Please Don't Remain Calm: Provocations and Commentaries [Hardcover]

Michael Kinsley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2008

A lucid deconstruction of the politics and public figures shaping the social, financial, and military disasters of our times.

This selection of Michael Kinsley's trenchant editorial writing in Slate (and elsewhere) since 1995 covers the end of the Clinton era (Monica, impeachment, etc.) and two terms of George W. Bush (9/11, the War on Terror, Iraq, etc.).

During this time Kinsley left Washington for Seattle and founded Slate, was opinion editor of the Los Angeles Times, underwent brain surgery for Parkinson's disease, and had other adventures that are reflected here. Although mostly about politics, there are articles and essays about other things, such as the future of newspapers, the existence of God, and why power women love Law and Order.

This is the work of a writer at the top of his form. Kinsley's wit is a weapon that any talk-show host or elected blowhard should envy and fear, and the reader will cherish his sense of humor, which enlivens even the toughest subject matter.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Partisan political writing generally enjoys the life expectancy of a weather report, but this collection of Kinsley's trenchant commentary is worth preserving. Kingsley has assembled 127 essays on the American political scene from the Clinton administration to the present. He eschews deep analysis in favor of poking fun at the foibles, evasions, contradictions and hypocrisies of American public figures and the media that feed off them, with occasional detours into his personal life. Inevitably, some pieces show their age, but readers will relish his skewering of the 2000 and 2004 elections. Kinsley is irresistible when he steps back from reporting to pose his trademark provocative—often humorous—questions: Why is it admirable for scientists to love science and businessmen to love business, but political candidates must proclaim how much they hate politics? Is Pat Robertson anti-Semitic or simply nuts? Does President Bush really believe his claim that all Muslims and Jews are going to hell because they don't accept Jesus? While essays from recent years naturally feel more relevant, every essay in this collection sparkles with Kinsley's trademark brand of wit. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

Successor to Kinsley’s previous collection, Big Babies (1995), this volume gathers the best since then of the liberal pundit’s commentary, which appeared in Slate, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and elsewhere. Readers who believe President George W. Bush is a liar, stupid, or, in a typically backhanded Kinsleyism, “not a complete moron” can relive Bush’s iniquities. It was stem-cell research that provoked Kinsley’s sarcastic absolution of Bush from the Bush-is-dumb trope, but whether he advocated tax cuts, privatizing Social Security, invading Iraq, or appointing conservative judges, Bush and his policies come in for rarely remitting criticism from Kinsley. Politics dominates these pages, which occasionally give way to observations on journalistic ethics, the Internet’s impact on journalism, and now-forgotten headlines, for instance, the gambling addiction of moralist Bill Bennett. The Washington whirl also makes way for two personal pieces, which discuss his Parkinson’s disease and recent brain surgery. Health problems aside, Kinsley seems in fine fettle for continuing the liberal brief on the American scene. --Gilbert Taylor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition edition (April 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393066541
• ISBN-13: 978-0393066548
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,200,229 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A triumph of true wit and erudition., May 28, 2008

By 

Dmitry Portnoy (Studio City, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Please Don't Remain Calm: Provocations and Commentaries (Hardcover)

Though they may read like opinion or satire, these sparkling essays are first and foremost, journalism: they inform. Michael Kinsley commands more facts than Al Franken's whiz-kid team of Harvard student researchers, wields a sharper rhetorical scalpel than either Lewis Lapham or Christopher Hitchens, and affects a gentler, warmer tone than even Garrison Keillor right as that scalpel goes in. Kinsley's magazine "The New Republic" lost me when it took that screeching right turn in the 90's; his appearances on NPR, with their magisterial equanimity, can come off as bland or even mealy-mouthed; but this collection is his triumph: the product of a broad, sober, splendid intellect confronting our absurd, horrid politics without once losing touch with reality.