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Charlie Savage

Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy Hardcover – September 5, 2007

by Charlie Savage (Author)

4.3 68 ratings

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In 1789, the Founding Fathers came up with a system of checks and balances to keep kingly powers out of the hands of American presidents. But in the 1970s and '80s, a faction of Republican loyalists, outraged by the fall of the imperial presidency after Watergate and the Vietnam War, abandoned conservatives' traditional suspicion of concentrated government power. These men hatched a plot that would allow the White House to return to, or even surpass, the virtually unchecked powers that Richard Nixon had briefly tried to wield. Congress would be defanged, and the commander-in-chief would be able to assert a unilateral dominance both at home and abroad.

Today, this plot is coming to fruition. As Takeover reveals, the Bush-Cheney administration has succeeded in seizing vast powers for the presidency by throwing off many of the restraints placed upon it by Congress, the courts, and the Constitution. This timely book unveils the secret machinations behind the headlines, explaining the links between warrantless wiretapping and the President Bush's Supreme Court nominees, between the torture debate and the secrecy surrounding Vice President Cheney's energy task force, and between the "faith-based initiative" and the holding of US citizens without trial as "enemy combatants." It tells, for the first time, the full story of a hidden agenda three decades in the making, laying out how a group of true believers set out to establish monarchical executive powers that, in the words of one conservative critic, "will lie around like a loaded weapon" ready to be picked up by any future president.

Brilliantly reported and deftly told, Takeover is a searing investigation into how the constitutional balance of our democracy is in danger of being permanently altered. For anyone who cares about America's past, present, and future, it is essential reading.

Print length

416 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Little, Brown and Company
Publication date

September 5, 2007
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

9780316118040
ISBN-13

978-0316118040
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Savage, who won a Pulitzer for his Boston Globe articles about the signing statements George W. Bush used to negate legislation limiting presidential authority, gives that issue a key part in this account of the Bush administration's efforts to increase executive power. Covering constitutional issues as well as the political backgrounds of former White House attorneys like Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo, this detailed report traces their concerted effort, from the moment Bush took office in 2001, to [leave] the presidency in better shape than he [Bush] found it. The authorization to use force against Iraq is only the tip of the iceberg. Bush has already gone so far as to declare himself able to negate treaties with other nations at will, Savage reports. He also demonstrates how many of the administration's most controversial acts have their roots in Dick Cheney's experiences in the Nixon and Ford administrations. This incisive analysis of congressional and judicial efforts to check the administration's power grabs adds up to a searing indictment. (Sept. 5)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Boston Globe reporter Savage begins by detailing Vice President Cheney's extraordinary actions on 9/11, ordering the military to shoot down a civilian aircraft that had apparently been hijacked, without consulting with President Bush. Although the order was never executed, it demonstrated Cheney's command of the administration, which has given him free rein to implement a long-held ambition to shift power in favor of the presidency and to secure that shift for generations to come. Savage recounts the tumultuous history of the power struggle between the executive and legislative branches of government as well as Cheney's own personal history. Cheney served his political apprenticeship in the Nixon administration, famous for its tugs-of-war with Congress over executive privilege, as well as the administrations of Ford, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. In this troubling look at the abuse of power, Savage also details Cheney's involvement in seizing presidential power to authorize wiretapping, torture, and imprisonment of citizens without trial. Bush, Vanessa

Review

"Illuminating and biting." -- Washington Post Book World

"[A] warning emanates loud and clear from a spate of new books on [the Bush-Cheney administration] . . . The best and most comprehensive of the new works is Charlie Savage's TAKEOVER" -- Boston Globe

"...(I)mportant reading for anyone interested in how the current administration has amped up presidential power..." -- The New York Times

"...(S)crupulously researched..." -- Newsweek

"A masterful work of journalism, Savag'es book deserves to be remembered as one of the key texts of the Bush years." -- The San Francisco Chronicle

"Takeover is a gifted reporter's exposition of how and why the Bush administration has conducted itself and of that conduct's disturbing legacy." -- The Los Angeles Times

From the Publisher

Extraordinary Praise from Across the Political Spectrum

"Charlie Savage's Takeover reads like a thriller because it is one: The story of Dick Cheney and his hapless boss pushing the presidency off its constitutional foundation."--John W. Dean, former Nixon White House Counsel and author of Worse than Watergate

"Time was, conservatives relished their role as America's designated worriers about concentrated and unchecked government power, especially in the uniquely potent office of the presidency. As Charlie Savage demonstrates, there are large new reasons for worrying. With meticulous reporting and lucid explanations of audacious theories invented to justify novel presidential powers, Savage identifies a growing, and dangerous, constitutional imbalance."--George F. Will, syndicated columnist

"Until Takeover, no one has pieced together in such readable prose the systematic effort at constitutional revolution pressed by the Bush-Cheney Administration since September 11. You will not put this book down until Savage snaps the last piece of the puzzle into place."--Harold Hongju Koh, Dean, Yale Law School and former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights

"Charlie Savage is one of America's best reporters, and this is an incredibly important book. It's absolutely must reading for anybody who cares about preserving our constitutional system of government and understanding how seriously that system has been threatened."--Mickey Edwards, former Republican Congressman and former national chairman, American Conservative Union

"A sobering and significant assessment of what the Bush-Cheney administration has done to the system of checks and balances so crucial to our constitutional democracy."--Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard Law School

"Every American concerned about the erosion of checks and balances in our constitutional system should read this book--and weep."--Norman J. Ornstein, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute

"A sober warning of the Bush administration's tragic overreaction to the undoubted perils of our troubled age."--Richard A. Epstein, James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law, The University of Chicago Law School and Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution.

About the Author

Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, Charlie Savage covers national legal affairs for The Boston Globe. He has written extensively about President Bush's signing statements and other White House efforts to expand executive power. Originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana, he graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and holds a master's degree from Yale Law School. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, journalist Luiza Ch. Savage, and their son.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0316118044
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown and Company; First Edition (September 5, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780316118040
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316118040
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.54 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,506,343 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,818 in United States National Government
- #1,860 in Democracy (Books)
- #8,938 in Political Science (Books)

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4.3 68 ratings

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Charlie Savage

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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie Savage is a Washington correspondent for the New York Times who focuses on national security and legal policy issues. Originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana, Savage graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and earned a master's degree from Yale Law School as part of a Knight Foundation journalism fellowship. He lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife, Luiza Ch. Savage, the executive director of editorial initiatives for Politico, and their children.

Savage began his reporting career at the Miami Herald in 1999, moved to the Washington bureau of the Boston Globe in 2003, and then to the Washington bureau of the New York Times in 2008. A member of the steering committee for Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Savage has also been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Salzburg Global Seminar. He twice co-taught the Professor Walter I. Giles Endowed Department Seminar in Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties at Georgetown University as adjunct faculty.

Visit his book website and blog at http://www.charliesavage.com

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Gina M. Harris

Still maddening

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 19, 2016

Verified Purchase

Last book read, "Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy" by Charlie Savage.

This is a very angry-making book. It takes all of those news stories that were of concern during the last eight years and sets them into a context. Really, just putting them all together is enough cause for anger, but some of the additional details that did not get much publicity the first time around are also very disturbing. The controversies around torture and wire-tapping were well-known, and the issues in the Justice Department had been getting more publicity recently, but I had not known about the attacks on the JAG corps or Posse Comitatus. Even with torture, I knew the basic controversy, and the common assertion that it doesn't work, but this gives the background on the history of the techniques and how they were developed, as well as some of the fall out from the faulty information that came through enhanced interrogation techniques.

While I feel the information is vital, and accurate, I must warn that it is not as accessible as it could me. The book is long, with dense prose and tons of detail that can be a bit overwhelming. I could have finished it faster than I did, but it still takes serious time regardless. Not a beach read.

I hope to re-read it later, after I have read Schlesinger's original book on the Imperial Presidency, Frank's books on this presidency, and maybe a few others to fill in the gaps, and see if it is an easier read with more background.

2 people found this helpful

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David Block

Warning: Not more than one chapter per day!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 6, 2007

Verified Purchase

As a doctor, I should not allow you to read this book in one sitting lest your cynicism and despair find nothing left to weep about. Nope, I'm not being dramatic. Savage moves inexorably through the past generation of presidents, describing in a horribly clear clinical presentation what is happening to our freedom through the actions of those who have only the best of intentions. Are you listening, Mr Bush? Of course, if we remain good little soldiers in this unfathomable war on Terror, no questions and only gratitude, right? (How better to fight Terror than use Terror? What happened to NOT becoming as our tormentors?) And worst of all, some two-thirds through the book, just when you expect some hero to arise who will stand up for what we are supposed to believe in - what we were taught to believe in when our teachers told us we were "the leaders of the 21st century" - you realize there is no hero. There are just plain folks, slogging their way through one supposed emergency after another, making policy based on the poorest diagnoses, wondering (if we are lucky and they are honest) if their therapeutic interventions will make democracy safer. (Does Mrs Cheney murmur that to Mr Cheney after each kiss, even after the 6 o'clock news?) Even the best of us - the bright boys and girls who went to the "good" schools - the Yoo's and the Addington's and their buddies - just your usual schlemiehls and schlemozzles, faithful to the war, faithless to each other. Thanks, Mr Savage: you have made the world a better place for your work; no safer, just better, God damn it. Read the book. You must.

12 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Proof positive why George W. Bush will remain the worst President in the modern period

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 20, 2022

Verified Purchase

Yes, even worse than trump.

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John G. Self

A Must-Read Book on the Bush Presidency and W's Grab for Power

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 17, 2009

Verified Purchase

"Takeover" was a "hard" read. Not because it was poorly written or well researched. This book is exceptionally well written and meticulously researched. It was a "hard" read because the devastating revelations in "Takeover" made me so angry with what President George W. Bush and his administration did to our nation and our constitution in the name of national security and less noble causes.

Charlie Savage who worked at The Boston Globe during W's eight years, peels away the layers of political deceit that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove and others perpetuated on our democracy. When you read this book you will learn why President Bush only vetoed two bills in his eight years in office, how Attorney General Ashcroft, vilified by many on the left, actually stood up to the President from his hospital bed and refused to go along with a power grab regarding the warrant-less wiretapping issue, and how this administration consistently used national security issues to scare and distract America to cover up their consolidation of power in the Oval Office.

The book is more devastating when you realize that the power they grabbed for the executive branch will not be returned by other Presidents.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

John Jones

Shocking Expose

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 16, 2009

Verified Purchase

This book will scare you. If you believe Charlie Savage, during the last 8 years the Bush/Cheney administration, behind the veil of secrecy, intentionally orchestrated a subversion of our political system to turn a democracy into an oligarchy, virtually rewriting Presidential mandates to sidestep congressional oversight and flaunted all attempts to check their ravenous appetite for power.

The result of their hubris came close to ruining America's reputation among nations and jeopardized the freedoms of citizens assured by the constitution and the bill of rights. During those years the stage was set which has brought us to the brink of catastrophe. If there was ever an occasion which would justify prosecution of our chief executives it is revealed in this book. A shocking expose! A very sad must read.

5 people found this helpful

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Nick Pusloskie

Politics to the max

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 7, 2013

Verified Purchase

Bought this sometime ago but just getting around to reviewing it. I thought I had done it already.

When people complain about the current President, I just throw this book at them and tell them to read it then get back to me.

The fact that many won't read it tells me more than necessary about them. They think just like the previous administration - nothing was wrong with what they did. And one wonders why there is such a deep divide in this country today.

I could go on, but I won't. This is a slight review of a book and not a political diatribe. But if you have an open mind, then do get this and give it a read.

4 people found this helpful

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