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Penguin Press HC, The
Author : Barton Gellman Publisher : Penguin Press HC, The Manufacturer : Penguin Press HC, The
Description
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman’s newsbreaking investigative journalism documents how Vice President Dick Cheney redefined the role of the American vice presidency, assuming unprecedented responsibilities and making it a post of historic power.
Dick Cheney changed history, defining his times and shaping a White House as no vice president has before— yet concealing most of his work from public view. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman parts the curtains of secrecy to show how Cheney operated, why, and what he wrought.
Angler, Gellman’s embargoed and highly explosive book, is a work of careful, concrete, and original reporting backed by hundreds of interviews with close Cheney allies as well as rivals, many speaking candidly on the record for the first time. On the signature issues of war and peace, Angler takes readers behind the scenes as Cheney maneuvers for dominance on what he calls the iron issues from Iraq, Iran, and North Korea to executive supremacy, interrogation of Al Qaeda suspects, and domestic espionage. Gellman explores the behind-the- scenes story of Cheney’s tremendous influence on foreign policy, exposing how he misled the four ranking members of Congress with faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, how he derailed Bush from venturing into Israeli- Palestinian peace talks for nearly five years, and how his policy left North Korea and Iran free to make major advances in their nuclear programs.
Domestically, Gellman details Cheney’s role as “super Chief of Staff ”, enforcer of conservative orthodoxy; gatekeeper of Supreme Court nominees; referee of Cabinet turf; editor of tax and budget laws; and regulator in chief of the administration’s environment policy. We watch as Cheney, the ultimate Washington insider, leverages his influence within the Bush administration in order to implement his policy goals. Gellman’s discoveries will surprise even the most astute students of political science.
Above all, Angler is a study of the inner workings of the Bush administration and the vice president’s central role as the administration’s canniest power player. Gellman exposes the mechanics of Cheney’s largely successful post-September 11 campaign to win unchecked power for the commander in chief, and reflects upon, and perhaps changes, the legacy that Cheney—and the Bush administration as a whole—will leave as they exit office.
Customer reviews for 'Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency'
«Timely reading.»
This was a gift and so I can't comment on the book. Delivery, however, was typical Amazon speedy!
[Friday, November 28, 2008]
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«Second Draft of History»
If journalism is the first draft of history, telling us generally what has happened, the second draft should be able to tell us more specifically what made it happen and why. Barton Gellman "Angler" is outstanding in this sense, describing in detail how and why the tumultuous last eight years were to such a large extent the product of something never before seen in America, a Presidency weakened by the President's choice to delegate his authority to his Vice President.
Many readers will find it odd that the matter is put this way. Gellman makes clear Cheney's deeply held belief in the primacy of Presidential power in the American system, and his determination to assert that primacy over competing claims from the Congress, the judiciary, and the Cabinet departments. Yet what Gellman illustrates for the first time is how Cheney's belief could not have been implemented had he served under any other President in our history. Bush ceded to Cheney authority to review every paper Bush saw while allowing Cheney to keep his own office's paperwork secret; it was Cheney's legal counsel, David Addington, not Bush's lawyers or his Justice Department, who directed the legal response to terrorism after 9/11; Cabinet departments who had gone directly to the President to resolve major differences over policy and budget in other administrations had to work these out with Cheney during Bush's. The strongest claims to expansive Presidential authority by any administration in our history were made on behalf of a President so weak that he allowed the one subordinate he could not fire to exercise Presidential powers without his knowledge.
It's an astonishing tail, testimony not only to George W. Bush's unfitness for high public office but to the badly degraded checks and balances that have long kept excessive concentrations of power in Washington at bay. You won't find names like Obama, Biden, Clinton or Kerry in "Angler"; John McCain only has a bit part. The media is easily manipulated, and only in Bush's second term -- particularly with the departure from the Defense Department of Cheney's former boss Donald Rumsfeld -- do several major foreign policy decisions get made in defiance of Cheney's wishes.
There will be other histories written of the Bush administration. None will be complete without reference to this book.
[Tuesday, November 25, 2008]
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«Darth Vader Made Real»
All I can say is that I'm glad I read this book post the November 4 election rather than before, because this story sent chills up my spine. We all knew that the last eight years was more of a Dick Cheney presidency than that of George Bush, but reading about Cheney's careful and methodical approach to taking us down the darkest of rat holes is truly horrifying. Now knowing how deep in the grip we've been in the hands of a madman surrounded by other madmen it's not surprising that America has lost its way so terribly. Several times I wanted to put this book down but couldn't, because like driving by a car wreck, you can't help but wonder what could have gone so wrong. Hopefully, everyone selected for the incoming Obama administration will read this since it accurately portrays a perfect morality tale of what happens when unchecked power is unleashed in the White House.
Clearly written, chilling, sadly instructive.
[Monday, November 24, 2008]
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