BuzzFlash Reviews

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

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�Done right, political discourse is a feast. And Tom Oliphant brings more to the table than anyone I know. First, the meat. He knows this stuff. Then, there�s the delicious insight, which tenderizes the meat and makes you want to devour it till you�re sucking the marrow from the bone. Then there�s his voracious appetite, which makes you feel less guilty for sucking the marrow because he�s doing it, too. Now, imagine I had extended the metaphor to include all parts of a feast---the hearty bread, the creamy potatoes, etc.---all served with Tom�s hilarious wit and innate decency. Bon app�tit!� ---Al Franken, author of The Truth (with jokes)

About Oliphant:

Thomas Oliphant has been a correspondent for The Boston Globe since 1968 and its Washington columnist since 1989. He is a native of Brooklyn, a product of La Jolla High School in California, and a 1967 graduate of Harvard. He was one of three editors on special assignment who managed the Globe�s coverage of Boston's traumatic school desegregation, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1975. He has also won the writing award given by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. He has appeared on ABC�s Nightline, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Face the Nation, The Today Show, Good Morning America, and CBS News� This Morning. He has been named one of the country�s top ten political writers and one of Washington�s fifty most influential journalists by The Washingtonian magazine. Mr. Oliphant lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, CBS correspondent Susan Spencer.

From an online reviewer:

You might suppose from the title that this is just another book bashing the Bush administration and not worth the time or money when there are so many others to choose from, but while the catastrophes in foreign policy and the war in iraq are now well documented by convincing books, Oliphant is not content to retrace now well worn trails. He brings new information and background to the entire range of Bush administration incompetence--health care, environment, education, etc.

This is important to do since voices in Congress are mostly silent on these issues and newspapers with only a few exceptions have been far too restrained in their assessments. What you end up with here is an appreciation for the abysmal failures of this administration even to achieve its own goals because it is forever substituting short term public relations gimmicks for long term solutions. The full dimension of the Bush disaster becomes much clearer is this well written and carefully argued record.

Another online reviewer:

I consider this book to be extremely important in addition to being extremely well written.

I didn't think I had any illusions about the Bush administration before I read this book. I thought I had a fairly good idea of just how incopentent they've been but it turns out I'd been giving them too much credit.

This book presents a well written, accurate, and devastating picture of an administration who has done great harm to our country on many fronts (economic, military, strategic, civil...).

In the world of books about politics I'm a bit of a junkie. I have an incredible weakness for good political commentary. This book is one of the most important I've read in awhile....others are: "Fiasco", "The Greatest Story Ever Sold", and "State of Denial."



BUZZFLASH REVIEWS