The Blueprint

If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you’ve read my rants about how I hate reading political books. I promised myself I wouldn’t rant about how awful all political books are (as I did plenty here and here). But Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski’s book The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency got me riled again. Another rant is forthcoming, and you are warned.

Like I’ve said before, I am on the liberal end of the political spectrum. However, I have plenty of friends and relatives who are conservative, and I like to think that reading books like The Blueprint will give me some insight into these friends and relatives viewpoints. I know that these books won’t change my mind or my political slant, but its always good to be exposed to multiple viewpoints. Unfortunately, political books are really terrible way to get reasonable arguments (and I mean political books written by both conservatives and liberals). In these books, authors will manipulate facts and quotations to serve their argument. These authors will demonize their opponents and discredit any point-of-view that doesn’t match their own. It’s awful. Usually, though, these tactics will ease in: the hatred will build up as the book continues. With The Blueprint, though, it began on page two. And I knew it was going to be a painful read.

In The Blueprint Blackwell and Klukowski (or “The Kens,” as I like to think of them) argue that President Barack Obama is manipulating (and ignoring) the constitution to build more power for his party and himself. Separated into eight chapters—the subjects of which range from the appointment of czars to gun control to the bias of the media—The Kens lay out a string of actions Obama has taken (or will take) to grab as much power as he can.

One of the things that bothered me most about The Blueprint was its hypocrisy. Many of Obama’s actions that Blackwell and Klukowski had problems with were things conservative presidents had done in the past (and will do in the future). Take, for example, their complaint that Obama will have the opportunity to appoint multiple justices to the Supreme Court, and that the justices he appoints will be liberal. Of course they will be liberal. Just as the three justices appointed by President Ronald Reagan, two justices appointed by President George HW Bush, and two justices appointed by President George W Bush were conservative. It’s just how the system works. Would it be better if presidents selected moderate appointees rather than those that match their political party? Probably, but that’s not what happens.

What was the worst, though, were the offensive, borderline-hateful statements the authors occasionally made. Things like the insistence that illegal aliens must always be referred to as such (and never “illegal immigrants,” or “undocumented workers”) or that schools that acknowledge homosexuality are “toxic learning environments.” There were multiple times I found myself wanting to rip the pages of the book, and it was a library book! (Since I am a year away from becoming a librarian, understand the gravity of that statement).

I could go on listing my problems with The Blueprint (like how any book attempting to be serious should never compare the President-- any president-- to Emperor Palpatine), but enough is enough. It gets a 1/5.

Watch Jon Stewart's interview with Ken Blackwell

Buy the Book

White House Diary

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! Did you know that this day was named a holiday by the Carter administration? I didn’t—until I read White House Diary by Jimmy Carter (check out that segue!).

White House Diary is an absolutely enormous book that collects the daily diary entries that Carter made during his years as president. The book is massive, but only contains about a quarter of the entries Carter made—which was a relief; the book is long enough as is. Occasionally, between entries, present-day Carter makes clarifying comments, but generally the entries stand for themselves.

The events that took place during the Carter administration are in my “black hole of history” (they happened before I was born, but after the farthest I got in history class). In that sense, reading White House Diary was a good thing for me. However, especially in the “first year” of the book, it was difficult to become engaged. The problem with the diary entry format is that almost all entries consist of daily activities (like, spoke with Jody, swam with Amy), which gets pretty dry. Though it got more exciting in the later years when the presidency started facing bigger issues (and boy were there a lot of them in the last few years), I still would’ve rather read a biography on the period. In fact, many times while reading, I thought, “this would be a great resource for a biographer.”

The best part of the book is the afterword, where Carter discusses mistakes he made and things he would have done differently in his presidency. In it (and, throughout the whole book, really) Carter struck me as an intelligent, modest, good man.

I’ve been waffling between giving White House Diary a 2 and a 3. I’m going to settle and give it a 2/5; it’s not great for casual reading, but any Carter buff (do they exist?) would enjoy it.

And now, I will leave you with the beginning of my favorite diary entry, December 25, 1978:
“On Christmas Day the Egyptians prayed that my hemorrhoids would be cured because I was a good man, and the following day they were cured. I was tempted to make a public announcement thanking the Egyptians but decided that we’d had enough publicity with my ailment.”
Turns out Carter is a funny man, too.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Jimmy Carter

Buy the Book

The White House Doctor

Connie Mariano’s book The White House Doctor: My Patients Were Presidents is an easy, interesting read. Mariano writes candidly about her time working in the white house under both the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations, sharing anecdotal incidents and the path she took to get to her position.

Generally, I was pleased with Mariano’s writing; her stories were engaging, and she wrote them with a storyteller’s – rather than an academic’s – tone. She delicately wrote about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, neither ignoring nor sensationalizing it. Though I would’ve like the book to have a more chronological organization (Mariano sorted chapters by subject matter rather than time), I didn’t find it difficult to follow. Also, the pictures in The White House Doctor were printed throughout the book, rather than in a middle insert like they are in most books. Though this is a small touch, I found it to be infinitely better; while looking at the pictures, I knew their context.

In her book, Mariano lightly touches on the stresses her job put on her family life. Though this was interesting, it fit awkwardly into the book. I don’t think it should’ve been removed, but perhaps it could’ve been better distributed over the book (it was all in the last two chapters).

I don’t have much else to say about The White House Doctor. If it sounds like the kind of book you might like, it’s worth reading; if it doesn’t, I wouldn’t recommend it to you. With that in mind, it gets a 3/5.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Connie Mariano

Buy the book.

Additionally, I'd like to thank Kate who keeps up a list of the books and movies from The Daily Show at www.squidoo.com. (Here is a link to her list, which is a lot prettier than the one I update). I've used Kate's list a lot this year, particularly when I've had to miss a week of shows due to vacation (or when I forget to update my own list). Plus, Kate was kind enough to post a link to this blog on her page! So thanks, Kate!

A New American Tea Party

Despite being a Liberal, I approached John O’Hara’s book A New American Tea Party: The Counterrevolution Against Bailouts, Handouts, Reckless Spending, and More Taxes with an open mind. In his interview, O’Hara seemed intelligent and reasonable, and I thought that his book could perhaps allow me to see what the tea party movement was striving to be before the crazy latched on.

For about the first third of the book, O’Hara gave me what I was looking for: he shared the history of the development of the tea party, explaining where they were coming from, with only a few snarky comments about the Democrats and Liberals. Though I didn’t agree with much of what O’Hara was saying, I could understand where he was coming from. And then he made the switch from recounting tea party history to bashing the media, President Obama, unions, and health care. The occasional anti-liberal joke expanded into mean-spirited rants, and all of a sudden A New American Tea Party was reading like every other political book. And that’s not a good thing.

Pardon me, while I break into this review to go on a little rant of my own about how much I hate political books. I hate them! The authors of these books—whether Democrat or Republic, Liberal or Conservative – talk about all the great things that their party does and all the terrible things the other guys do, and they back it up with facts. The trouble is, people on the other end of the political spectrum believe the complete opposite, and they have facts to back it up too. As a reader, this leaves me with nothing I can believe. I can’t trust the political writer because I know they will never say anything bad about their own party or anything good about their opponents, despite the fact that both sides have good and bad ideas, good and bad supporters. And that is why I hate political books. Now back to the review.

O’Hara is not a bad writer. He varies his sentence structure (and length), transitions adeptly, and spends a reasonable amount of time on each subject. But his book made me mad, and I didn’t enjoy reading it. It gets a 2/5.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with John O’Hara Part 1 Part 2

Buy the book

Things may slow down here at the Daily Shill over the next several months. I just started grad school this week, so I’ll be spending less time on my mission. But I’ll keep chipping away at this and try to make at least 4 reviews a month.

Courting Disaster

I am not going to be able to review this book fairly. I am a liberal person, and Mark Thiessen’s book Courting Disaster goes against much of what I believe in. I was unable to approach it with an open mind, so I know this post will be biased. But I read the book (except for the appendices—I had to stop somewhere), and here’s my take on in.

Courting Disaster makes three general arguments. 1. Waterboarding (and other types of “enhanced interrogation”) is not torture. 2. Guantanamo Bay is a wonderful prison. 3. Obama is inviting and encouraging terrorists to attack by not allowing the CIA to waterboard and by closing Guantanamo.

Thiessen has a distinct style for proving his points. Here’s my interpretation. “Waterboarding isn’t torture. You want to know why it isn’t torture? Let me tell you about all these other gruesome torture techniques that have been used in the past. Then I dare you to tell me waterboarding is torture.” And then he spends pages describing torture. It’s the same with Guantanamo. (Again, my version of his words), “Life in Guantanamo is just great for all the terrorists there. You want to hear about bad prison life? Let me tell you about some other prisons. Then you’ll see Guantanamo is the Ritz of prisons.”

Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled to be reading about torture and terrible prison life. And then there was Thiessen’s tone. It came across so snotty, almost like he’d be pleased if terrorists attacked during Obama’s administration, just so he could blame Obama for not torturing captured terrorists to gain information that could’ve stopped the attack.

The thing about Courting Disaster, though, is that people who don’t agree with Thiessen (aside from crazy people like me who belong to the Jon Stewart Book Club) are not going to read his book. The people who are going to buy it already agree with what Thiessen is arguing and will believe everything he says. And the few who read it who disagree will believe nothing he says.

This is the problem with books written with a strong political slant. Whether I’m reading one that is heavily liberal or conservative, I question the reliability of what I read. So, rather than reading a book arguing for waterboarding written by Donald Rumsfeld’s former speechwriter, I’d want to read one written by a member of the CIA who actually used these forms of “enhanced interrogation.” Sure, he’d probably have many, if not all, of the arguments that Thiessen has, but it would be a more reliable source.

I give Courting Disaster a 1/5. But, like I said, it’s probably not a fair rating. So if you want to, read the book. Make up your own mind about it.

Watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Mark Thiessen (I’m linking to the version that aired, but there is a longer cut on the daily show website)

Buy the Book.

No one likes Crisis and Command (or at least I don't)

I admit defeat. I'm not giving up on my mission, but Crisis and Command by John Yoo has beaten me. I had to return it to the library today, and I only made it through 250 pages. And let me tell you, those 250 were rough.

My main complaint with Crisis and Command isn't the way it's written, it isn't its political message, it's that it is BORING! Granted, a book mostly about constitutional law doesn't sound like a thriller, but since it focused on particular presidents, I thought the history would be interesting. And the first few pages of each chapter was...but that was it. Who knows, maybe the chapters on FDR, the Cold War Presidents, and the Once and Future Presidency were different. But I didn't make it that far. Since it was unfinishable, I give it 1/5.

If you're looking for a book to help you fall asleep at night, this is the one. But if you're looking for some entertainment, turn elsewhere. Might I recommend the book that started me on this mission: The Know It All by AJ Jacobs.

I could talk more about Crisis and Command if you wanted, but I think it would make for a boring review. Ask me, though, if you have any questions (about the first 250 pages).

Watch Jon Stewert's interview with John Yoo

Part 1

Part 2

If you really wanted to, you could buy the book here.