Losing Our Democracy: How Bush, the Far Right and Big Business Are Betraying Americans for Power and Profit

Green (The Book on Bush), president of the New Democracy Project and currently a candidate for New York State attorney general, delivers a ""Democracy Audit"" that takes to task the Bush administration and the right wing of the Republican Party, and though well-documented, his case suffers from staleness. As readers might already suspect, the state of American democracy is grim: the 43rd president has undermined the rule of law and ushered in a ""new authoritarianism"" characterized by corporate malfeasance, religious intolerance, voter intimidation and media ""self censorship."" Politicians, meanwhile, conduct business ""Tony Soprano-style"" and bully lobbyists into hosting fundraisers and hiring staffers. He bolsters his analysis with copious, albeit well-trod, evidence, culminating in 27 examples of Bush's ""deceptions,"" most of them concerning Iraq and domestic anti-terrorism tactics. But Green's remedies to ""save democracy"" aren't new or innovative, and range from the practical (elections should be held on Saturday) to the obvious (""Presidents should obey the law""). Green mostly spares his audience the gutter-sniping that sometimes passes for political analysis, but while Bush detractors will relish this well-crafted indictment, others may find their attention wandering mid-way through these familiar charges.