With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trumped Science, Policy and Democracy in George W. Bush’s White House by Esther Kaplan; The Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire by Niall Ferguson; Dark Victory: America’s Second War Against Iraq by Jeffrey Record; The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge; America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order by Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke; The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership by Zbigniew Brzezinski; and State Building:
Clearly, the publishing industry intends to keep our national interest in politics going if it can. And the sheer volume of political books presently in print ensures a wealth of fresh ideas and perspectives.
Now let us hope that in all of these volumes of political thought, philosophy, and history, Americans can find a few facts and recollections they can agree upon.
