Rating: 
Summary: You Get what the Crooked Pay For
Review: Well, here we are in 2005
Freedom of speech is barely alive.
Making his mark
While most the world shudders
We sit here silenced for fear of what's uttered.
We tried to vote and save the day,
But that is not the Diebold way.
Rating:
Summary: Prophetic and Devastating
Review: I just bought this book because I thought it would have some funny Texas Bushisms. However, this book was written by Paul Begala (cohost of CNNs Crossfire) about why Bush should not be elected as President in 2000. This insightful book gives details on how Texas's surplus was pandered, a 125 year ban on concealed weapons was overturned (people are even allowed to bring weapons into churches!!) and public school funding was cut, tax cuts to the rich were given and many other things happened where the people of Texas suffered and rich people get very happy. Begala predicted all these same catastrophic events would happen if Bush was elected President. Now it takes guts to have all these assumptions of Bush before he became President in 2000 and Begala did. But what is even more devastating is that every single thing that Begala thought would happen - did!
I wish this was just a horror novel, but unfortunately, it is all non-fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Biased, but fun
Review: Begala's tone is often disparaging and nasty, but it doesn't seem all that bad when you consider who's occupying the White House.
I gave it four stars because I want to see Bush make for Texas as much as Begala does.
Rating: 
Summary: Irony
Review: I haven't read this book, as I just happened to be perusing books about Dubya and came across it (pardon the 3-star rating; I had to give it a rating in order to do a review). I do like to read the Reader Reviews, though, just to get an idea about the books I'm looking at. I just have to comment on the hysterical irony of the review by Gillian B. (Jan. 5, 2004), who, while enjoying a book that supposedly illuminates Dubya's intellectual inferiority, writes words like "anyways" and mispells "believes" as beleives". Maybe some of those who like to laugh and point fingers at Bush for his numerous faux pas (and he does make them, no doubt about it) should learn to write half-intelligently before attempting scathing reviews...? Or, if they can't manage that, simply admit that everyone makes mistakes and a liberal idiot is just as funny as a conservative one. Just food for thought.
Rating:
Summary: The Main Point
Review: We like to poke fun at those in public office, its an American tradition to make sure those who we elected don't respond to the bluster of their office. George W. Bush has a rather extraordinary resume: Yale undergraduate degree, Harvard MBA, military fighter pilot (F102 driver) a cocktail of brains and brawn that sends the fatuous left into conniptions. Indeed this Christian seems to have been placed onto the earth to drive liberals bonkers, none of them can even keep up with him. Can you think of anyone who achieved Yale-Harvard-Figher pilot credentials? I can�t. Mostly the book is the typical Left-over misrepresentation of W, making fun of his poor verbal skills, noted, and ignoring his strong foreign policy skills. Indeed after 9/11 he persuaded 40 countries to join us in Afghanistan and all without the UN involvement. When Congress directed him to invaded Iraq he put together a coalition of 31 countries to do so without the United Nations. In 1991 the United Nations could gather only 29 for the same task. The fun title of the book is a claim, without a tape recording of course, that W used the wrong tense in a simple sentence. Obviously unlikely, and just as obviously a bitter attempt by the Left-overs to slight a sitting American President that has disassembled their world view.
Rating:
Summary: Biased but Good
Review: While Begala is certainly biased against Bush, the book is based in solid facts, whose sources Begala carefully annotates. This book makes a few things abominably clear: Bush has made many mistakes, as a student and as a businessman, and yet he has always advanced anyways, largely due to his family's wealth and power. The label of "Compassionate Conservative" is nothing more than a campaign gloss. Bush's tax plan saved the wealthiest one percent an extra $46,000 per year, while the bottom twenty percent got a whopping $42 (that's per year too, if you can't beleive your eyes). Where is the compassion in that? Or in laughing when asked about death penalty cases? Whatever the topic, Begala makes it clear that Bush doesn't really care about the poor and needy, at least when it comes to politics. He follows wherever the big money lures him.
The chapters are a short, easily readable length; the book makes for light and easy reading-- although at some points the more liberal minded may want to cry. Each chapter starts out with several quotes from W about the topic, many duplicates of the ones which appear in the Bushisms. The parenthetical comments (It's _____________, Governor, Karl Rove will explain it to you.) are hysterical. A simultaneously funny and sobering book, it is well worth the read.
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