If you consider yourself to be a fan of American democracy (which I hope would be most of you), I'd definitely recommend checking out this book. Beyond some very interesting background biography on key neoconservative figures such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, this book provides a scary breakdown of how the George W. Bush Administration has worked to strengthen the executive branch of government by stacking the courts and skirting around congressional authority. Along the way, civil liberties are trampled and American democracry looks more and more like neofascism. Why doesn't the media ever report on this? Why isn't there more outrage over presidential signing statements? The failure of the fourth estate and the overall apathy of the American public is also documented within these pages.

Also, the book's title and packaging make it look like one of those third-rate, rushed-to-the-bookshelves partisan conspiracy manifestos that always seem to sell so well in bookstores. It's not. Charlie Savage is a respected political reporter for the Boston Globe and won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for his reporting on the ramifications of recent presidential signing statements. Although there's a liberal lean (logical after 400 pages chastising the Administration's consitutional policy), the book is reported and written quite objectively.