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Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America
A simultaneously rollicking and sobering indictment of the policies of President George W. Bush, Bushwhacked chronicles the destructive impact of the Bush administration on the very people who put him in the White House in the first place. Here are the ties that connected Bush to Enron, yes, but here, too, is the story of the woman who walks six miles to the unemployment office daily, wondering what happened to the economic security Bush promised. Here are reports on failed nation-building missions in Kabul and Baghdad. Here, too, the story of a rancher who has fallen prey to a Bush-Cheney interior department that is perhaps a wee bit too cozy with the oil industry. Bushwhacked is highly original and entirely thought-provoking—essential reading for anyone living in George W. Bush's America.
347 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
18 people are currently reading
751 people want to read
About the author
Molly Ivins
37 books146 followersAmerican newspaper columnist, political commentator, and best-selling author from Austin, Texas.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews
November 12, 2015
Book on CD read by Molly Ivins
The subtitle really says it all. Oh, how I miss Molly Ivins!
Ivins was a political commentator / journalist based in Texas. In an earlier book, she and Dubose examined the George W Bush’s flawed policies and abysmal record as governor of Texas. In this second book on “Dubya” they look at his presidency and how he has used many of those same strategies in running the nation.
It’s a somewhat dated book, today, and yet frighteningly appropriate in this “primary” season. Ivins doesn’t pull any punches and gives many examples of the effects of his ideology and policies on mainstream Americans struggling to make it – heck, forget “succeeding,” they’re struggling to survive.
Molly Ivins does a great job reading the audio. I feel like my best friend is just telling it like it is over a morning coffee (or a scotch at the bar)….
The subtitle really says it all. Oh, how I miss Molly Ivins!
Ivins was a political commentator / journalist based in Texas. In an earlier book, she and Dubose examined the George W Bush’s flawed policies and abysmal record as governor of Texas. In this second book on “Dubya” they look at his presidency and how he has used many of those same strategies in running the nation.
It’s a somewhat dated book, today, and yet frighteningly appropriate in this “primary” season. Ivins doesn’t pull any punches and gives many examples of the effects of his ideology and policies on mainstream Americans struggling to make it – heck, forget “succeeding,” they’re struggling to survive.
Molly Ivins does a great job reading the audio. I feel like my best friend is just telling it like it is over a morning coffee (or a scotch at the bar)….
April 19, 2017
This book was quite revelatory in regard to George W. Bush; who bought and paid for him; how he rewarded those who bought and paid for him (with some of the worst policy decisions ever); and the price the rest of the country has had to pay ever since he was elected, first as governor of Texas, and then prez of the U.S. It is just so sad that Molly Ivins is not still alive today. She would have a hey-day just freely substituting Donald *rump's name for GWB's name in chapter after chapter. Of course, Ivins would be too busy writing the sequel to Bushwhacked; something biting, insightful, and right on target with the current (sometimes) occupant of the White House. She could reprise and update her chapters dealing with big corporate money buying policy with huge contributions to PACs, parties, and candidates; the Supreme Court decision that equates a corporation with a person; the selling out of our environment to the highest bidder; the lack of access to healthcare; the attack on women's reproductive rights ( and, just a side note, Molly Ivins mentions that penis enlargement is a paid-for benefit of high-end executive health-care plans. I guess men's reproductive rights are not in harm's way); the defunding of programs for public schools; tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations; and on and on and on ad nauseam. The title might be "Trump You !"
Bushwhacked is a primer for the current political landscape. It may be looking backward but the reader can tell that it is a harbinger for the future.
Bushwhacked is a primer for the current political landscape. It may be looking backward but the reader can tell that it is a harbinger for the future.
March 29, 2009
We miss you, Molly Ivins! Being a Texan political reporter and essayist, she knew Dubya better than most when he took office as President, although he surprised even her with his capacity for murderous bungling and meanness. Her approach was, like that of Jim Hightower, to look at the lives of ordinary people and explore how they are affected by the politics of the President and the Congress. She blended laughter and hope with anger and determination not to let wrongdoing go unnoticed. The end result, at least for me, is to leave the reader simultaneously appalled and laughing out loud. We need more like her.
October 6, 2010
It’s a catalogue of every destructive policy decision Bush made in his first 2 ½ years.
Government no longer works for most of the people in this country.
As governor of Texas, Bush lowered taxes for the very rich, lowered services to the very poor and made it a no-regulation state. He turned a $6 billion surplus into a $10 billion deficit. His first legislative victory as president was the tax cut that turned $127 billion surplus into $288 billion deficit. ($800 billion now!)
One of Bush’s agendas was the shifting of social security funds into the stock market.
He failed to report the sale of his Harken stock and regularly failed to report insider dealings with the Securities Exchange Commission.
His self dealing at Harken was connected to the collapse of Enron.
Unregulated capitalism creates hideous social injustice and promptly destroys itself with greed. A market place needs rules. Government regulation is how to control corporate greed. Bush is congenitally incapable of checking the excesses of capitalism. Bush should declare himself a conscientious objector in his own war on corporate crime.
Employment wants unemployment because high rates of unemployment drive down wages and force workers to compete for jobs. Bush puts money directly into pockets of big business by-passing both workers and small business. He stiffed the unemployed and gave $337 billion tax give-away to people with enough stock to live off the dividends.
2 million jobs disappeared his 1st 2 years in office.
Taxes support education. Offshore banks allow big business to avoid paying taxes and cost us $70 billion/year. Bush maintains that social need should be met by private charity. Government properly used is the great engine of social justice. Without it capitalism runs amuck with greed and unfairness.
The first of Bush’s tax cuts:
A 40% cut went to the richest 1%, those who make > $373,000/year.
90% of Americans are middle class and slipping behind the very rich since 1973.
70% make < $50,000/year.
In 2001, 1.3 million people fell below the federal poverty line which is $18,000/year for a family of 4.
33 million people, 11.7% of our population risk hunger.
The top 1% of the people in American have 25 times that of everybody in the bottom 20%. This extreme division by income is a result of a series of political decisions made by politicians who are increasingly owned by their rich donors. Half of the tax cut gains went to 0.01% (13,000 taxpayers) who had an average income of $17 million. Many, many corporations pay zero income tax for years, even working it so the US government owes these flagrant tax cheaters money! In April 2003 the IRS announced it would be auditing more of the working poor! Bush repeals estate tax on estates of > $2.5 million!
Over the last 30 years, the average annual income of Americans rose %10. During the same period the income of that top 1% rose by 157%. During the same period, the top 100 CEO’s increased from 30 times that of the average worker to 100 times! Those 13,000 richest families have a net worth equal to all the assets owned by the poorest 20 million Americans. "Trickle up" economic policies = open class warfare.
Most political contributors are in it for the money and are richly repaid with special tax breaks, anti-competitive measures and government subsidies - at the expense of those who don’t contribute, don’t pay attention and don’t vote. This country is NOT working for most of the people in it! When those regulated by government buy government, the people get screwed!
The disconnect between the government of this country and the people in it has been the subject of complaint for the length of our history. Ergonomics is the science that aims to make heavy and repetitive production line work less destructive to workers’ bodies. Eugene Scalia, labor lawyer in charge of the federal government’s law firm under Bush, believes Ergonomics is a threat to American business. (We’re talking even Bathroom Rights here!)
Backed by Bush and business, the House killed the ergonomics rules and regs that were 12 years in the making by the Department of Labor. Bush, Rove, DeLay and Scalia won big - the Congressional Review Act prohibits ANY federal agency from writing rules similar to the Ergonomics Protection for workers. Voluntary guidelines don’t work. Bad companies continue to hurt people with no workplace protection.
Another casualty of the post-Bush (as Texas governor) budget crash is the state’s public schools. Bogus test scores and the highest drop out rate in the nation are the ugly truths about education reform in Texas. Teachers have to teach for the test (only). As president, Bush has spent less money on education reform than he offered Turkey to accept US troops. 9 members of the senate, including the late Paul Wellstone, voted against Bush’s education bill. They didn’t buy standardized tests being used to punish schools. Money is precisely the critical element schools need and what Bush failed to deliver in his education reform bill.
Then there is the environment! Toxic chemicals, abandoned by hazardous waste hustlers like the late Arnold Levingston of Chemical Insecticide Corporation, have given a lot of people a lot of different types of cancer. He helped US forces dispose of 5 million gallons of Agent Orange by shipping them to Brazil to be used in agriculture.
The Voluntary Emissions Control Bill in Texas was canned as a spectacular failure as soon as Bush left. No one volunteered. Toxic emissions were not reduced. No one ever considered putting toxic waste on the Homeland Securities laws.
The EPA burns 245,000 tons of toxic sludge in residential areas resulting in horrible birth defects. Bob Martin, the best and most decent man ever to work for the EPA, is fired.
Superfund Cleanups are now paid for by the general revenue, you and me, rather than chemical and oil companies who make the mess. Destroying the Ombudsman’s office is a crime by Bush against the American people.
You might want to consider becoming vegetarian about now! Listeria is a bacterium that thrives in cold, ready to eat processed meat. 500 people die each year in the US from Listeria. Clinton meat regulations were first put on hold; then killed by Bush. His focus is on production rather than food safety. The beef industry has got themselves exempt from any rules our government may try to pass on chicken and turkey.
278,000 acres of topsoil, grasslands and vegetation have been destroyed in Wyoming by toxic water from Bush’s Coal Bed Methane wells.
Bush failed to release $300 million in federal funds to help people keep their houses warm in winter of 2003. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program has been in place since 1974, helping 4.6 million low income families. Bush wiped out the subsidy for ½ million of those who have to decide whether to heat or eat. They don’t vote nor make political contributions.
Key Lay is a big funder and friend of the president. He is a PhD in economics, is writing policy and making appointments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He rejects any attempt to regulate wholesale power markets as price restrictions are detrimental to power markets and discourage private investment. Republicans in congress warned Bush that his opposition to caps might cost him party control of the House so electricity prices were caped in California’s energy crisis. The SEC responds very slowly to stock market fraud.
Enron workers were locked out of their retirement accounts while executives and directors dumped $1.1 billion in shares and until their retirement accounts were worthless. There were many "unintended consequences" of Enron’s gaming the CA electric market.
The Texas Association of Christian Child Care Agencies, Bush’s model for faith based social welfare programs, failed miserably. White House Bible-study groups are almost compulsory. The Republican Party today wins elections only if Christian conservatives are accommodated. John Ashcroft, for example. Bush’s decision on stem-cell research, for another, has been such an impediment to medical research that American PhD’s flee to England.
No modern American president has been as public about his personal religious beliefs and based public policy on them as much as Bush has. Bush’s religious beliefs have shaped his foreign policy, a policy defined in Old Testament language and favored by fundamentalists. End-time theology requires cooperation with Israel, events occur, prophesies are fulfilled and Jesus establishes a theocratic world government.
Bush looks like a fanatic Christian warrior laying siege to reproductive rights of women around the globe, denying sex ed to adolescents, and imposing only natural family planning methods with very high failure rates. This is deadly serious in developing countries where high fertility rates drive high poverty rates.
Bush is packing his courts with right wing ideologues. Justice Owen makes her own laws, rewrites laws from the bench and construes the Parental Notification Act so narrowly in unconscionable acts of prejudicial activism.
Bush’s first act as president was the global gag rule which cut off American foreign aid to any family planning clinic that even mentions the word abortion, closing clinics in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, leaving women without healthcare and increasing the spread of AIDS and causing even more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions.
Bush has never mentioned one single positive goal for foreign policy. The UN Commission on Human Rights refused to re-elect the US. Bush sends no experts in Public Health to the UN World Health Assembly. Bush halts negotiations with North Korea. Bush withdraws from peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine. He goes ahead with Star Wars; now called the National Missile Defense, and a way to let the US use nuclear weapons in a 1st strike without fear of retaliation.
Bush backs out of the Biological Weapons Convention, trying to rid the world of biological weapons. Bush moved to weaken the Small Arms Control Treaty. The US becomes 1 against 178 other nations who agree to implement Kyoto Treaty. Bush blocked the initiative to go after international money laundering.
All this was BEFORE 9/11, after which he redefines himself as a successful war president. The Axis of Evil precludes negotiation. Many great opportunities of this crisis were missed by never considering CONSTRUCTIVE solutions. He only talks about danger and evildoers.
How can any of this world’s problems be solved without international cooperation?
In May 2002 at the UN Special Session on Children, the behavior of the US delegation appalls the rest of the world. Bush continues his pattern of sending career ideologies rather that career diplomats to international conferences.
Bush strips $34 million out of the UN Populations Fund.
The US spends $398 billion/year on military while Iraq spends $1.1 billion.
A post war issue to keep our eyes on is the health effects of Bush using depleted uranium weapons (that’s right; made out of low-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants!)
The State of the Union is money talks and bullshit walks.
Over and over we the people of this country get so scared of some dread menace (communism, crime, drugs, aliens or terrorists) that we hurt ourselves and make ourselves less free. The Patriot Act does real damage to the 1st and 4th Amendments and doesn’t make us any safer at all. The big winners in our cash and carry system of government are corporate special interests.
Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose have a lot of good ideas and suggestions about what could be done:
End the legalized bribery that has rotted our democratic political system and replace it with public campaign financing set up to be perpetually reformed.
Vote and register other people to vote. The Republicans "won" the 2002 congressional elections with 15% of eligible voters. Reform the current system of redistricting so each candidate has a fair chance of winning.
We have got to begin with economic and political reform because nothing can be accomplished without it. We need to include the use of honest wording to describe every bill, act and policy, (like not naming bombs Peacemaker!)
Undo Bush’s economically disastrous tax cuts.
End corporate welfare.
Outlaw offshore tax havens.
Bury Cheney’s National Energy Policy and push for energy conservation.
Time to be alarmed.
It’s gone far beyond anything mentioned or ever voted on in 2000. The programs that help people are the ones being dismantled.
We’re all in big trouble.
"Time to raise hell" is the last line in the book!
Government no longer works for most of the people in this country.
As governor of Texas, Bush lowered taxes for the very rich, lowered services to the very poor and made it a no-regulation state. He turned a $6 billion surplus into a $10 billion deficit. His first legislative victory as president was the tax cut that turned $127 billion surplus into $288 billion deficit. ($800 billion now!)
One of Bush’s agendas was the shifting of social security funds into the stock market.
He failed to report the sale of his Harken stock and regularly failed to report insider dealings with the Securities Exchange Commission.
His self dealing at Harken was connected to the collapse of Enron.
Unregulated capitalism creates hideous social injustice and promptly destroys itself with greed. A market place needs rules. Government regulation is how to control corporate greed. Bush is congenitally incapable of checking the excesses of capitalism. Bush should declare himself a conscientious objector in his own war on corporate crime.
Employment wants unemployment because high rates of unemployment drive down wages and force workers to compete for jobs. Bush puts money directly into pockets of big business by-passing both workers and small business. He stiffed the unemployed and gave $337 billion tax give-away to people with enough stock to live off the dividends.
2 million jobs disappeared his 1st 2 years in office.
Taxes support education. Offshore banks allow big business to avoid paying taxes and cost us $70 billion/year. Bush maintains that social need should be met by private charity. Government properly used is the great engine of social justice. Without it capitalism runs amuck with greed and unfairness.
The first of Bush’s tax cuts:
A 40% cut went to the richest 1%, those who make > $373,000/year.
90% of Americans are middle class and slipping behind the very rich since 1973.
70% make < $50,000/year.
In 2001, 1.3 million people fell below the federal poverty line which is $18,000/year for a family of 4.
33 million people, 11.7% of our population risk hunger.
The top 1% of the people in American have 25 times that of everybody in the bottom 20%. This extreme division by income is a result of a series of political decisions made by politicians who are increasingly owned by their rich donors. Half of the tax cut gains went to 0.01% (13,000 taxpayers) who had an average income of $17 million. Many, many corporations pay zero income tax for years, even working it so the US government owes these flagrant tax cheaters money! In April 2003 the IRS announced it would be auditing more of the working poor! Bush repeals estate tax on estates of > $2.5 million!
Over the last 30 years, the average annual income of Americans rose %10. During the same period the income of that top 1% rose by 157%. During the same period, the top 100 CEO’s increased from 30 times that of the average worker to 100 times! Those 13,000 richest families have a net worth equal to all the assets owned by the poorest 20 million Americans. "Trickle up" economic policies = open class warfare.
Most political contributors are in it for the money and are richly repaid with special tax breaks, anti-competitive measures and government subsidies - at the expense of those who don’t contribute, don’t pay attention and don’t vote. This country is NOT working for most of the people in it! When those regulated by government buy government, the people get screwed!
The disconnect between the government of this country and the people in it has been the subject of complaint for the length of our history. Ergonomics is the science that aims to make heavy and repetitive production line work less destructive to workers’ bodies. Eugene Scalia, labor lawyer in charge of the federal government’s law firm under Bush, believes Ergonomics is a threat to American business. (We’re talking even Bathroom Rights here!)
Backed by Bush and business, the House killed the ergonomics rules and regs that were 12 years in the making by the Department of Labor. Bush, Rove, DeLay and Scalia won big - the Congressional Review Act prohibits ANY federal agency from writing rules similar to the Ergonomics Protection for workers. Voluntary guidelines don’t work. Bad companies continue to hurt people with no workplace protection.
Another casualty of the post-Bush (as Texas governor) budget crash is the state’s public schools. Bogus test scores and the highest drop out rate in the nation are the ugly truths about education reform in Texas. Teachers have to teach for the test (only). As president, Bush has spent less money on education reform than he offered Turkey to accept US troops. 9 members of the senate, including the late Paul Wellstone, voted against Bush’s education bill. They didn’t buy standardized tests being used to punish schools. Money is precisely the critical element schools need and what Bush failed to deliver in his education reform bill.
Then there is the environment! Toxic chemicals, abandoned by hazardous waste hustlers like the late Arnold Levingston of Chemical Insecticide Corporation, have given a lot of people a lot of different types of cancer. He helped US forces dispose of 5 million gallons of Agent Orange by shipping them to Brazil to be used in agriculture.
The Voluntary Emissions Control Bill in Texas was canned as a spectacular failure as soon as Bush left. No one volunteered. Toxic emissions were not reduced. No one ever considered putting toxic waste on the Homeland Securities laws.
The EPA burns 245,000 tons of toxic sludge in residential areas resulting in horrible birth defects. Bob Martin, the best and most decent man ever to work for the EPA, is fired.
Superfund Cleanups are now paid for by the general revenue, you and me, rather than chemical and oil companies who make the mess. Destroying the Ombudsman’s office is a crime by Bush against the American people.
You might want to consider becoming vegetarian about now! Listeria is a bacterium that thrives in cold, ready to eat processed meat. 500 people die each year in the US from Listeria. Clinton meat regulations were first put on hold; then killed by Bush. His focus is on production rather than food safety. The beef industry has got themselves exempt from any rules our government may try to pass on chicken and turkey.
278,000 acres of topsoil, grasslands and vegetation have been destroyed in Wyoming by toxic water from Bush’s Coal Bed Methane wells.
Bush failed to release $300 million in federal funds to help people keep their houses warm in winter of 2003. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program has been in place since 1974, helping 4.6 million low income families. Bush wiped out the subsidy for ½ million of those who have to decide whether to heat or eat. They don’t vote nor make political contributions.
Key Lay is a big funder and friend of the president. He is a PhD in economics, is writing policy and making appointments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He rejects any attempt to regulate wholesale power markets as price restrictions are detrimental to power markets and discourage private investment. Republicans in congress warned Bush that his opposition to caps might cost him party control of the House so electricity prices were caped in California’s energy crisis. The SEC responds very slowly to stock market fraud.
Enron workers were locked out of their retirement accounts while executives and directors dumped $1.1 billion in shares and until their retirement accounts were worthless. There were many "unintended consequences" of Enron’s gaming the CA electric market.
The Texas Association of Christian Child Care Agencies, Bush’s model for faith based social welfare programs, failed miserably. White House Bible-study groups are almost compulsory. The Republican Party today wins elections only if Christian conservatives are accommodated. John Ashcroft, for example. Bush’s decision on stem-cell research, for another, has been such an impediment to medical research that American PhD’s flee to England.
No modern American president has been as public about his personal religious beliefs and based public policy on them as much as Bush has. Bush’s religious beliefs have shaped his foreign policy, a policy defined in Old Testament language and favored by fundamentalists. End-time theology requires cooperation with Israel, events occur, prophesies are fulfilled and Jesus establishes a theocratic world government.
Bush looks like a fanatic Christian warrior laying siege to reproductive rights of women around the globe, denying sex ed to adolescents, and imposing only natural family planning methods with very high failure rates. This is deadly serious in developing countries where high fertility rates drive high poverty rates.
Bush is packing his courts with right wing ideologues. Justice Owen makes her own laws, rewrites laws from the bench and construes the Parental Notification Act so narrowly in unconscionable acts of prejudicial activism.
Bush’s first act as president was the global gag rule which cut off American foreign aid to any family planning clinic that even mentions the word abortion, closing clinics in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, leaving women without healthcare and increasing the spread of AIDS and causing even more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions.
Bush has never mentioned one single positive goal for foreign policy. The UN Commission on Human Rights refused to re-elect the US. Bush sends no experts in Public Health to the UN World Health Assembly. Bush halts negotiations with North Korea. Bush withdraws from peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine. He goes ahead with Star Wars; now called the National Missile Defense, and a way to let the US use nuclear weapons in a 1st strike without fear of retaliation.
Bush backs out of the Biological Weapons Convention, trying to rid the world of biological weapons. Bush moved to weaken the Small Arms Control Treaty. The US becomes 1 against 178 other nations who agree to implement Kyoto Treaty. Bush blocked the initiative to go after international money laundering.
All this was BEFORE 9/11, after which he redefines himself as a successful war president. The Axis of Evil precludes negotiation. Many great opportunities of this crisis were missed by never considering CONSTRUCTIVE solutions. He only talks about danger and evildoers.
How can any of this world’s problems be solved without international cooperation?
In May 2002 at the UN Special Session on Children, the behavior of the US delegation appalls the rest of the world. Bush continues his pattern of sending career ideologies rather that career diplomats to international conferences.
Bush strips $34 million out of the UN Populations Fund.
The US spends $398 billion/year on military while Iraq spends $1.1 billion.
A post war issue to keep our eyes on is the health effects of Bush using depleted uranium weapons (that’s right; made out of low-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants!)
The State of the Union is money talks and bullshit walks.
Over and over we the people of this country get so scared of some dread menace (communism, crime, drugs, aliens or terrorists) that we hurt ourselves and make ourselves less free. The Patriot Act does real damage to the 1st and 4th Amendments and doesn’t make us any safer at all. The big winners in our cash and carry system of government are corporate special interests.
Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose have a lot of good ideas and suggestions about what could be done:
End the legalized bribery that has rotted our democratic political system and replace it with public campaign financing set up to be perpetually reformed.
Vote and register other people to vote. The Republicans "won" the 2002 congressional elections with 15% of eligible voters. Reform the current system of redistricting so each candidate has a fair chance of winning.
We have got to begin with economic and political reform because nothing can be accomplished without it. We need to include the use of honest wording to describe every bill, act and policy, (like not naming bombs Peacemaker!)
Undo Bush’s economically disastrous tax cuts.
End corporate welfare.
Outlaw offshore tax havens.
Bury Cheney’s National Energy Policy and push for energy conservation.
Time to be alarmed.
It’s gone far beyond anything mentioned or ever voted on in 2000. The programs that help people are the ones being dismantled.
We’re all in big trouble.
"Time to raise hell" is the last line in the book!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 16, 2007
I enjoyed reading this book, but the second half is better than the first. The first half is chock-full of so many statistics and dizzying governmental jargon that I had a hard time understanding it all. I also think Molly Ivins and Lou Dobose could have done with fewer sob stories. The book was very Michael Moore-ish in this way. It does get their point across, but I think it is a tool they use too often. The second half of the book is chapter after maddening chapter presenting evidence of the Bush administration's terrible record of lowering food-safety standards, stacking federal courts, shirking world opinion and thumbing their noses at our allies, and chipping away at labor laws and environmental protection laws. The last chapter offers Molly and Lou's suggestions for what should be done, which wraps up the book nicely. Definitely worth reading, especially if you are counting down the days to January 20, 2009.
September 22, 2007
Not as good as her first book on Bush.
June 29, 2008
Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America
Molly Ivins & Lou DuBose
Vintage Books (Random House)
$17 CDN, Paperback
*** 1/2
Newspaper columns come in three varieties: Good, bad and disposable. A good column is provocative. It argues a case. It makes a reader think. It compels even those who oppose the author's stance to read it.
Unsurprisingly, the best-selling Bushwhacked (now available in a mass-market paperback edition) displays all of those qualities, which points to the reason why co-author Molly Ivins' syndicated column is published in more than 300 U.S. newspapers.
Ivins and Texas journalist Lou Dubose present a well-researched account of how the actions and policies of U.S. President George W. Bush -- before and after his election to the White House -- have had a devastating impact on ordinary Americans, while Bush's cohort have gained.
The authors put human faces on ample facts and statistics:
* A single mom who walks six miles to the unemployment office because she can't afford bus fare as she's ineligible for a late-coming aid package that some say the Bush administration delayed for political reasons.
* A doctor dies of a bacterial infection from contaminated meat after the Bush administration relaxed food safety regulations.
* Americans continue to die in Iraq and Afghanistan in wars the Bush administration initiated under a U.S. foreign agenda that coincides -- and is set by -- authors of Israel's right-wing Likud party foreign policy.
Examples abound.
But logical fallacies flaw Bushwhacked. In their zeal to show how terrible Bush is, the authors blame him personally for every unfortunate circumstance, every personal tragedy suffered under his reign, both in corporate and public life.
The failure of a string of companies that counted Bush among their executive ranks is blamed on him, but little or no similar responsibility is assigned to the other officers and directors.
That any needy person is ineligible for social assistance or not grandfathered in is tragic but the reality is that without qualification criteria, it would be impossible to operate any government aid program.
The list of logical fallacies counted along with the substantive and real arguments against Bush's policies goes on.
But the worst and most damaging problem with the book is Ivins' and Dubose's sneering contempt for Bush and his family -- illustrated by the repeated use of unflattering nicknames for Bush clan members, such as Shrub for the president.
The mean-spirited, juvenile diminishment of the individual leaves the reader with an uneasy feeling akin to a realization of swallowing something distasteful in your food, offends the rational reader and irreparably harms the authors' generally strong case.
In a chapter on food laws, Ivins and Dubose write: "Would you like some s--- to go with your quarter pounder? They don't ask that question at McDonald's."
They don't ask it about Bushwhacked either.
Saleem Khan
Molly Ivins & Lou DuBose
Vintage Books (Random House)
$17 CDN, Paperback
*** 1/2
Newspaper columns come in three varieties: Good, bad and disposable. A good column is provocative. It argues a case. It makes a reader think. It compels even those who oppose the author's stance to read it.
Unsurprisingly, the best-selling Bushwhacked (now available in a mass-market paperback edition) displays all of those qualities, which points to the reason why co-author Molly Ivins' syndicated column is published in more than 300 U.S. newspapers.
Ivins and Texas journalist Lou Dubose present a well-researched account of how the actions and policies of U.S. President George W. Bush -- before and after his election to the White House -- have had a devastating impact on ordinary Americans, while Bush's cohort have gained.
The authors put human faces on ample facts and statistics:
* A single mom who walks six miles to the unemployment office because she can't afford bus fare as she's ineligible for a late-coming aid package that some say the Bush administration delayed for political reasons.
* A doctor dies of a bacterial infection from contaminated meat after the Bush administration relaxed food safety regulations.
* Americans continue to die in Iraq and Afghanistan in wars the Bush administration initiated under a U.S. foreign agenda that coincides -- and is set by -- authors of Israel's right-wing Likud party foreign policy.
Examples abound.
But logical fallacies flaw Bushwhacked. In their zeal to show how terrible Bush is, the authors blame him personally for every unfortunate circumstance, every personal tragedy suffered under his reign, both in corporate and public life.
The failure of a string of companies that counted Bush among their executive ranks is blamed on him, but little or no similar responsibility is assigned to the other officers and directors.
That any needy person is ineligible for social assistance or not grandfathered in is tragic but the reality is that without qualification criteria, it would be impossible to operate any government aid program.
The list of logical fallacies counted along with the substantive and real arguments against Bush's policies goes on.
But the worst and most damaging problem with the book is Ivins' and Dubose's sneering contempt for Bush and his family -- illustrated by the repeated use of unflattering nicknames for Bush clan members, such as Shrub for the president.
The mean-spirited, juvenile diminishment of the individual leaves the reader with an uneasy feeling akin to a realization of swallowing something distasteful in your food, offends the rational reader and irreparably harms the authors' generally strong case.
In a chapter on food laws, Ivins and Dubose write: "Would you like some s--- to go with your quarter pounder? They don't ask that question at McDonald's."
They don't ask it about Bushwhacked either.
Saleem Khan
January 2, 2013
My review, published in Metro, September 2004.
Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America
Molly Ivins & Lou DuBose
Vintage Books (Random House)
$17 CDN, Paperback
*** 1/2
Newspaper columns come in three varieties: Good, bad and disposable. A good column is provocative. It argues a case. It makes a reader think. It compels even those who oppose the author's stance to read it.
Unsurprisingly, the best-selling Bushwhacked (now available in a mass-market paperback edition) displays all of those qualities, which points to the reason why co-author Molly Ivins' syndicated column is published in more than 300 U.S. newspapers.
Ivins and Texas journalist Lou Dubose present a well-researched account of how the actions and policies of U.S. President George W. Bush -- before and after his election to the White House -- have had a devastating impact on ordinary Americans, while Bush's cohort have gained.
The authors put human faces on ample facts and statistics:
* A single mom who walks six miles to the unemployment office because she can't afford bus fare as she's ineligible for a late-coming aid package that some say the Bush administration delayed for political reasons.
* A doctor dies of a bacterial infection from contaminated meat after the Bush administration relaxed food safety regulations.
* Americans continue to die in Iraq and Afghanistan in wars the Bush administration initiated under a U.S. foreign agenda that coincides -- and is set by -- authors of Israel's right-wing Likud party foreign policy.
Examples abound.
But logical fallacies flaw Bushwhacked. In their zeal to show how terrible Bush is, the authors blame him personally for every unfortunate circumstance, every personal tragedy suffered under his reign, both in corporate and public life.
The failure of a string of companies that counted Bush among their executive ranks is blamed on him, but little or no similar responsibility is assigned to the other officers and directors.
That any needy person is ineligible for social assistance or not grandfathered in is tragic but the reality is that without qualification criteria, it would be impossible to operate any government aid program.
The list of logical fallacies counted along with the substantive and real arguments against Bush's policies goes on.
But the worst and most damaging problem with the book is Ivins' and Dubose's sneering contempt for Bush and his family -- illustrated by the repeated use of unflattering nicknames for Bush clan members, such as Shrub for the president.
The mean-spirited, juvenile diminishment of the individual leaves the reader with an uneasy feeling akin to a realization of swallowing something distasteful in your food, offends the rational reader and irreparably harms the authors' generally strong case.
In a chapter on food laws, Ivins and Dubose write: "Would you like some s--- to go with your quarter pounder? They don't ask that question at McDonald's."
They don't ask it about Bushwhacked either.
Saleem Khan
Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America
Molly Ivins & Lou DuBose
Vintage Books (Random House)
$17 CDN, Paperback
*** 1/2
Newspaper columns come in three varieties: Good, bad and disposable. A good column is provocative. It argues a case. It makes a reader think. It compels even those who oppose the author's stance to read it.
Unsurprisingly, the best-selling Bushwhacked (now available in a mass-market paperback edition) displays all of those qualities, which points to the reason why co-author Molly Ivins' syndicated column is published in more than 300 U.S. newspapers.
Ivins and Texas journalist Lou Dubose present a well-researched account of how the actions and policies of U.S. President George W. Bush -- before and after his election to the White House -- have had a devastating impact on ordinary Americans, while Bush's cohort have gained.
The authors put human faces on ample facts and statistics:
* A single mom who walks six miles to the unemployment office because she can't afford bus fare as she's ineligible for a late-coming aid package that some say the Bush administration delayed for political reasons.
* A doctor dies of a bacterial infection from contaminated meat after the Bush administration relaxed food safety regulations.
* Americans continue to die in Iraq and Afghanistan in wars the Bush administration initiated under a U.S. foreign agenda that coincides -- and is set by -- authors of Israel's right-wing Likud party foreign policy.
Examples abound.
But logical fallacies flaw Bushwhacked. In their zeal to show how terrible Bush is, the authors blame him personally for every unfortunate circumstance, every personal tragedy suffered under his reign, both in corporate and public life.
The failure of a string of companies that counted Bush among their executive ranks is blamed on him, but little or no similar responsibility is assigned to the other officers and directors.
That any needy person is ineligible for social assistance or not grandfathered in is tragic but the reality is that without qualification criteria, it would be impossible to operate any government aid program.
The list of logical fallacies counted along with the substantive and real arguments against Bush's policies goes on.
But the worst and most damaging problem with the book is Ivins' and Dubose's sneering contempt for Bush and his family -- illustrated by the repeated use of unflattering nicknames for Bush clan members, such as Shrub for the president.
The mean-spirited, juvenile diminishment of the individual leaves the reader with an uneasy feeling akin to a realization of swallowing something distasteful in your food, offends the rational reader and irreparably harms the authors' generally strong case.
In a chapter on food laws, Ivins and Dubose write: "Would you like some s--- to go with your quarter pounder? They don't ask that question at McDonald's."
They don't ask it about Bushwhacked either.
Saleem Khan
March 4, 2012
WARNING: political content ahead. Read at your own risk!
"For years, bestselling political commentator Molly Ivins has been sounding the alarm about George W. Bush. In Shrub, her 2000 skewering of presidential candidate Bush, the inimitable Ivins, with co-author Lou Dubose, offered a devastating expose of Dubya's career and abysmal record as governor of Texas. Now, in their second book on our current White House occupant, Ivins and Dubose take the wire brush to the Bush presidency and show how he has applied the same flawed strategies he used in governing Texas to running the largest superpower in the world.
"Bushwhacked brings to light the horrendous legacy of the Bush tax cut, his increasingly appalling environmental record, his administration's involvement in the Enron scandal, and the real Bush foreign policy -- botched nation building in Kabul and Baghdad, alienation of former allies-- and, unfortunately, much more. Ivins and Dubose go beyond the too frequently soft media coverage of Bush to show us just how damaging his policies have been to ordinary Americans -- "The Doug Jones Average" rather than the Dow Jones Average. Bushwhacked is filled with sharp observation, humor, and compassion for the people often ignored by the federal government and the Washington press corps.
"With the war on terrorism posing unprecedented challenges to our civil liberties, it is high time for a close look at the state of our Union. Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose provide just that in Bushwhacked -- an incisive, entertaining, and damning indictment of the Bush presidency."
~~front flap
I love Molly Ivins. She was extremely politically astute, and always presented her opinions wrapped in generous doses of humor. I often laughed out loud at her wry twists of language, all the while admiring her courage in "telling it like it is". She was Toto, a small dog drawing back the curtain that hid the charlatan, in order to show her friends the way smoke and mirrors were being used to distort reality.
It took me a long time to read this book. Bushwhacked is very different than her other books -- her sly sense of humor is conspicuous by its absence, and the chapters are filled with facts and statistics, and stories about the people that Dubya's policies have hurt. It's gut-wrenching to read this book, to be face-to-face with just how much his government is not "by the people or for the people." I knew most of this prior to reading the book, but it was still excruciating to read it again, all neatly packaged and no holds barred.
And as always when I read anything she wrote, I wonder what she would be saying about the current political scene. She'd be having a field day with the Republican wannabes, don't you think? Just as she'd be skewering the failings of the current White House occupant.
"For years, bestselling political commentator Molly Ivins has been sounding the alarm about George W. Bush. In Shrub, her 2000 skewering of presidential candidate Bush, the inimitable Ivins, with co-author Lou Dubose, offered a devastating expose of Dubya's career and abysmal record as governor of Texas. Now, in their second book on our current White House occupant, Ivins and Dubose take the wire brush to the Bush presidency and show how he has applied the same flawed strategies he used in governing Texas to running the largest superpower in the world.
"Bushwhacked brings to light the horrendous legacy of the Bush tax cut, his increasingly appalling environmental record, his administration's involvement in the Enron scandal, and the real Bush foreign policy -- botched nation building in Kabul and Baghdad, alienation of former allies-- and, unfortunately, much more. Ivins and Dubose go beyond the too frequently soft media coverage of Bush to show us just how damaging his policies have been to ordinary Americans -- "The Doug Jones Average" rather than the Dow Jones Average. Bushwhacked is filled with sharp observation, humor, and compassion for the people often ignored by the federal government and the Washington press corps.
"With the war on terrorism posing unprecedented challenges to our civil liberties, it is high time for a close look at the state of our Union. Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose provide just that in Bushwhacked -- an incisive, entertaining, and damning indictment of the Bush presidency."
~~front flap
I love Molly Ivins. She was extremely politically astute, and always presented her opinions wrapped in generous doses of humor. I often laughed out loud at her wry twists of language, all the while admiring her courage in "telling it like it is". She was Toto, a small dog drawing back the curtain that hid the charlatan, in order to show her friends the way smoke and mirrors were being used to distort reality.
It took me a long time to read this book. Bushwhacked is very different than her other books -- her sly sense of humor is conspicuous by its absence, and the chapters are filled with facts and statistics, and stories about the people that Dubya's policies have hurt. It's gut-wrenching to read this book, to be face-to-face with just how much his government is not "by the people or for the people." I knew most of this prior to reading the book, but it was still excruciating to read it again, all neatly packaged and no holds barred.
And as always when I read anything she wrote, I wonder what she would be saying about the current political scene. She'd be having a field day with the Republican wannabes, don't you think? Just as she'd be skewering the failings of the current White House occupant.
October 4, 2016
Peer back through the mists of time to the year 2003, when a man named George W. Bush was President of the United States. This is the era under review by noted Texas columnist Molly Ivins and her coauthor. I sometimes read Ivin's syndicated column in the newspaper around this time period, and I've never shared many liberals' love of her brand of humor (if you think it is funny to refer to Bush as GeeDubya, then you'll laugh a lot), but this book is a good time capsule back into the broad concerns that were being raised during Bush's first term in office.
I thought the strongest portion of the book was the first chapter as Ivins discusses the Bush record as Governor of Texas. As a Texas political observer, Ivins has a lot of insight into his Governorship, much of which I either didn't know or forgot at this point. I take it her earlier book, Shrub, is exclusively about this topic, and I would guess might be a better read because of it.
After that initial chapter, there isn't much rhyme or reason to what topics are addressed throughout the rest of Bushwhacked. We spend a lot of time on food safety regulation and ergonomic workplace safety regulations, which are important topics, but seemed to occupy a larger than expected portion of this volume. Enron also features heavily in the book, as well as a chapter toward the end on the Iraq War, which was just in its early stages at the time Bushwhacked was published.
The writing style is very informal, and the audience is clearly those already in the anti-Bush choir. Though Democrats receive occasional light criticism, Ivins is eager to generally paint them in a positive light. All of that is fine, but good to know from the outset. Ivins is safely within the mainstream of Democratic opposition to Bush, and not engaged in a deeper, rigorous examination of what drives our politics.
Books like this aren't really meant to stand the test of time. It is of its moment, and I'm sure was enjoyed by many people on airplanes in the year or two after it was published. But unless you are looking for a walk down memory lane, its time has mainly passed at this juncture.
I thought the strongest portion of the book was the first chapter as Ivins discusses the Bush record as Governor of Texas. As a Texas political observer, Ivins has a lot of insight into his Governorship, much of which I either didn't know or forgot at this point. I take it her earlier book, Shrub, is exclusively about this topic, and I would guess might be a better read because of it.
After that initial chapter, there isn't much rhyme or reason to what topics are addressed throughout the rest of Bushwhacked. We spend a lot of time on food safety regulation and ergonomic workplace safety regulations, which are important topics, but seemed to occupy a larger than expected portion of this volume. Enron also features heavily in the book, as well as a chapter toward the end on the Iraq War, which was just in its early stages at the time Bushwhacked was published.
The writing style is very informal, and the audience is clearly those already in the anti-Bush choir. Though Democrats receive occasional light criticism, Ivins is eager to generally paint them in a positive light. All of that is fine, but good to know from the outset. Ivins is safely within the mainstream of Democratic opposition to Bush, and not engaged in a deeper, rigorous examination of what drives our politics.
Books like this aren't really meant to stand the test of time. It is of its moment, and I'm sure was enjoyed by many people on airplanes in the year or two after it was published. But unless you are looking for a walk down memory lane, its time has mainly passed at this juncture.
Read
July 19, 2012This was written by the late, great Molly Ivins, who had seen George Bush as governor, and then president. So, some of the things he did as governor were the same as when he was president. Tax breaks for millionaires is just one example.
But Ms. Ivins also brought into perspective some of the more horrible things Bush did as president. He got the country into deep debt by taking the country into two wars, both unfunded. He was terrible at foreign relations, and that explains why so many of our allies hated Bush. He also killed a lot of legislation aimed at food safety, and showed clear disregard for the middle class and any sort of social justice.
The book also talks about Antonin Scalia and what a crook he is--as well as the cozy relationship the Bush administration had with Scalia's son's law firm.
But don't take my word for it. And don't take Molly Ivin's word for it. About 20 pages in the back of the book have been devoted to an extremely detailed bibliography for a multitude of sources--actual, factual sources that detail exactly what Bush said and did as president that led the nation into this economic hole we are still trying to dig out of.
I know some people may not be interested in this kind of book, but I voted for George Bush for president twice. I did not like John Kerry in 2000, and I did not feel real confident about Al Gore in 2004. And I have heard many people bad-mouth Bush, so I wanted to read about him for myself. I will never vote Republican again as long as I live.
But Ms. Ivins also brought into perspective some of the more horrible things Bush did as president. He got the country into deep debt by taking the country into two wars, both unfunded. He was terrible at foreign relations, and that explains why so many of our allies hated Bush. He also killed a lot of legislation aimed at food safety, and showed clear disregard for the middle class and any sort of social justice.
The book also talks about Antonin Scalia and what a crook he is--as well as the cozy relationship the Bush administration had with Scalia's son's law firm.
But don't take my word for it. And don't take Molly Ivin's word for it. About 20 pages in the back of the book have been devoted to an extremely detailed bibliography for a multitude of sources--actual, factual sources that detail exactly what Bush said and did as president that led the nation into this economic hole we are still trying to dig out of.
I know some people may not be interested in this kind of book, but I voted for George Bush for president twice. I did not like John Kerry in 2000, and I did not feel real confident about Al Gore in 2004. And I have heard many people bad-mouth Bush, so I wanted to read about him for myself. I will never vote Republican again as long as I live.
July 15, 2008
If only this book had been read to everyone of voting age on Halloween of 2000! It truly is a horror story, and may have changed the minds of anyone stupid enough to have voted for bush in the election following, thus producing the greatest horror story in American history, or maybe second only to slavery. We are still suffering the long-term effects of slavery, but I fear the long-term effects of the most toxic administration in history are yet to be measured.
Ivins and Dubose start with the Preznit who dudn't have a clue in Texas. I know there are good people in Texas; the law of averages tells me so. Yet I would not be sad if the other 49 states seceded. What a proving ground for duds.
Then they proceed, area by area, to expose the follies of these flunkies that aren't funny. Most touching of all are the stories of the impact of the policies of these fools on individual people. Trust me--campaign vigorously against Priscilla Owen for the Supremes or any lower court appointment. There is a special corner in hell just for her.
God bless (and help!) our next President! The White House will have to be washed out with firehoses.
Ivins and Dubose start with the Preznit who dudn't have a clue in Texas. I know there are good people in Texas; the law of averages tells me so. Yet I would not be sad if the other 49 states seceded. What a proving ground for duds.
Then they proceed, area by area, to expose the follies of these flunkies that aren't funny. Most touching of all are the stories of the impact of the policies of these fools on individual people. Trust me--campaign vigorously against Priscilla Owen for the Supremes or any lower court appointment. There is a special corner in hell just for her.
God bless (and help!) our next President! The White House will have to be washed out with firehoses.
July 20, 2022
Molly Ivins was a national treasure!
This book, so vibrantly written, brought me back to the Bush years. It gave me pause: how much crazier things are now! I would have love to hear Molly analyze the Trump years. She would given it a unique spin that only she could do.
This book, so vibrantly written, brought me back to the Bush years. It gave me pause: how much crazier things are now! I would have love to hear Molly analyze the Trump years. She would given it a unique spin that only she could do.
January 24, 2008
This book was written in 2003; kind of a long time in the whole politics thing, but I picked it up brand new for $1, so I figured better late than never.
I am pretty glad I read it; I would have paid much more than $1 to learn some of the information in the book (of course no one should have to pay to know the truth), which is why I gave it the rating I did. Ivins & Dubose covered a lot of ground and detailed some of the horrible things Bush&Co have been doing to this country.
As for the writing in the book itself... The first chapter was probably the worst thing in the entire book to lead into the rest of it. In some chapters, she'd be covering multiple things and weave them together, sort of, so you'd read one paragraph about it here and then another three pages later, which I found to be kind of annoying when I was trying to read interesting parts of it back to my boyfriend. It got better as it went on, and throughout it all there was plenty to be outraged about.
I am pretty glad I read it; I would have paid much more than $1 to learn some of the information in the book (of course no one should have to pay to know the truth), which is why I gave it the rating I did. Ivins & Dubose covered a lot of ground and detailed some of the horrible things Bush&Co have been doing to this country.
As for the writing in the book itself... The first chapter was probably the worst thing in the entire book to lead into the rest of it. In some chapters, she'd be covering multiple things and weave them together, sort of, so you'd read one paragraph about it here and then another three pages later, which I found to be kind of annoying when I was trying to read interesting parts of it back to my boyfriend. It got better as it went on, and throughout it all there was plenty to be outraged about.
September 6, 2007
This one took awhile to read since I picked it up during my busiest time! It was not as *funny* as I had hoped, but it is classic Molly and I did read it just after she passed as a way to revel in her viewpoint. Back in 1999 when it was clear that GW was going to get the GOP nomination and my own guy was in knots over it, Molly was the only one writing things the way I saw them. I swore sometimes it was just Molly and I and no one else! Of course, I know this is not true - many of us were out there who were seeing through the charade that Karl Rove was putting on for this man, and many many now understand it. Still, it was always Molly who said it the best. Read this only if you can stomach the reality that she knew when he was governor of Texas.
July 23, 2008
I dearly miss Molly Ivins. I've learned more about how government really works by reading her than anyone else. Molly had the respect to share politician's policy records and not gloss over them because it's too boring or unsexy. To the contrary, she makes the machinations of government a story I want to see more of. I've never had the reaction to a journalist's death like I did when Molly died. Just as many have speculated about how the discourse will be adversely affected this fall without Tim Russert, I think it will suffer equally without the voice of Molly Ivins.
September 17, 2008
What journalism should be! Molly & Lou show the importance of good government, of having qualified people in power who recognize the importance of their jobs, of government in curbing excesses from greed...all before Katrina and "heckuva job, Brownie"! Conservatives don't believe government is the solution, then they make sure it's not by getting into power and dismantling programs and regulations that are in place to protect against greed, a natural outgrowth of unregulated markets. Too bad more journalists don't concentrate on the effect of government on every-day people.
March 11, 2010
First of all, I LOVE EVERYTHING MOLLY IVINS!
I read this just before and after Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration and after the first several months of the Bush/Cheney economic meltdown --- due mostly, but not entirely, to Republican policies which have wreaked havoc on the world economy. Molly Ivins eerily predicts this in her book. She castigates Bush and the Republicans for dismantling economic safeguards which had been in place since the Great Depression.
I MISS MOLLY! She would have had so much to say since the meltdown.
I read this just before and after Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration and after the first several months of the Bush/Cheney economic meltdown --- due mostly, but not entirely, to Republican policies which have wreaked havoc on the world economy. Molly Ivins eerily predicts this in her book. She castigates Bush and the Republicans for dismantling economic safeguards which had been in place since the Great Depression.
I MISS MOLLY! She would have had so much to say since the meltdown.
June 5, 2013
I have always loved Molly Ivins. She is so sharp. So funny, so right that I enjoyed reading her book on one of the worst Presidents in my 70 year life. George may be smart or he may have just been a poster boy, but the policies he approved or permitted were horrible. We are still suffering from the taxes he cut to the rich and the two wars he started. So even years later it is still fun to read Molly.
Her suggests as to the solutions match up with Tom Friedmann's That Used to Be Us. The solutions to our problems are not hard to find. Just hard to get enacted.
Her suggests as to the solutions match up with Tom Friedmann's That Used to Be Us. The solutions to our problems are not hard to find. Just hard to get enacted.
Want to read
February 16, 2010This book is EXCEEDINGLY DIFFICULT for me to get through. It is definitely not the writing... Molly Ivins is completely passionate and plain-speaking... I am still not over my disgust of the George W. Bush administration. Perhaps as things improve during the duly-elected President Obama's administration I'll be able to pick up the book again and feel less tense about it. God bless and rest in peace, Ms. Ivins. You've done your job.
October 1, 2008
You don't really have to read this book if you have already read "Shrub". They kind of say the same thing. Ivins makes it clear that Bush is definitely NOT the idiot he so obviously seems to be (what with his decimation of the English language and all...). That is what is really scary--that he is actually very intelligent. Is is 2009 yet?
December 5, 2007
Molly Ivins at her finest! The talking book was a lot of fun, with Anna Fields and her droll accent, and I found myself laughing out loud at some parts (while wanting to bang my head against the wall at the same time...no easy feat). The world of political punditry misses this lady, that's for sure.
October 14, 2010
Should this book be classified under "horror, nonfiction"? Thank goodness Molly Ivins is(was) a writer gifted with a very funny wit, cuz these tales will scare the poop outta ya. Very educational as well, and she makes it pretty clear that, though we no longer have a shrub in the White House, this book is still extremely relevant. Yikes.
January 15, 2011
This was my first reading of Molly Ivins, prompted by her untimely death this year and a number of related articles which introduced me to her life/work. Without a doubt, the mission is an expose of W’s misdeeds and failures, but she does it without meanness and with humor. Fans of George W. Bush probably wouldn’t like it, but it/she should be required reading.
December 6, 2011
Good book on the 'Bush legacy', tries for equal parts of serious approach and humorous.
Much as I love Molly Ivins, I just find the subject matter so depressing and blood pressure raising that it costs the book a star, as I read to stay informed, but when it comes to Republicans, I never enjoy the book and so generally subtract a star.
Much as I love Molly Ivins, I just find the subject matter so depressing and blood pressure raising that it costs the book a star, as I read to stay informed, but when it comes to Republicans, I never enjoy the book and so generally subtract a star.
July 2, 2017
A very interesting and disturbing look at George W. Bush and the Republican's oxymoronic "Compassionate Conservatism." It really made me think of what's happening today in Washington. The last chapter made the point that we, the people, can change how thing are by voting and contacting our elected officials to let them know how we feel about what is going on.
June 16, 2007
Story of George W. Bush and how his brand of compassionate conservatism has changed America and how it changed Texas beforehand. Very fond memories in reading his book at the Lubbock Airport in 2004 after the wedding of my good friend, Bryan.
October 29, 2007
A slow read, but several flashes of Ivins' wit appear amidst the exhaustive reporting. Well done, of course. It prompted me to lament that the wrong Texas natives die prematurely. Long live Molly Ivins!
October 26, 2008
Molly writes about Texas, and in this book she shows what the impact of Bush policies has been in Texas, as a predictor for what we can expect as a nation. She is often amusing, although not nearly enough of the time. It is interesting and frightening.
May 22, 2009
This is a very entertaining and informational book. I would recommend this if you are the type of person who is interested in politics and likes to do their research (whether u are a Bush fan or not). A MUST read for those who are Anti-Bush.
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