Customer Reviews

WHOS IN CONTROL: Polar Politics and the Sensible Center

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Reading this book that came out in in the late nineties is "deja vu all over again". Prescient does not do justice to what Dick Darman wrote and the sad part is our "leaders" have ignored sane advice.

Read it and weep or learn.

I bought this book because I wanted to find out more about the first Bush administration and thought his comments on his years in the Reagan White House would be an added bonus. I tend to be a sucker for any inside guy memoir and this book is one of the downfalls of this addiction. First off the guy was in the budgeting and finance side of government, which should have been an indication to me about his ability as an author, if you spend all your time working with spreadsheets it might not be an easy transition to word processing. I don't know what bothered me more, the fact that he wrote in a very arrogant way or that he was dull. I don't think I can describe it other then to say that it felt like I was being talked down to the whole time I was reading the book. I will give him credit, he did try to make his job with the budget interesting, but there was just too much head wind and he could not break through. The book turned out to be a bit dry and dull.

He did do a good job of covering the major events that took place during his time in both administrations. It was just that he did it in a sleep inducing writing style. This is one of the more positive memoirs around, he could not think of anything negative to say about anyone he came in contact with. He was even nice about Haig and Regan, too guys that get blasted in about every other Reagan administration book. He did try and make out one Republican as a bad guy and that was Newt G. He basically said that the reason Bush 1 lost in 1992 was not the no new taxes pledge dust up, the lack of focus on domestic policy, or even the bland campaign; no it was all Newt's fault. What was so interesting is that he did all this blaming on Newt in a very positive way, you almost had to reread sections to make sure that the author was not somehow stating all this blame was some sort of joke.

There was one man that the author saved all his nasty and negative comments for, yes you guessed it, the favorite Republican whipping boy - Bill Clinton. This was the last section of the book where the author tried to make that point that compromise is the only way most political work gets done and the very polarized government we currently have is not getting it done. Fair point, but he then proceeds to blame Clinton for about everything under the sun and simply implies that even though Newt is far more partisan, he is only reacting to Clinton. It was a failed circular argument that reeked of partisan hatred for Clinton. At least it was an interesting attack on the man, a bit different then many others. Overall the book was marginally interesting, but the dullness of the book and the arrogance of the author made it painful to read. The end section that was just a anti Clinton rant was enough to leave a very bad taste in my mouth.