Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance [Hardcover]

Bill Kelter (Author), Wayne Shellabarger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 29, 2008

It's a tired but true cliche that every American Vice President is just a heartbeat away from the most powerful job in the world - a job they've often never really interviewed for. Who are these people? Over more than 200 years, the American voters have sent a platoon of rogues, cowards, drunks, featherweights, doddering geriatrics, bigots, and atrocious spellers to Washington D.C. to sit one bullet, cerebral hemorrhage, or case of pneumonia away from the highest office in the land. Veeps tells the sordid, head-scratching, perversely-entertaining stories of these men we've chosen to ride shotgun in the biggest rig in democracy, without ever seriously considering the possibility that they might have to take the wheel.

Editorial Reviews

Review

I never thought there was anything funny about our vice-presidents, until I read VEEPS, a welcome, often hilarious respite from the tedium of national politics. --Howard Zinn, historian and author of A People's History of the United States

Here's the weird skinny on The Little Guys waiting for the Big Guys to sneeze. But jeepers creepers, who ARE these Veepers? Here's everything you were afraid to know about the most powerful men in the world (almost). Remember, a guy named George Bush was a VP. Imagine if he became President! And what if Dick Cheney got his hands on a nuclear weapon!? Read it before it's too late! --Greg Palast, author of Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: Top Shelf Productions (October 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1603090037
• ISBN-13: 978-1603090032
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #502,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Frigging Hysterical, December 9, 2008

By 

James A. Moran "The Straight Truth" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance (Hardcover)

I ordered VEEPS after stumbling across its blog, [...] (which I found hilarious). It arrived in the mail yesterday, I cracked it open after dinner, and read it non stop through the end, long past my usual bedtime. The whole time my wife was looking at me like I was a lunatic as I laughed like a hyena, stopping to read her excerpts every few minutes until she told me to knock it off.

The book is absolutely beautiful (awesome hardcover - and that's not a dust cover), the illustrations are first-rate, and the content is as informative as it is hilarious.

I literally learned something on every page. Who knew that one of our Veeps had chopped off somebody's arm?

Anyhow, I highly recommend this book to history buffs, fans of great comedy writing, or just about anybody. It's my last-minute nominee for Book of the Year.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A laugh a minute. Could not put it down., December 11, 2008

By 

Mike Capps "Heinz" (Wilsonville, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance (Hardcover)

I ordered this book after hearing its author Bill Keltner several times on a morning talk show in Portland, Oregon. He was not only making me laugh on my morning commute but I felt like I wanted to know more about something I never thought I would care about, Vice Presidents. His book did not disappoint, it was very amusing and informative. It's the first time in a long while I actually read with a highlighter in hand, an absolute classic.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars funny & fascinating, March 8, 2009

By 

C. P. Anderson (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance (Hardcover)

This is a well-written, highly amusing book on a fascinating if rather neglected subject - the second-class citizens of presidential politics, the vice presidents.

The authors cover each in turn (future presidents included), offering three to six telling stories for each one. Did you know, for example, that one vice president married his former slave? How about the one who may well have been gay? Do you know which vice president (and future president) delivered his inaugural address drunk? Did you know there were arrest warrants for 2 veeps for treason? That one died less than a week before being re-elected?

There are also some definite themes here. It's always been a thankless job, with very little to actually do. As a consequence, there were plenty of very reluctant veeps - and plenty who turned down the job. There were also a lot of Dan Quayles - i.e., the only one who would take it, or someone so young, or old, or incompetent, that they make the presidential candidate look like Abraham Delano Washington.

One theme that was new to me was the number of vice presidents who died in office and, before the law was changed in this century, were never replaced. That amounted to almost 38 years of no vice president in total.

The book is not all trivia however. The writing is really top notch. These guys are very funny. Just to give you an idea, here are some of their section headings: Electoral Dysfunction, "Truman Defeats Daily Tribune," Upward Mobilier. Be sure to check out the index too.

Given all that, I'm almost reluctant to point out a number of errors I found in the book. Did you know, for example, that Martin Van Buren was from Kentucky? Or that James Knox Polk was from Texas? That William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison were father and son? I hate to be one of those reviewers who fixates on that sort of thing, but these errors were rather disconcerting.