Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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78 of 87 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Congress hasn't been a good steward of the People's Business for quite awhile - here's how they are failing us, June 18, 2007
I don't know anyone who loves Dick Morris. Some people hate him and cannot hear anything he says. Just bringing up his name upsets them to the point of unreason. Yet, if one can simply consider what he has to say it is usually interesting and often worthwhile even if you strongly disagree with what he has to say. This is because he really does understand how our political emotions work and the kinds of issues that provoke the electorate to action. Whether or not he actually believes what he is saying on behalf of a politician or about an issue is not all that relevant. Personal convictions often wither under the hot sun of political campaigns. Even so, this book seems to be more about the frustrations Morris and McGann share with us about how both the Democrats and the Republicans are failing us in Congress.
His take on the immigration problem is actually quite fresh. Rather than focusing only on the border with Mexico, he points out that at least half the problem, and the more serious failure in preventing another 9/11, is the millions who overstay their visas. They come in legally, but fail to leave as required. Since we do not track who leaves the country it is all but impossible to find out who is here in violation of their visas! Morris says that we not only need to begin tracking those who leave so we can get some idea who remains, but we also need to bar all immigration from those countries that are designated as sponsors and supporters of terror.
The United Nations and its many failures and scandals are examined next. Morris and McGann show us why there is absolutely no motivation within the United Nations to behave well and how the organization's structure actually promotes human rights failures by putting the worst violators on the committees that are supposed to monitor and take action against situations such as Rwanda and Darfur. The authors also show us how Oil For Food was used by Saddam to not only line his own pockets at the expense of his people, but corrupted the political choices many of those nations who made our work in Iraq more difficult before the war, leading up to the war, during the war, and in helping Iraq build its own government.
The efforts within the ACLU to suppress public criticism by its leaders of its leadership and policies are actually quite humorous and sad. It is hypocrisy of the first order and something more people need to be aware of when dealing with this organization that views itself as the final arbiter of our rights and social order. They need to be exposed more fully and we need organizations to resist and balance them more than we have now.
Chapter four is the big biggest because it is where the authors expose the problems in Congress with travel, using family members to convert campaign contributions to cash, using family as lobbyists, and how little time they put in working on the people's business. Morris and McGann pull no punches and name names from both parties. This chapter alone makes reading this book worthwhile. However upset with Congress you are now, you will be more angry after reading and thinking about the facts presented here.
We also get chapters on how the Patriot Act and the NSA "wiretapping" (actually data mining) have helped in the War on Terror, how the teacher unions are actually hurting our efforts to educate our children (not the teachers - the UNIONS), how big pharma is spending huge money on Congress to keep their billions in profits flowing in, and how Fannie Mae is misusing its mandate and money to support many Democrat causes.
Morris and McGann then do an excellent job in going after the Republicans for the bankruptcy bill that prevents people such as those suffering from cancer and oceans of medical bills from getting a fresh start. The credit companies also basically shove credit on people they know shouldn't have it and then want to avoid the risks of these bad business practices and keep these folks more or less permanently enslaved to them. The authors also go after the terrible changes Congress made to the student loan programs.
We also get information about how insurance companies are trying to get out of the hurricane Katrina claims by saying they would pay for wind damage, but not water damage. Right. How do you get a hurricane without water damage? I have been in a hurricane. The water is a fundamental part of the storm. Why should we allow them to get away with this?
We also get a chapter on how some tobacco companies, even after all the bad exposure and supposed settlements and public humiliation are STILL raising the nicotine levels in their cigarettes. There is also a chapter on how Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac have acted in quite corrupt ways. The final chapter is how Congress yields to special interests and trade protections in the name of saving jobs. These saved jobs cost us many hundreds of thousands of dollars each. And they also drive industries out of the country. For example, any number of candy companies have moved production to Canada and elsewhere so they can buy sugar at the world price and remain competitive rather than keeping the plants and jobs in the U.S. and paying more than twice the world price for sugar.
This book should tap into the current disgust the majority of Americans rightly feel for Congress. We should be rotating even more of them out in 2008 and hope the material here gets people motivated to do just that.
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165 of 194 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Its about time this book was written...., June 14, 2007
The only strange thing about Outrage is that Dick Morris wrote it. I'm truly surprised and pleased. Beyond the specifics, I found his comments to be sane and not contain wild accusations. Reasoned is the word I would use.
The litany of abuses that he exposes are wide ranging and sweeping in their implications. Corruption in Congress seems to be rampant and occuring on both sides of the aisle. Corporate misconduct seems to be increasing and as an adjunct instructor in Business at a University, I'm glad Morris lays it out the way he does.
The question I'm asking after reading Outrage is where is the vaunted news media on these issues? It seems that the attention given to the war and to Bush bashing on the part of the major news organizations has meant that many of these abuses have been ignored. Regardless of where you are on the Bush popularity scale, as Americans we should all be concerned about these abuses. We should be demanding that they be investigated.
It is only my opinion but Morris' greatest recommendation is to ban immigration from widely known terrorist countries. Racist? Hardly. We didn't allow immigration from Japan, Germany, nor Italy during WWII. Perhaps the greatest generation knew something we didn't.
Outrage is well researched and dead-on target. It matters not that it was written by a former Clinton insider.
I highly recommend.
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136 of 170 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not just a Cry, Solutions too., June 12, 2007
What makes this book interesting is the solutions( although some of them seem outrageous) Morris and McGann have offered us. We have seen and heard enough cry out of frustration from numerous Morrises and McGannses. Yet there are only few who offered series of concrete proposals to balance out their cries.
The most important proposal that seems obvious is to track those who leave the country.
Even failed states with zero law-and-order that kills and abducts its own people like Sri Lanka track those who leave the country. If you do not record emigration, you not only risk to track those who are here in violation of their visas, but also encourage others to overstay. The culprits know they won't be checked at the airport when they leave the US soil.
Beside these fresh solutions, you may not agree with everything the authors have to say. But the book will sure make you think twice on all of the decisions that were made by our lawmakers in the past couple of years.
Along the way, prepare to be surprised by allegations, assertions and revelations that may shoot your adrenaline level by a factor of ten.
The most appalling ones are:
> Find out the legislators who put their spouses on the payroll and Converted the campaign money into personal income.
> Find out the big insurance companies who are still thumbing their noses at their Louisiana policy holders who were victimized by Katrina.
> Find out the members of Congress who spent too many days on exotic vacations paid for by special-interest groups.
Outrage is a book that will sure spark plenty of debate. Its greatest value may be to encourage competent journalists to cover the same ground.
N.Sivakumar
Author of:
America Misunderstood: What a Second Bush Victory Meant to the Rest of the World
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