11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Morris Swings Dull, Sharp Axes in "Off With Their Heads.", October 28, 2004
This review is from: Off with Their Heads: Traitors, Crooks, and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media, and Business (Paperback)
Dick Morris has axes to grind. The former Clinton pollster and advisor and current Fox News analyst is angry at America's newspaper of record and much of its news media, both houses of Congress and his former president/boss, a now-vilified ally, many of governors, leading businesses, and its celebrities.
It's a long list, and in "Off With Their Heads" Morris wildly swings his pen like a terrible swift sword to execute each for their own treason. Morris skillfully uses quotes, historical backdrop and his understanding behind statistics to paint a compelling picture of what he calls "what happens when men and women acquire sufficient power over others that abuse becomes almost inevitable."
The more personal the abuse, the stronger and more compelling Morris' writing. He makes emotional cases for neglect of the elderly at for-profit nursing homes, explaining why that business model cannot provide care those people need and deserve while exposing the near-sinister reasoning behind it. Morris attacks Big Tobacco industry with equal, gleeful anger, richly describing huge awards the industry paid for attracting young people on to the habit while condemning state governors (including California's since-deposed Gray Davis) for not putting the money back into anti-smoking campaigns.
Morris' understanding of government inner workings, especially during his two years with the Clinton administration, has been the subject of several books and is also revealed here. He carves well-known legislators like Clinton and Christopher Dodd for allowing accounting firms to slip away from the lawsuits formed from 2002's Enron/Arthur Anderson/Adelphia Cable scandals.
Morris saves particular venom for Clinton's poor to non- existent handling of terrorist threats in North Korea, Iran, and Iraq (especially Saddam Huessein's rise in the immediate years following the first Gulf War.) He uses a French term, "Apres Moi, le deluge," (after me, the disaster) to describe the world handed President Bush right up to and beyond 9-11's horror. (Morris disagrees with many Bush domestic policies but knows and likes where Bush stands on the war on terror.)
That French phrase eases into Morris skewering America's least favorite "ally" for obstructing US attempts to avenge and stop Middle Eastern terrorism. Morris makes a convincing case for France being an American intellectual adversary due to latent anti-Semitism, cultural jealousy and past economic dealings with Saadam and other terrorist regimes. (This chapter also challenges a common view that the Iraq war squandered worldwide goodwill after 9-11.)
Cultural jealousy also plays into the book's weakest chapters. Morris attacks Howell Raines' run as editor of the New York Times (before Jayson Blair's scandal ended it) for leftist bias in polling, story selection and placement. He vilifies a favorite conservative target, Hollywood celebrities, authors and playwrights whose eloquent but mis-informed and often misleading quotes discouraged many fighting for and supporting freedom. (Despite effective quote use and even some welcome wit among the non-stop slashing, this chapter is among Morris' weakest and unfocused; he quotes political apologists like Clinton and Sen Adlai Stevenson III beside Natalie Mains of the Dixie Chicks and Harry Belafonte's insult of Colin Powell.)
The pen remains mightier than the sword, and Morris' writing can be as dull and numbers-laden as sharp and emotional when using analogy and anecdote. (The book needed to gain momentum after a slow first chapter.) Nonetheless, "Off With Their Heads" is worthwhile reading this year and especially this week for its historical background and inside information tethered to today's seismic issues.
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2 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
The Title Says It All, January 14, 2007
This review is from: Off with Their Heads: Traitors, Crooks, and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media, and Business (Paperback)
Political or ideological adversaries can't be people with different opinions anymore. They now have to be characterized as they are in the title of this book. This supposedly "conservative" tract was written by Bill Clinton's pollster. Mr. Morris seems to have become a conservative ever since he was fired by Clinton.
His axe-grinding diatribe seems a very cynical attempt to exploit conservatives one more time in his life; by getting them to buy this book.
Off with their heads? I imagine he would like to have the womens's toes for himself.
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4 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
how can this whole be called?, October 1, 2004
This review is from: Off with Their Heads: Traitors, Crooks, and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media, and Business (Paperback)
incredible, this whole situation is controlled by (controlled is probably the wrong word) a big network of hypocrites including this one. How feels the money for Fahrenhype mister morris and mrs eileen? the propaganda network is really amazing, people should invest some time to explore the work of people like this one or for example lee troxler, jeff hays etc. (which is just one tiny segment). We're all meant to be just meat that is getting moved as the movers want it to move. and of course this is a little chaos like but just on the surface. in fact it's working. the whole machinery keeps working and everyone is doing a good job ;) would you people please even try to ignore the direct marketing from every site and look at the real interests of the "movers"? that would help you a lot.
yeh yeh mister bush don't seperate yourself from the terrorist that much, i can't see such a big difference cos none of you "radicals" are that "good" as you pretend to be. you're using similar tools (western style is a bit more fragile/subtile).
but i don't blame you alone.. cos you wouldn't be able to do this alone, that's why i said.. watch the machinery and discover the real interests of the movers. "radicals" everything that is radical isn't good beside the radical honest view into yourself which is a good and reliable tool (if you're not too afraid to do it ;) ) to see the whole thing a lot clearer. enough for now.. questions.. contact me.. studio-2 at gmx dot de
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