In recent months, there have been three especially informative bestsellers regarding the current White House and president Trump. Each book is written by an accomplished journalist, but with somewhat different angles of focus and very different insights.
Some will accuse me of being tacky and promoting the other two books. Frankly, that is not my purpose. I have no financial stake in any books being sold on Amazon or elsewhere – at least not unless or until I publish my own book. So, be that as it may, the three books currently available are:
1 - The gossip columnist Michael Wolff with his salacious and alarming expose “Fire and Fury.”
2 – Bob Woodward’s inside story alarming us all, “Fear.”
3 – Michael Lewis’s cerebral, studied, insight that should alarm us all more than the above two, “The Fifth Risk.”
Of the three, I suspect “The Fifth Risk” will enjoy the shortest time on the bestseller list. Arguably, though, it is the least partisan, sharpest insight into lessons that should be learned by observing the disarray and dysfunction inside the havoc that is the Trump White House.
If President Trump read only the first 25 pages, with an open mind, I believe he actually would try to turn things around. Even as much as I despise his presidency on his worst days, I recognize he DOES have a sharp insight and DOES have the POTENTIAL to become a GREAT leader, if only…
Just as another reviewer stated, I served in the Navy. Ten years. Made E-6 (first class petty officer) and departed just before Mr. Carter got trounced by Mr. Reagan.
POV: Third person.
BLUSH FACTOR: Profanities are numerous, especially in quotes of the president. I appreciate the honest of such reporting. When I was a correspondent in 1990, I wanted to accurately quote the incumbent republican congressman who utilized family values as one of his key pillars, but, the Oregon newspaper would not permit me the privilege. Of course, f-words in a community newspaper are frowned upon…
THE WRITING: Straight-forward but not in a ‘just-the-facts’ manner. Glance at the excerpt below to see why I enjoyed reading this nonfiction account of the Trump White House, and why I am just as worried that our nation could be stepping onto the slippery slope towards, one day in the distant future, Failed State status.
BONUS: As you read the early chapters you will learn of an unsung hero working to improve the functioning of government and improving the lives of us all: Max Stier. I learned a great deal of encouraging deeds by our federal employees that I’d not previously heard a thing about. It also provides insight into mistakes or oversights of the Obama Administration.
Excerpt
‘…On his visits to the White House soon after the election, Jared Kushner expressed surprise that so much of its staff seemed to be leaving. “It was like he thought it was a corporate acquisition or something,” says an Obama White House staffer. “He thought everyone just stayed.”
Even in normal times the people who take over the United States government can be surprisingly ignorant about it. As a longtime career civil servant in the Department of Energy who has watched four different administrations show up to try to run the place put it, “You always have the issue of maybe they don’t understand what the department does.” To address that problem, a year before he left office, Barack Obama had instructed a lot of knowledgeable people across his administration, including fifty or so inside the DOE, to gather the knowledge that his successor would need in order to understand the government he or she was taking charge of. The Bush administration had done the same for Obama, and Obama had been grateful for their efforts. He told his staff that their goal should be to ensure an even smoother transfer of power than the Bush people had achieved.
That had proved to be a huge undertaking. Thousands of people inside the federal government had spent the better part of a year drawing a vivid picture of it for the benefit of the new administration. The United States government might be the most complicated organization on the face of the earth. Its two million federal employees take orders from four thousand political appointees. Dysfunction is baked into the structure of the thing: the subordinates know that their bosses will be replaced every four or eight years, and that the direction of their enterprises might change overnight—with an election or a war or some other political event. Still, many of the problems our government grapples with aren’t particularly ideological, and the Obama people tried to keep their political ideology out of the briefings. “You don’t have to agree with our politics,” as the former senior White House official put it. “You just have to understand how we got here. Zika, for instance. You might disagree with how we approached it. You don’t have to agree. You just have to understand why we approached it that way.”
How to stop a virus, how to take a census, how to determine if some foreign country is seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon or if North Korean missiles can reach Kansas City: these are enduring technical problems. The people appointed by a newly elected president to solve these problems have roughly seventy-five days to learn from their predecessors. After the inauguration, a lot of deeply knowledgeable people will scatter to the four winds and be forbidden, by federal law, from initiating any contact with their replacements. The period between the election and the inauguration has the feel of an AP chemistry class to which half the students have turned up late and are forced to scramble to grab the notes taken by the other half, before the final.
Two weeks after the election, the Obama people inside the DOE read in the newspapers that Trump had created a small “Landing Team.” It was led by, and mostly consisted of, a man named Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, which, upon inspection, proved to be a Washington, DC, propaganda machine funded with millions of dollars from ExxonMobil and Koch Industries. Pyle himself had served as a Koch Industries lobbyist and ran a business on the side writing editorials attacking the DOE’s attempts to reduce the dependence of the American economy on carbon. Pyle said that his role on the Landing Team was “voluntary” and added that he could not disclose who appointed him, due to a confidentiality agreement. The people running the DOE were by then seriously alarmed. “We first learned of Pyle’s appointment on the Monday of Thanksgiving week,” recalls Kevin Knobloch, then DOE chief of staff. “We sent word to him that the secretary and his deputy would…’
Lewis, Michael. The Fifth Risk (pp. 36-39). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
BOTTOM LINE
I got about halfway through the book when I realized its value exceeded “Fire and Fury” and, even, “Fear.” Thus, I stopped reading long enough to order the Audible edition. For me, “The Fifth Risk” may not have the headline-grabbing gossip of “Fire and Fury.” It may not have the inside story of “Fear.” Lewis’s “The Fifth Risk” is the sharpest, most USEFUL insight into how the Trump Administration can be fixed and into the lessons learned we citizens should DEMAND be implemented to repairing our republic. Remember, as shown in this book, not all blame can be attributed to Trump, the republicans, the democrats or even the media. Each of us shares some responsibility.
Five stars out of five.
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Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2018
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Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2018
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Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2018
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Top reviews from other countries
Dr. V. Stewart
The other end of the telescope from Woodward's 'Fear,' and just as disturbing.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 4, 2018Verified Purchase
Thomas A. Regelski
Important reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 28, 2018Verified Purchase
Mwmbwls
The Wake Up Call - "It’s what you fail to imagine which kills you.”
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 13, 2018Verified Purchase
DMH
Not sure we can handle the truth...and I live in the UK!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 4, 2018Verified Purchase
Serghiou Const
Public spirited government departments, neglected or attacked under Trump
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 27, 2018Verified Purchase
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