In the Mailbag
Dean
Recent books:
The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria, a lengthy meditation on what democracy really means in the 21st century and around the world. Bill Ardolino is very anxious for me to read this.
Losing Our Democracy by Mark Green. I'm already a third of the way into this book, and I must admit that I'm mostly finding it painful. I agree with about 50% of its policy recommendations, but am constantly confronted with items of sheer ignorance. For example, Green asks if President Bush ever talked about the need for democracy in Iraq before we took out Saddam. He asks this, rhetorically, and implies that it never happened. Unfortunately for him, it did happen, in multiple Bush speeches in fact. Stupid (dishonest?) errors like that make this book hard to slog through. It provides warm meat for rabid Democratic Party partisans, and good insight for Republicans looking to understand Democratic talking points for the next election. But I'm mostly finding it a chore.
The Out Of Office Countdown from Sourcebooks. A 2007 calendar providing copious (mostly out-of-context) quotes of George W. Bush meant to entertain the "Bush is an idiot" crowd. Those who intensely dislike this President and who think that "Bush is dumb!" is the height of hilarity will love this calendar and draw comfort from it. I find it mostly sophomoric and shallow, but lots of it is funny and I'm sure there are lots of people who'd gladly have it in their work cubicles or kitchen.
