Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental Rights [Hardcover]

Molly Ivins (Author), Lou Dubose (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 23, 2007

Throughout her long career of “afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted,” the cause closest to Molly Ivins’s heart was working to protect the freedoms we all value. Sadly, today we’re living in a time when dissent is equated with giving aid to terrorists, when any of us can be held in prison without even knowing the charges against us, and when our constitutional rights are being interpreted by a president who calls himself “The Decider.”

Ivins got the idea for Bill of Wrongs while touring America to honor her promise to speak out, gratis, at least once a month in defense of free speech. In her travels Ivins met ordinary people going to extraordinary measures to safeguard our most precious liberties, and when she first started writing this book, she intended it to be a joyous celebration of those heroes. But during the Bush years, the project’s focus changed. Ivins became concerned about threats to our cherished freedoms–among them the Patriot Act and the weakening of habeas corpus–and she observed with anger how dissent in the defense of liberties was being characterized as treason by the Bush administration and its enablers.

From illegal wiretaps, the unlawful imprisonment of American citizens, and the undermining of freedom of the press to the creeping influence of religious extremism on our national agenda and the erosion of the checks and balances that prevent a president from seizing unitary powers, Ivins and her longtime collaborator, Lou Dubose, co-author of Shrub and Bushwacked, describe the attack on America’s vital constitutional guarantees. With devastating humor and keen eyes for deceit and hypocrisy, they show how severe these incursions have become, and they ask us all to take an active role in protecting the Bill of Rights.

In life and on the printed page, Molly Ivins was too cool to offer a posthumous valedictory (or even to take a victory lap for her many triumphs over inane, vainglorious, and addlepated politicos). But in Bill of Wrongs, her final and perhaps greatest book, the irrepressible Molly Ivins really does have the last word.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The threats to the Bill of Rights cited by the late populist gadfly Ivins and Texas journalist Dubose (coauthors of Bushwhacked) in this scattershot survey run the gamut from physical to political violations. Dire indeed were the infringements of rights endured by Murat Kurnaz, an innocent German Muslim of Turkish descent held as an enemy combatant by the U.S. military for five years and subjected to waterboarding and electroshock. The Dover, Pa., school board's effort to insinuate intelligent design into biology courses has been much covered, though perhaps less bluntly than here (the defense lawyers just weren't as smart as those for the plaintiffs). As for the Second Amendment, the authors castigate President Bush for being too protective of the right to bear arms. In between there are mentions of journalists jailed for shielding sources, librarians gagged by Kafkaesque government secrecy rules and a slew of citizens arrested for peaceably protesting in the vicinity of the president. (Many of these cases were quickly resolved once the ACLU got involved.) If, as Ivins and Dubose hint, there's a concerted assault on our freedoms, there 's still plenty of ineptitude: in one instance they cite, the feds accidentally sent top secret records of illegal electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists to the suspects' lawyers. (Oct. 23)
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About the Author

Molly Ivins, a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, began her career in journalism as the complaint department of the Houston Chronicle. She then went on to work for The Texas Observer, as co-editor, and The New York Times, as a political reporter and later as Rocky Mountain bureau chief. In 1982, she returned to Texas. Her column was syndicated in more than three hundred newspapers, and her freelance work appeared in Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Harper’s, and other publications. Her first book, Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?, spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list. Her books with Lou Dubose on George W. Bush, Shrub and Bushwhacked, were also New York Times bestsellers. Molly Ivins died in January 2007.

Lou Dubose has written about Texas and national politics for thirty years. He was editor of The Texas Observer and politics editor for The Austin Chronicle, and he currently edits The Washington Spectator. He was co-author (with Molly Ivins) of Shrub and Bushwhacked. In 2003 he wrote (with Texas Monthly writer Jan Reid) The Hammer: Tom DeLay, God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress. In 2006 he wrote (with Texas Observer editor Jake Bernstein) Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 214 pages
• Publisher: Random House; First Edition edition (October 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400062861
• ISBN-13: 978-1400062867
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #634,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars was you ever bit by a dead bee?, October 27, 2007

By 

David W. Straight (knoxville, tennessee United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental Rights (Hardcover)

"Was you ever bit by a dead bee?" is the question Eddie (Walter Brennan) likes to ask in the Bogart-Bacall movie To Have and Have Not. The answer is "Yes Indeed!" as Molly Ivins shows in her posthumous book. But I don't really think of her as a bee, but maybe a Texas-size horsefly biting the backsides of those who would erode our freedoms, or perhaps a vigilant bulldog protecting the tree of liberty. Perhaps also "The wronging of rights and the righting of wrongs" might be appropriate here.

This is a book of episodes, stories about instances of where the Bill of Rights comes under assault. Many of the basic tales are familiar, but many are not, and putting these stories together helps give a better picture of the whole: we've been seeing a piecemeal erosion of freedoms done in the name of freedom. There has been no sudden assault on the tree of liberty by a dozen men with chainsaws, but rather more subtle attacks--slashes with hatchets done in the night. But Molly was never willing to accept any kind of assault. When you read the stories you realize that many of the instances didn't seem like such a big deal at the time--but they were to Molly. She quotes Niemoller's comment about Hitler: Hitler went after the communists, then the Jews, then the Catholics, and each time he didn't speak up because he wasn't one of them. Then when they came for him there was no one left to speak up for him. The same thing, of course, occurred under Stalin, and Molly reminds us that when we watch others having freedoms eroded and do nothing, we are in danger ourselves--that was her passionate concern, and it's one of her primary concerns in this book.

Molly is outraged by a lot of the things that are happening, but she has always been a writer of charm and humor. She writes of how war protesters in Crawford, Texas, were (are) regarded as essentially being terrorists, and how the police chief said that if someone walked down the street alone with a political button on his or her shirt that he didn't agree with, then he could arrest them for illegal protest. There is also a lengthy piece about a reporter in San Francisco who spent 199 days in jail for refusing to testify and turn over video footage. (This is not a tale I recall ever hearing of). During a disturbance, a taillight on a police cruiser was broken. Police departments get federal grants, and so the Feds got involved. The Feds insisted that the reporter testify about what he had seen and turn over all video footage. It sounds nonsensical, trivial, and a supremely idiotic waste of time for the Feds to get involved over a taillight, but the reporter still spent 6 months in jail, and Molly was outraged.

"We had to destroy it in order to save it" is a phrase we sometimes hear in wars, but even though it isn't being phrased quite that bluntly, it is being said about freedoms. Molly's book is about this: she's been our champion and stalwart defender, our watchdog. We'll miss her insights, her humor, and her outrage at wronged rights.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bush administration has fed the Bill of Rights into a shredder., October 28, 2007

By 

B. A Varkentine (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental Rights (Hardcover)

Molly Ivins is one of my heroes; I mourned her death. I believe she saw politics clearly, but even if I didn't, her writing was so lively her books could be read for the pleasure of it alone.

Here, she and Lou Dubose write the conclusion to their trilogy of sorts on George W. Bush, the policies of his administration, and the effect they have had upon the lives of everyday Americans.

At worst, American citizens have been imprisoned without just cause, at the least, privacy has been violated. The Supreme Court has been packed with judges who evidentially care little about the rights, or even the opinions, of those who disagree with them.

I knew most if not all of this before I read this last book on which Molly Ivins worked, but it was good of her to remind me.

If "Shrub" was incredulous and "Bushwhacked" was dismayed-and that is how I remember them-then "Bill Of Wrongs" is righteous, angry...and hopeful.

These are stories of stupid, destructive things that placed politics and expediency over and above, really, the freedoms upon which this country was founded. And that's where the righteous anger comes from.

But "Bill Of Wrongs" is also a story of men and women who stand up to bullies. And that's where the hope comes from.

This book is the equivalent of lighting candles rather than cursing the darkness.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A litany of impeachable offenses, March 7, 2008

By 

Timothy P. Scanlon (Hyattsville, MDUSA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental Rights (Hardcover)

This is another volume the recorded version of which I listened to. I guess I should be glad recorded versions exist, or I may not have the time to read 'em all! (Indeed, I'm forced to disagree with another reviewer who didn't like the recorded version. I could just picture Molly reciting the text while I listened to it!)

We'll miss Ms. Ivins. She and DuBose cover in fairly great detail the Bush regime's disregard for the US Constitution, and various other laws based on the law of the land! They start with one who had the audacity to wear an anti-Bush t-shirt, for which he and his spouse were arrested, and she lost her job with FEMA. (They took it to court and won).

It covers other elements of that disregard, some rationalized by the US Patriot Act, one of the more repressive bits of "legislation" since the birth of the Republic. There are elements of religious bias that almost make one laugh. For instance, reputable attorneys who, because they're Muslim converts are relentlessly pursued by the FBI. In the case of one of them, the bureau sends an agent who doesn't speak Spanish, to Madrid to follow up on a lead which the Spanish federal police have already discounted!

You know, now that I think of it, that's the worst thing about a recorded book. I do wish I had a paper copy to refer to some of the other federal blunders. Many are actually beyond comical. The authors refer to them as "Keystone Cop" blunders, and, in one case, the behavior of an agent is referred to as like that of Mel Brooks' "Maxwell Smart."

The portion on torture is devesating. We Americans should hang our collective heads in shame at the way we've treated some people--MANY OF WHOM WERE NEVER EVEN CHARGED WITH ANYTHING! Even if they were charged, there is NO EXCUSE--I repeat NO EXCUSE--for that kind of CRIMINAL behavior. The credibility of the US is in jeopardy after revelations of what's gone on at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, some of which the authors cover. For those who say, "That's the price you pay for freedom," no, it isn't. Any more than it was for the Germans in the 1930s and 40s. (Indeed, one prisoner held--and tortured--at Gitmo was a German citizen. The citizens of Germany, a little sensitive to "cruel and unusual punishment" and holding people indefinitely with no charges, demanded that he be released).

There is some useful historic reference in the book, e.g., to John Adams' Alien and Sedition Act, to Jemmy Madison's role in opposing that sort of repression, and even to Bill Renquist when he, as a US attorney, held up the arrest of some 13,000 in DC in 1971 (a demonstration in which I too part, proudly.)

The content of the book actually threatens conspiracy theorists: Those who believe that 9/11 was a big US government plot are naive enough to think the US government would be competent to pull off such a crime, and cover it up? Nawwww. Just read/listen to this and find just how competent many of our "public servants" really are.

There is a little eulogy for Molly in the book's conclsion; for those who didn't hear, she passed away I think less than two years ago.

I recommend the book to those especially who, first, respect the US Constitution and, next, who respect it. The author's, in the conclusion, optimistically agree that that Republic will continue, but in what shape may depend on who's elected to the presidency in 2008. Yes, indeed...