Customer Reviews

What A President Should Know: An Insider's View on How to Succeed in the Oval Office

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I loved this book. It helped me understand why some of the most complicated issues facing are nation (i.e. health care, education, taxes, terrorism), are so complicated and why many presidents don't have the political guts to get to the core of these issues. Lindsey does not make a list of people to condemn. He is favorable to Bush which is fine with me--(Bush hasn't been the sole source of all our troubles these last 8 years.)--but he doesn't set him up like a God either. I like this book better than other books of a political nature because it was not a smeer of current politicians. It was more like--'here's the big problems, here is why no one else has wanted to deal with them, here are some things you could do, but either way it's going to be rough on you'.

I tried going into this book with an open mind. The fact that I believe George Bush is the worst president of all time aside, Lindsey & Sumerlin's book is fairly evenhanded with a slant toward republicanism.

This book does not spend much time discussing the current admin but actually spends more time on previous administrations

Lindsey avoids referring to the current president's mistakes so comes off as an apologist by omission. Having said that, there were things that I learned in historical context of the workings of the White House, the economy and politics.

Don't expect an in depth discourse on decision making in the executive branch. It's more like, 'How to be the Prez 101'.

I would still recommend reading it, but get it at the library and spend your money on a different book or music instead.

Lindsey's book is a great disappointment - was hoping for an erudite examination of major economic issues facing the U.S., and instead found sophomoric suggestions such as "Don't" go into war, because it damaged Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Nixon and Bush II politically, and their physical appearance and health, and "if you do go into war, have an exit strategy."

The government's response to 1929 was tax increases, tightened monetary policy, and increased tariffs. Therefore, per Lindsey, we should do the opposite today - even though Bush's last tax cuts were followed by continued decline in the economic status of most Americans, as well as the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs and a resulting negative impact on our security. (Nonetheless, without noting the key relevance, Lindsey also points out that Adam Smith believed free trade was not justified when it damaged national security. He seems to think that overvaluing the Chinese currency is the only problem - failing to realize that they have millions willing to work at 10% or so of American wages, thus severely limiting how far the yuan would rise. Further, raising the value of the yuan would decrease foreign investment in China (vs. Vietnam, etc.), lead to unrest due to job losses in China, and require exchange rate losses on the hundreds of billions of U.S. debt they already hold.

Health care, education, and energy are identified as major problems. Lindsey's analyses, however, are of no value. He sees health-care as trapped between increased rationing and an increased share of GNP (ignoring substantial opportunities for savings through a single-payer system and a strong focus on eliminating the nearly 50% spent on ineffectual/harmful treatments, per experts). After summarizing recent "achievements" in education (higher expenditures with little/nothing to show for it), he leaves the topic without any recommendation (How about maximizing parental and pupil involvement such as is done in Asia?). Next, he dances around both energy and environment policy without considering conservation.

As for Bush's tax cuts, Lindsey ignores the disparate impact issue and simply "proves" their effect by noting that the economy grew after their impact. That logic (assuming causation via correlation) has long been derided as of little/no value by researchers.

The only useful "takeaway" from this book is his pointing out that by the time a significant proposal gets to the Oval Office, the presenter (eg. from the National Security Council, National Economic Council, etc.) is greatly outnumbered by others without any detailed knowledge of the topic - mostly persuaders (lobbyists) and long-time loyalists (sycophants). Hardly a recipe for good policy-making.

I had high expectations for this book because of Lindsay's history in the White House. However, his depiction of what a future president should know was extremely boring and redundant. I would not recommend this book to anybody.