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Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President

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Former Rhode Island U.S. Senator Lincoln has words of wisdom for both Republicans and Democrats alike, but mainly Republicans, in this thoughtful book.

To illustrate the fact that he is straight-spoken, I take this anecdote from page 183, in light of his Senate vote against a flag-desecration amendment in the late summer of 2006, an amendment thrown up as election fodder.

"In my opinion, some members of Congress desecrated the flag every day by wearing flag pins on their lapels while voting to divide Americans and restrict freedom. ... Using the flag for political gain was the real desecration."

Chafee has a closely reasoned takedown argument for his former Republican colleagues in the Senate, for candidates who would follow the Bush-Rove method of campaigning and more: The game is up.

Chafee, one of six Republicans who lost their Senate seats in 2006, repeated this message inside the GOP caucus long before that. And, he meant it as someone who was still trying to save the Republican Party from itself.

He says he considered running as an independent in 2006, but just couldn't do that.

Now, out of office, though, he is encouraging the idea of a centrist middle to take the third-party road, if needed. This is the one biggest shortcoming of the book.

As a left-liberal who has voted third-parties in the past, I know the Constitutional system is rigged against them, unless one or the other of the major parties is in a time of turmoil. That last happened in the 1850s, when the Whigs shattered over the Compromise of 1850 and then the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Beyond that, outside apparatchiks like the Grover Norquists of the policy world and insiders, whether elected officials or strategists, will insist in maintaining GOP "message rigidity" enough that, while the party may shrink, it won't explode or implode.

But, Chafee is committed to the idea, perhaps even idealistic about it, so I won't hold that against him.

At the same time, with wistfulness, he recognizes his father's GOP is no more, and Humpty Dumpty can't put it back together. The former "Rockefeller Republicans" are lost; it is on them, and centrist-to-conservative Democrats, that Chafee appears to pin his third-party hopes.

Otherwise, Chafee struck me as someone who actually brought two crucial things to his job as a senator: Due diligence and curiosity beyond accepting spouted platitudes.

That's clear in his descriptions of his dealings with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, John Negroponte when he was ambassador to Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz and others.

For Democrats, his biggest take is continued hypocrisy on the Iraq war. That includes pro-war voters like Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton visiting the state to campaign against him in 2006.

And as for his opponent, now-Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse? Whether due to sour grapes or what, Chafee says Whitehouse had no cojones when he was a U.S. Attorney.

Finally, for both Republicans and Democrats, he says we need a real Middle East peace process, and one that does not write blank checks to Israel.

As a sidebar, I found it interesting that this son of a U.S. Senator worked for years as a horseshoer, in very much an "everyday" job. In short, contrary to the claims about a ranting tyrant from Crawford, Texas, you might actually want to sit down for a beer, a diet Coke, or whatever, with Lincoln Chafee.

Senator Lincoln Chafee was the only Republican senator to vote against President Bush's wish to go to war with Iraq. That, in and of itself, makes him highly unusual and worth listening to. However, Chafee also describes what he calls George W. Bush's "mendacity," Bush's willingness to completely reverse himself on almost every major platform he ran on. Bush ran to be a uniter, but, in fact, was divider. Even without the enormous expense of the war in Iraq, Bush and Cheney rammed through the congress their $1.6 trillion tax cut, which Chafee informs us, was done, to drive the country into debt so that social programs could be cut. Bush/Cheney reversed their stance on trying to clean up the environment and thereby placed former Governor Christie Todd Whitman, who became their head of the EPA, in an untenable position. Most chilling, Chafee reports that his fellow Republicans let out a hoot of support when Bush/Cheney decided to essentially eliminate pollution controls on corporate polluters. The question is why? Why would any senator want to support the idea of helping industry continue to pollute the environment?
Senator Chafee, echoing the sentiments of a granddaughter of Dwight D. Eisenhower, makes it quite clear that Bush/Cheney abandoned completely the precepts of the Republican party: fiscal responsibility, a humble foreign policy and Teddy Roosevelt's and Richard Nixon's legacy of being careful stewards of the environment. Chafee also makes it stunningly clear that Dick Cheney was an obdurate bully who insisted on getting everything he wanted, including a war in Iraq, even though his agenda was not at all a traditional Republican agenda. Bush/Cheney had no qualms about sending our soldiers out to sacrifice, get wounded or die in an essentially insane war of choice, but they also unbelievably robbed the till so that the rich could increase their wealth all at the cost of driving up the country's debt to amounts unprecedented at the same time. Yet, Chafee also explains how puny the Democrats were. How could anybody who knows history support a war in a country with such deep ethnic hatreds between three groups, the ruling Sunnis who were in the minority, the Kurds in the north and the majority Shiites? Trying to bring a democracy to that mix insures discord. Senator Chafee does explain how his fellow Republican Senator Jeffords dropped out of the party after the president dissed him. This resulted in a sea change of power, with the majority being returned to the Democrats. Since Bush/Cheney were planning on going to war in Iraq, how could they succeed if they lost the balance of power in the Senate? Little did they know how easily such democrats as John Kerry, Chris Dodd, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton would capitulate. They couldn't imagine it. To insure victory, they needed to gain back the majority in the 2002 election. Fortunately for them the biggest anti-war senator, Paul Wellstone, was killed in a plane crash. Chafee doesn't mention it, but lays the groundwork for coming to the obvious potential conclusion that Wellstone's death was not at all an accident. A country was planning on going to war, and he stood in the way.
Missing from the story is Al Gore who warned the country about going to war in Iraq in December of 2001. He said: DON'T DO IT. Also missing was the mass rallies to stop the insanity, such as 400,000 protestors in New York City the day the war began, and something like 6 million worldwide also in the protest. Chafee also misses a huge opportunity to explain precisely why the war in Iraq was such a stupid move for the country. After 911, the whole world was unified against bin Laden and his small band of arch-villains. People from 90 countries were killed in the World Trade Center. We had a common enemy and the sentiments of the world on our side. At the same time, the world was also united against Saddam Hussein and inspectors continued to look for WMD in his country. When we went to war, we opposed France, Germany, the Soviet Union and China, all who warned us not to go to war. Further, the war was illegal, as Saddam Hussein had not attacked our country. In fact, he hadn't attacked any country. He had been crippled from the last war, and we had a no fly zone along the top half of his country. He was no threat even if he had WMD. Senator Chafee is to be commended for writing an important and personal account of how, virtually alone, he tried to keep his head about him when all the rest were losing theirs. It is a very sad comment that the head of Halliburton, a company whose profits rose over 900% after we went to war, under the guise of supposedly being a Republican, used the coffers of our country to pay off his buddies and get Democrats as well as Republicans to lick his boots at his say so.
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Former Senator Lincoln Chafee has written an engaging book that connects anecdotes from his political life with thoughtful observations on ethics, power, and diplomacy.

The Senator's disillusionment and disenchantment are thoroughly examined here. Although, as a son of the late Senator John Chafee, he was well acquainted with the realities of party politics in America, he went to Washington with idealistic notions about the possibilities of bi-partisan cooperation born of his experience in local government. Sadly, he was to find out exactly how regressive and obstinate both the national executive and legislative bodies have become.

This is an admirable effort from a man who has managed to retain his ideals despite the disappointing realities he encountered. This book is well worth your time and money, and I recommend it very highly. We need more people like Lincoln Chafee in public life.

Written by a true congressional maverick, I loved the inside information and enjoyed the local flavor as well.

This book is a must read because it describes how politics and government work or perhaps why it doesnt work. Mr. Chaffee's description of his experiences are told in such a direct and honest fashion. He interweaves his political experience as a local politician and that of a congressional candidate. He provides information regarding different foreign policy efforts of the current administration and why they failed, i.e., the palestinian and Israeli peace process. This is a refreshing look at our governmental system and the players in it. Mr. Chaffee's writing style made me feel as if he was telling the story directly to me.

As a transplanted Rhode Islander living in New York, I understood why Lincoln Chafee lost his Senate seat in November of 2006 to the lackluster and uninspired Sheldon Whitehouse. An independent, moderate voice from the Ocean State fell victim to the Bush Administration's myopic paranoid agenda. At its best moments, Against the Tide, paints a striking portrait of idealogues centralizing power and marginalizing dissenting voices and their opponents time after time refusing to stand up and speak out for what they knew was right.

Chafee often repeats stories (he was a blacksmith on the plains of Canada, if you didn't already know) and the prose is stilted in places, but the book as a whole is a success. I hope it gives my former neighbors a pang of guilt that we are no longer represented in the Senate by Lincoln Chafee and his sense of duty and principle. His replacement is not cut from that cloth.

Is Linc a Republican? A Democrat? An Independent? Depends upon when you ask him. His arguments lack clarity; his logic is confounding; and, his intellectual depth is limited at best. The prose, frankly, read more like Mr. Rogers--but Linc can't hold a candle to Mr. Rogers' ethic. Don't waste your time on this tripe; instead, spend time reading some of the classics of American politics; De Tocqueville, Federalist/Anti-Federalist Papers or -- more modern works such as: Founding Brothers or the Meta-Physical Club.

Outstanding book written by a courageous man. I'm a centrist and not a far left liberal but, until reading this book, I never knew a Republican politician for which I was able to have even the tinest bit of respect. We definitely do need a third party, or better yet the ability for people that don't align with a particular party to have a chance to win an election. People like Chafee - people who put the best interests of America's citizens first rather than best interests of a party machine - would then be able to survive. Imagine a government of people like that! Spread the word about this book so people become inspired to demand this of our politicians.

I have always respected Lincoln Chafee. The Republican party lost one of its very few honorable senators. This is an insider's view of what's been going on in the Republican party hierarchy, and it's not pleasant. I read the book in one sitting. It's a well-written and honest account. I would highly recommend it.

Lincoln Chafee is an honest man who presents a challenging view of the Bush regime. His story gives hope to a crippled nation, that a ferrier could rise to the station of US Senator, representing his constituency and nation with a commitment to integrity, sustaining the idea of America. When he decides to run for POTUS he has my vote.