Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of Democracy
by Charlie Savage
©2007 Little, Brown
Charlie Savage is, to my mind, a consummate reporter. When he wrote this book, he was with the Boston Globe, and now he hangs his hat at the New York Times. He does not, to my knowledge, spend a lot of time on the various cable talk fests like so many other reporters who aren’t fit to carry his pencil case. He simply…reports.
How to Rig an Election
Allen Raymond
2008 Simon and Schuster
256 pages
What Happened
Scott McClellan
2008 PublicAffairs
368 pages
This time around, we’re taking quick glances at two books from Republican whistleblowers. McClellan, the former Bush press secretary, became a nine-day wonder on the pundit circuit, while Raymond’s book garnered far less coverage. It should have been reversed, because when all is said and done, there is far more meat on the bones of Raymond’s book than on McClellan’s.
The Collapse of Fortress Bush: The Crisis of Authority in American Government, by Alasdair Roberts. 2008 New York University Press
I’m not starting this new category with a sensationalistic, partisan book — there are plenty of those out there, and I like some of them 🙂 This book has obviously been given a dramatic title by its publisher to try to take advantage of the wave of books criticizing the Bush administration. Likewise, the cover photo — a stern Bush laying down the law from a podium while enormous engines of war loom over him — adds to the sense that this is another scathing indictment of all things Bush.
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