Utter Incompetents: Ego and Ideology in the Age of Bush

Oliphant hits the nail on the head. To say I'm not a Bush supporter is an understatement. Now I more clearly understand why. Bush supporters will hold this book in disdain precisely it is so true. For all of "W's" failings it would be charitable to have pity on him. And also on our nation for having him as our president. Oliphant mentions that Bush reads 100 books a year. I'm suprised he can color that fast. This is a frightening, but revealing read.

Oliphant was challenged to find an explanation of how one administration could goof with such astonishing regularity - in natural disasters, wars, taxes, energy, health care, and Social Security. Reviewing 16 topics, Oliphant saw patterns of ignored pitfalls, hubris and arrogance, excessive emphasis on short-term politics, ideology, and cronyism. Bush is at his worst when his policies are patently absurd and become the subject of jokes. Bush's health care proposals provide an example - his tax credits and deductions sound good, but do nothing for those of low income - not only do they not pay enough taxes to benefit adequately to cover their health care costs, even if they did there still is the problem of needing the money up front, not long after the fact the following April 15. The Bush administration continually cites statistics to "prove" that the economy is booming. On the other hand, a study found that the typical U.S. family is nearly $550/month behind where it was in 2000 after taking into account changes in income, housing, health insurance, and gasoline. (Increased food, preschool, and college costs make things even worse.) Meanwhile, Bush Inc. tries to cover things up by directing official comparisons be based on the end of the last recession, instead of when he took office. Energy provides another important topic. An early Bush tactic was to oppose states breaking energy contracts provably negotiated with fraudulent terms, support Enron's derivative contracts, place great priority on developing Alaska's North Slope (despite studies showing it would have minimal impact), support new subsidies for energy companies - despite their earning record profits, and ignoring the potential for conservation. Other topics examined include decision-making to invade Iraq, management of the occupation of Iraq, the Katrina management disaster, failure to take terrorism warnings seriously prior to 9/11, refusal to dialogue with other mid-East nations, and of course, the Justice Dept. under A.G. Gonzales. Provides a good summary (to-date) of Bush's failings and inept style.

You might suppose from the title that this is just another book bashing the Bush administration and not worth the time or money when there are so many others to choose from, but while the catastrophes in foreign policy and the war in iraq are now well documented by convincing books, Oliphant is not content to retrace now well worn trails. He brings new information and background to the entire range of Bush administration incompetence--health care, environment, education, etc. This is important to do since voices in Congress are mostly silent on these issues and newspapers with only a few exceptions have been far too restrained in their assessments. What you end up with here is an appreciation for the abysmal failures of this administration even to achieve its own goals because it is forever substituting short term public relations gimmicks for long term solutions. The full dimension of the Bush disaster becomes much clearer is this well written and carefully argued record.

I consider this book to be extremely important in addition to being extremely well written. I didn't think I had any illusions about the Bush administration before I read this book. I thought I had a fairly good idea of just how incopentent they've been but it turns out I'd been giving them too much credit. This book presents a well written, accurate, and devastating picture of an administration who has done great harm to our country on many fronts (economic, military, strategic, civil...). In the world of books about politics I'm a bit of a junkie. I have an incredible weakness for good political commentary. This book is one of the most important I've read in awhile....others are: "Fiasco", "The Greatest Story Ever Sold", and "State of Denial".