Boston Globe
correspondent Oliphant (Praying for Gil Hodges
) ably rises to the task of supplying another in a long line of very similar books detailing the perfidy of George W. Bush and his administration. Oliphant includes the testimony of disgruntled former insiders such as John DiIulio, the first director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and the first senior Bush adviser to resign, as he recounts the Bush team's hyperpoliticized approach to policy formation and unwillingness to consider information conflicting with their worldview. Saying “American history contains few examples of such a pervasive, systemic, persistent record of blunders by a national administration, much less an equally persistent record of a myopic refusal to face the facts,” Oliphant sets out to demonstrate how the first president to hold an M.B.A. has managed to bungle nearly every issue he has touched, from Terry Schiavo to the war in Iraq. Though neither flashy nor particularly engrossing, this competent narrative will appeal to readers yearning for one more fix of righteous liberal indignation. (Nov.)
