A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency
by Glenn Greenwald
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Book Summary Information
Author: Glenn GreenwaldEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-08
ISBN: 0307354288
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Book Reviews of A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency
Book Review: An interesting, if repetitive, polemic
Summary: 4 Stars
Mr. Greenwald has introduced to the political lexicon a new word - "Manichean". I notice that even the main line press have taken it up. As far as I know, this is actually not correct usage; the Manichean heresy believed that the forces of Light and Dark, Good and Evil were in balance in the universe and the world, as opposed to the Christian belief that God was all-powerful and that his triumph is assured at a time and place of his choosing. Its most famous manifestation was found in the Cathars of the Languedoc in mediaeval southern France, annihilated in a Crusade of unparalleled ferocity. I'm sure that, as a Christian believer, Mr. Bush is not really Manichean.
What Mr.Greenwald really means is that Mr. Bush sees things in stark black and white, with himself as white. There are no subtle shades of grey. If you're not with him, you're against him. This is the view of the fanatic, be s/he religious or political. These are terrifying creatures, completely blind to reason and logic, determined only to force their view on others. In this, George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden are well-matched.
However, it is frankly terrifying that such a person can be President of the USA, the world's only superpower and possessor of its mightiest arsenal. It's like letting children with a box of matches loose in a fireworks factory. But then, the USA is a religious country, the official religion being the USA itself, a belief in its essential goodness and rightness and its destiny to spread this to other less enlightened places, whether they like it or not. Mr. Bush, a not very bright scion of East Coast privilege who got religion, has, in the aftermath of the 9/11 atrocity, used this official religion to take the USA down a perilous road to aggressive war on a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and to threaten to go to war with another. Saddam Hussein was indeed a most unpleasant individual, but then so are many of the US's current allies. And by removing Saddam, the Arab world's counterweight to non-Arab, nearly 100% Shi'ite Iran, Bush strengthened Iran enormously and enriched it at the same time with high oil prices. Not bad going.
Mr. Greenwald makes his case in vast, indeed overwhelming, detail and he lays it on thick and fast. He makes it again and again - and again and again and again. Sometimes one feels like crying, "Enough! No more!" as example succeeds example, each more outrageous than the last. While this is all very well for committed Bush bashers, some of us would prefer a more measured discourse, such as, where does the US go from here? But of course Mr. Greenwald appears to be at heart a polemicist, a Democratic version of the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the Republican side, but being somewhat of an improvement over their 100% fact-free vituperative ravings.
Can facts, measured debate and mature reasoning win in the USA against soundbites and rabble-rousing? I'd like to think so. As things currently stand, the USA represents the greatest danger to world peace on the planet. We can only hope that the US electorate comes to its senses in November and votes out the catastrophe called the Republican Party, and that the Party spends a long time in the wilderness recovering from its self-inflicted wounds and learning how to be sensible again. The tragedy of the Bush years is that the Republican Party has turned from a responsible party to a collection of assorted loonies. I wish it a speedy recovery, so that it can again become the party of that greatest of US Presidents, Abraham Lincoln.
Summary of A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency
The first true character study of a lost president and his disastrous legacyIn this fascinating, timely book, Glenn Greenwald examines the Bush presidency and its long-term effect on the nation, charting the rise and steep fall of the current administration, dissecting the rhetoric, and revealing the faulty ideals upon which George W. Bush built his policies. Enlightening and eye-opening, this is a powerful look at the man whose incapability and cowboy logic have left America at risk.
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