Rating: 
Summary: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Review: This book is a nonpartisan, good-natured, honest comedic romp -- NOT! This book is precisely what it purports not to be. The book tries to give the reader the impression that it is an balanced and realistic potrait of the President and fails miserably.
If you enjoy political hatchet jobs and dislike Mr. Bush no matter what he does, then this book is for you.I oozes the type of negativity and hate that most Americans would like to see taken out of our political system.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful analysis of Bush and how he used TV to "win"
Review: Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media ecology at NYU, has taken his keen eye for the media and dissected W's run for the presidency. By transcribing the debates with Gore you are able to see how sly and slippery Bush can be when cornered. Read silently to yourself, Bush's words are mixed up and honestly sound like incoherent gibberish. But read aloud they actually seem to make sense and flow together into meaningful thoughts (Ah! The joy of TV). "If you don't tand for anything, you don't stand for anything. If you don't stand for something, you don't stand for anything." - Austin American-Statesmen, November 2, 2000 "Dick Cheney and I do not want this nation to be in a recession. We want anybody who can work to be able to find work." - 60 minutes II, CBS, December 5, 2000 "It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas." - Beaverton, Oregon, September 25, 2000; Slate Actually those still make no sense at all, but for a culture used to "sound bite" news casts and possessing the inability to follow verbal discourse, Bush is the right man. Like his father before him (No New Taxes/A New World Order) the facade will soon wear off and the people will see that they have been fooled...
Rating:
Summary: A revealing expose by a razor-sharp writer
Review: Where Miller could have opted for the easy laughs and compiled a list of Bush's oratory gaffes, appending them with a few pompous put-downs, he has infact used Bush's verbal foul-ups merely as tools with which to support a much deeper and more unsettling observation.
Miller paints a lucid and disturbing picture of 21st century America, where a ubiquitous media culture promotes the dumbing-down of society and scorns intellectualism, instructive debate, creative vision and radical argument. Television, he says, exists solely to entertain, not educate, within safe, predictable parameters. Its agenda reserves no place for florid speech, mental provocation or inspirational ideals; instead, news and advertising are delivered in easily digestable chunks that deem obsolete any input on behalf of the viewer. The viewing masses are assailed with the familiar and the comfortable; advertisers reassure us they have our every whim catered for as long as we keep the cash flowing, and Hollywood celebrity scandals take the edge off any serious issues that might threaten to force us to form opinions or reassess our lives.
Moreover, Miller claims it is this brain-dead media culture that has cushioned Bush's rise to power - a culture that dispensed with intelligent debate and adroit character exposition during the presidential campaign and instead focussed on trivialities such as the candidates' likeability, photogenic profile and ability to keep the viewers from switching channels. It was no wonder, says Miller, that Gore was labelled "elitist" and lambasted for his dry, lengthy dissection of the Dingell/Norwood Bill, while Bush was hoisted onto a pedestal for feigning scorn over the more complex issues and feebly mumbling empty rhetoric like, "I think the administration needs to do what they think is right".
According to the author, it was not necessary, and still isn't, for George Bush to expound on any of his policies in anything approaching legible syntax. Television needs simple soundbites; and incoherent peculiarities such as "I believe what I believe is true" are founded on exactly the same anti-intellectual level that the American media culture has championed. Furthermore, Miller explains, there has been a drastic shift by the big media honchos to the far right of the political spectrum for purposes of self-preservation, ensuring the safety and approval of an administration that protects and defends their massive salaries so proficiently. It is for these reasons that not only does the idiot box manage to blatantly forgive Dubya's indiscretions, lies and deceptions, it actually forgets them.
Miller's final chapter is quite daring in its assertions and yet extremely hard to discredit. In it he puts forward the concept of the GOP's survival requiring the existence of an enemy, real or imagined. During the Cold War this was easily maintained; once the USSR fell so spectacularly, and the Gulf War was wrapped up, the party had to search closer to home, and found an ideal bad guy in the Clinton administration and a smooth-talking president who championed negroes, endorsed the murder of unborn babies and, worst of all, couldn't keep his presidential priapus in check. Having swept into office via a poorly disguised vote-rigging conspiracy and a galling breach of civil rights, the GOP continues to concentrate its energy in painting the Democrats as the true saboteur of US security, unity and moral values. It would be interesting to hear Miller's view on just how much this propaganda has mutated since September 11 threw us a new boogie man to fear in the form of "rogue states" and "terrorist networks".
I urge you to pick up this book and read it right away. Don't be fooled into thinking of it as a snide, cheap swipe at Bush's verbal stumblings, nor a left-wing, elitist rant based on a bad case of sour grapes. It is neither. It is a comprehensive, well-researched and no-holds-barred synopsis of Bush's past and the events that guided him into the Whitehouse, as well as a rich and comprehensive character study. All of Miller's claims and quotes are supported by an extensive reference section, and he has provided a diverse list of publications for further reading as well. On top of this, "The Bush Dyslexicon" is a scathing analysis of the media culture that steers contemporary America, and how its agenda works so symbiotically with George Bush's mindset. Authors and researchers like Miller are vital catalysts to the complacency of the status quo; even moreso in an age where the general media has relinquished its role as a social and political scrutineer in favour of tagging obediently behind the financial doers and makers.
Rating:
Summary: MARK CRISPIN MILLER: THE 21st CENTURY'S THOMAS PAINE!
Review: The mean-spirited snorking of conservatives in response to THE BUSH DYSLEXICON made it a must-read for me. It was a clear signal that Miller might have hit a home run loaded with truth into the rightfield bleachers. I read it and found that he, in fact, hit a grand slam. I strongly urge every American to read it; it should be required reading in every school and university in the nation!
Anyone who recognizes the historical significance of the Constitution, knows how vital that hard-won document is to our individual rights and freedoms, and, most important, knows what is required in and of a leader to respect and protect it in an increasingly complex world, will be alarmed by this insightful analysis of our president's scrambled thinking and utterings. Miller uses W's own words to show that we are, indeed, as was so eloquently put by George I, "in deep doodoo." Individually comical or pathetic, Bushisms in sum reveal a level of ignorance and incompetence that is terrifying. That they come out of the mouth of a 21st century U.S. president, raises serious questions about the viability of our nation. Frontman Bush and the snarling crowd behind him are not only an international embarrassment, they're a distinct threat to democracy and the American way of life. Mark Crispin Miller's treatise is a Thomas Paine-like call to action. Please, read it!
Rating:
Summary: The Bush Family Dynasty
Review: Miller, who was trained as a scholar of renaissance texts, turns
his skillful interpretive attention toward our current president
and his family. The author of this book does not believe that Bush is stupid. Rather, Bush is a political animal driven by a keen sense of his own entitlement and, paradoxically, a Nixon-like resentment of anyone who would stand in the way of the Royal Bush Dynasty. Miller makes a persuasive case for the idea that Bush believes the rules (from the rules of grammar to the rules of conduct)apply to ordinary people, but not to himself.
Bush, Miller shows us, has a sense of humor and can be quite funny, but his humor has a nasty edge. Miller ably and amply documents the Bush family inability to comprehend the lives and concerns of average people. Their instincts are utterly anti-democratic. Having said this, Miller is no partisan flack. He points out, for example, that the press was unfair to George H. W. Bush after the grocery store product-scanner incident. Newspaper and television reporters distorted what actually took place to make Bush Sr. look out of touch. And speaking of media, Miller spends a good deal of time talking about the free ride Bush got from the media (particularly television) during the election campaign. He also gives us examples of how Bush handled himself on TV and managed always to deflect questions about his personal life. Miller also quotes many other books, including FAVORITE SON, the book St. Martins suppressed (later brought out by a small New York publisher)after the Bush political machine successfully attacked the character of the author. One of the more interesting revelations of the BUSH DYSLEXICON is the resentment of the Kennedy family felt so strongly by Bush and his dad. Bush the father was a Nixon loyalist, and resented the smoothness and celebrity of the Kennedy clan. Everything in this book is well documented. I have only scratched the surface of this readable, entertaining and informative book. After you read this, you will never hear the outlandish, cliche-ridden locutions of our president in quite the same way again.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad writing for all the right reasons.
Review: This book is light fare. But, to reject it entirely for focusing on such a narrow topic is unfair. The truth is, these little morsels of strewn thought from Bush, are all that most of us have to judge him on. He has virtually no political background to access primarily because he has no background. To tell me that the man is not who appears, that he's smarter than this, more experienced than this...I'll need to see proof of that to be convinced.As for now we'll have to settle for the suspiciously thin resume of a man and his WORDS.
Rating:
Summary: Comments on Meaning from the Tower of Meaninglessness
Review: Mark Miller is a professor of "Media Ecology." This is a field concerned with the analysis of the site of contact between media, technology, and the individual, etc etc etc. Thank goodness we have people tackling such critical issues. And to think that some people feel there is a problem with higher education in this country! There comes a point when analysis drills to such an atomic level that the analyst loses sight of the essence of that being studied. Focusing on the Bush "Dyslexicon" (it's heresy when Bush invents words, but when Miller does so he's being clever) is just another example of academe's drift from reality. These are times for serious men who bring wisdom to bear on difficult problems. Bush's brilliance is seen in his handling of our nation since 9/11. Evidently, he is able to get his lucid point across to those in his charge as well as the majority of Americans. Not in recent history has a president managed to impart on his branch such a comprehensive understanding and acceptance of his philosophy and vision. Perhaps the Bush Dyslexicon is a problem with the listener rather than the speaker.
Rating:
Summary: A Waste of Time and Money
Review: I trully enjoyed previous works by Miller, especially BOXED IN: THE CULTURE OF TV But his latesr THE BUSH DYSLEXICON can be, at best, described as a disorganized and illogical smearing of a politician Miller does not approve of. Save your money.
Rating:
Summary: A shortcut to thinking
Review: As an English professor I am always entertained by malapropisms and mixed metaphors. I enjoy the language and all of its misuses. However, I did not find this book at all entertaining, but rather, bitter, small-minded and for lack of a better word, bitchy. As I tell my students, thoughtful criticism is an art, but bias is a shortcut to thinking. From my examination, bias is all this book comprises. Anyone can tear down; anyone can sneer because they don't approve of a political party, or for that matter, race, religion, orientation, or "dyslexia". There is nothing insightful or clever here. Pass on this one.
Rating:
Summary: Though funny, this book is no joke
Review: The Bush Dyslexicon is refreshing and informative. Not only does the book review George W.'s own words - which I appreciated having not been interested in watching him on T.V. - but also replaces the President in the political and economic machine that put him up. So, though funny, this book is no joke. [...]. As America rallies against 'terrorism' - with a war cry that sounds hauntingly more and more fascist as it grows - it seems important for our President to know that the people of Pakistan are known as 'Pakistanis' not 'Pakis'. Will anyone and anything that we do not understand or that does not agree with the administration become suspect as 'terrorist'? Put me on the black list now, because I am certainly not one of the President's men, or women. Ordinary people, Republican, Democrat, the poor, the working class, the small business people who know their communities, we are all getting duped. During war time, more than ever, Americans should be staying aware and keeping our govt. accountable. While we are busy being frightened into silence or into regurgitation of what we're fed by the mainstream media and the administration, we are selling the very freedom we think they are protecting for us. We, the People, are free by our own right, by the freedom given us by our Creator or by our birth if you don't go for my faith, not by the scraps that trickle down to us from the all mighty President. Thank you Mr. Miller, for reminding us that the President is not God, and for warning us that he is not even a kind and honorable man.
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