A depressing and infuriating book about the U.S. Congress, this expose by a man who was an aide to three members of the House between 1978 and 1990 shows legislators as vain and self-important, interested only in money and re-election. A Democrat, Jackley began his Hill-rat career in the office of Rep. Thomas Luken of Ohio, whom he depicts as a near-psychotic. He lasted six months, retreated, returned to the Hill in 1981 for a two-year stint with Rep. Jim Mattox of Texas, then joined the staff of Texas Rep. Ronald Coleman, serving as press secretary for seven years. Jackley portrays Coleman as a legislator bored with his job who left the running of his office to his assistants. In his view, very few members of Congress voted on principle; they tried instead to steer a bland middle course as they garnered pay raises and perks and tried to keep the public from finding out about their chicanery. An eye-opener. $75,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Brittle expos‚ of Congress by a former aide to three Democratic congressmen. It's unbelievably nasty on the Hill, says Jackley, who saw the light and left to write this book. According to the author, ``Hill Rats'' (congressional aides) and their employers conspire to lie, steal, cheat, and play games with national policy and finances. Moreover, he says, congressmen are vain and ill-informed, talk dirty, and lavish government money on their offices. But the vicious partisanship that Jackley purports to have left behind seems to run rampant even here. His finger-pointing undermines any sense of considered judgment and suggests that getting even is part of his agenda. Primarily concerned with Democratic perfidy, Jackley ends up offering ammunition to conservatives attacking Congress; and, by default, the Executive and Judicial branches come off well. The author offers no sense of cultural/historical context--the ascendancy of the Executive Branch, the conservative packing of the Supreme Court, the new role of the media. He does occasionally explore a situation in depth (Jim Wright and Texas politics in Washington; election-year shenanigans), but, more often, he simply reels off names, incidents, and accusations in a scattershot flurry of tiny paragraphs tumbling along one after another, helter- skelter. Nor is there any real sense of the man or what inner development led him to abandon his life as a Hill Rat. Jackley remarks of Congressman Ronald Coleman (a former employer) that, after a meeting with President Reagan and several Cabinet members, ``he expressed no sense of history, showed no heightened feelings of gravitas toward great issues.'' The same could be said of the author. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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