How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime [Hardcover]

Sidney Blumenthal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 2006

In a series of columns and essays that renowned journalist and former presidential adviser Sidney Blumenthal wrote in the three years following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a unifying theme began to emerge: that Bush, billed by himself and by many others as a conservative, is in fact a radical--more radical than any president in American history. In How Bush Rules, Blumenthal provides a trenchant and vivid account of the progression of Bush's radical style--from his reliance on one-party rule and his unwillingness to allow internal debate to his elevation of the power of the vice president.

Taking readers through pivotal events such as the hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the rise of the foreign-policy neoconservatives, Abu Ghraib, the war on science, the Jack Abramoff scandal, and the catastrophic mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, the book tracks a consistent policy that calls for the president to have complete authority over independent federal agencies and to remain unbound by congressional oversight or even the law.

In an incisive and powerful introduction, Blumenthal argues that these radical actions are not haphazard, but deliberately intended to fundamentally change the presidency and the government. He shows not only the historical precedents for radical governing, but also how Bush has taken his methods to unique extremes. With its penetrating account of a critical new era in American leadership, How Bush Rules is a devastating appraisal of the Bush presidency.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Establishment scions rarely speak so loudly. In this scathing critique of George W. Bush’s administration, former Clinton senior aide Sidney Blumenthal lets loose. Despite his long service in government and journalism, often as a relatively quiet behind-the-scenes player, Blumenthal with this book reveals himself unleashed. Whether the topic is intelligence gathering, the Iraq war, the Middle East peace process (or lack thereof), or other topics, Blumenthal doesn’t waver. His tone is unrestrained, his dismay palpable, as he catalogs the history of what he terms the Bush administration’s "radicalism."

The work consists of an introductory 23-page essay, a compilation of articles that Blumenthal originally authored for Slate.com and British newspaper The Guardian between 2003 and 2006, and finally a short epilogue. Taken together, the writings paint a damning picture of a befuddled, lazy, incompetent, and at times deliberately malevolent administration. No figure in the Bush White House escapes. As Blumenthal summarizes in one passage: "The president aggressive and manipulated, ignorant of his own policies and their consequences, negligent; the secretary of state [Powell] proud, instinctively subordinate, constantly in retreat; the vice president [Cheney] a Cardinal Richelieu, the conniving head of a neoconservative cabal, the power behind the throne; the national security adviser [Rice] seemingly open, even vulnerable, posing as the honest broker, but deceitful and derelict, an underhanded lightweight." In different contexts, with different storylines, these essential portraits come through on almost all of the book’s 403 pages.

Blumenthal’s former position in the White House and his numerous connections throughout Washington show in telling ways. He quotes from a variety of private sources – for example, contacts within the CIA and NSC on intelligence matters, different levels of military hierarchy on the Abu Ghraib scandal, and national party leaders on domestic political skirmishes – to enrich his perspectives. Among his more explosive revelations are the military’s discontent with the Bush team’s strong-handed policies, for instance – one essay titled "The American Military Coup of 2012" stretches readers’ imaginations and prompts serious reflection about where events in Iraq may lead.

The inherent design of this book – with dozens of short, to-the-point essays – compensates for Blumenthal’s one weakness as a writer, which is his occasional tendency towards long-windedness and overly complex prose. Whereas his previous book, The Clinton Years, veered at times towards long and tiring monologue, the pace of this one is livelier and readable. In both its sharp tone and pragmatic readability, it represents a strikingly atypical offering from the normally genteel Princeton University Press.

As the body of serious analysis on Bush’s administration builds, Blumenthal’s work will take its place alongside other journalistic-type memoirs as credible first drafts of history. Where Paul O’Neill’s The Price of Loyalty lacerates the Bush administration’s decision-making from the Republican side, and with a focus on fiscal policy, and Richard Clarke’s Against All Enemies provides a centrist critique around national security, Blumenthal’s book offers a view from the respectable political left with both bark and bite on a number of Bush’s policies. It’s a perspective worth heeding.--Peter Han

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A Note from Author Sidney Blumenthal
"My newly published book, How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime, is a first draft of the history of the Bush presidency in and an analysis of its unprecedented radicalism. The fifth anniversary of 9/11 illustrated in many ways how Bush has exploited the trauma to pursue his radical agendas. The public was supposed to remember the event as the occasion of the president’s heroism. Not only are we to forget "My Pet Goat" but also Bush’s dismissal of the Aug. 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief, "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In United States." We are encouraged to recall the iconic pose of Bush on the rubble of the World Trade Center, bullhorn in hand, arm wrapped around a fireman, but not the giddy president in airman’s uniform striding on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln to stand before a sign proclaiming, "Mission Accomplished." Photo credit: Ralph Alswang

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From Publishers Weekly

Before joining the Clinton White House as a senior adviser, Blumenthal was a political correspondent for magazines like Vanity Fair and the New Yorker; with this collection of articles published in Salon and the British Guardian, he returns to his journalist roots. Because the majority of the columns are only two or three pages long, it's difficult for Blumenthal to create a sustained argument. The effect is more like a string of scattershot reactions to current events out of which recurring themes occasionally emerge. But even these themes—the incompetence of Bush's closest advisers, the president's voracious assumption of executive powers, the creation of American gulags—fall short of cohering into a pointed attack, despite Blumenthal's best efforts to assert "a crisis over democracy." Instead, his thoughts wander to matters like U.S./U.K. relations or the decline of the columnist Robert Novak, while explosive topics like Vice-President Cheney's unprecedented powers get lost in the shuffle. Thus, Blumenthal's most heated rhetoric, like his claim of "a revolt within the military against Bush," winds up feeling overblown. The effect is especially frustrating given his keen observations of microscopic political detail—it's too bad this collection doesn't add up to the sum of its parts. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; First Edition; First Printing edition (August 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 069112888X
• ISBN-13: 978-0691128887
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #534,365 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

110 of 117 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Opens with Summary, Good Series, Underestimates Cheney, September 8, 2006

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime (Hardcover)

By virtue of being an organized series of past short columns, most two pages to three pages in length, this book may be off-putting to the average reader, but for either insiders or those who care deeply about moral legitimate governance, this is a real page turner.

The author renders a valuable service in providing an original 23 page "tour of the horizon" that captures many but not all of the impeachable offenses of the Bush-Cheney team. In Florida, for example, his emphasis is on Bushophiles stopping the recount, not on the fact that Greg Pabst broke the story BEFORE the election that 35,000 people of color had been disenfranchised by Jeb Bush in a calculated plan to cheat the American public out of an honest election.

As someone who has read most but not all of the books covering this era (it merits comment that in its radical being, the Bush-Cheney Administration has inspired more books of the moment than any other previous President, as best I can tell), I found the collection of essays logical, reasoned, relevant, and depressing. This is a litany of high crimes and misdemeanors that demands the question: why hasn't this pair been impeached? The obvious answer is because they own Congress, which has abdicated its roles at the first (Article 1) branch of government, the less obvious answer is because the public has become both ignorant and inert, the worst nightmare of Thomas Jefferson and Justice Branstein combined.

A few highlights along the trail:

Intelligence wars, with Cheney first trying to intimidate the CIA, then ignoring it.

Cheney killing the policy process, ruling by dogma.

Rice negligent & incompetent, as well as disloyal to Scowcroft, subversive of Powell, and ultimately the "butterfly of the State Department."

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence betraying the people's trust and its responsibility, the majority concealing and delaying accountability.

Bush leveraging religions, creating the first major violation of the Founding Fathers' insistence on a secular state with tolerance of all religions.

Government in crisis, Bush-Cheney at war with the professionals.

Iran, not US, winning in Iraq.

Bolton as a "neo-primitive" (for the cognoscenti, the author renders gifted turns of phrase at every turn).

Catholic Church as a neo-fascist extreme right element more in harmony with the Bush regime than any protestant might imagine.

The invisible shrinking president seeking to uphold a doctrine of presidential infallibility.

The summary at the beginning of the book is alone worth the price of the book, and takes this collection of insightful and well-sequenced essays from four to five stars.

My one thought in putting the book down was that the author may have been unduly kind to Cheney. If one reads the The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 it is clear Cheney has mounted an internal coup d'etat and is NOT briefing Bush, is actively WITHHOLDING from Bush critical information, and appears to be deliberately REVERSING decisions by Bush made in Cabinet sessions and the over-turned in the dark. The full story on Cheney's machinations remains to be told.

EDIT of 10 Dec 07: We now know that Dick Cheney is a nakely amoral person and has committed 25 documents acts of commission or omission that in my judgement demand that he be impeached. See, in addition to One Percent Doctrine, Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency. My review there items 23 act, the other two are in One Percent Doctrine.

The book has an index, mostly of names.

84 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book before you vote., August 28, 2006

By 

Tina Esper (Pittsburgh,PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime (Hardcover)

No one understands the radical right like Sidney Blumenthal. He writes about it in a clear, concise, measured way, though his revelations can make your blood boil. This book is must reading for anyone concerned about what is happening in the United States. I hope it influences the way the country will vote in the mid-term elections this year.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Chapters Short Enough Bush Could Almost Read this Book, December 15, 2006

By 

Douglas S. Wood "Vicarious Life" (Monona, WI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime (Hardcover)

I'm giving Sidney Blumenthal's new compendium of political essays and columns a qualified 4 stars. The writing is good, the target well-chosen, the barbs well-aimed. My problem with 'How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime' is that it is simply a collection of short columns (generally 2-3 pages) that Blumenthal wrote while commenting on the Bush Administration between November 2003 and April 2006 in Salon and the Guardian of London. Two or three pages is just not long enough to develop the facts or ideas that I look for in a book. The benefit, and some may find it to be a big plus, is that you can pick it up and read a 'chapter' in just a few spare moments. 'How Bush Rules' amounts to a diary of the past three years of lies, incompetence, religous extremism, destruction of civil liberties, and a breathtaking concentration of power in the Whtie House.

The chapter-length introduction, however, raises my rating of the book by a full 'star'. It is nothing less than a concise and convincing indictment of Bush's rule. Congress could use it as an outline for a bill of impeachment.

Recommended.