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Summary: This is book is a must have for all Dems
Review: This book is a must have for every liberal...He talks about all the mistakes the republicans have made and what we need to do.To win all of our elections as Dems.
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Summary: Great Read for Democrats
Review: This is a well-written and entertaining read for anyone who thinks that Pres Bush is leading our country in the wrong direction. There have been a lot of good books out there, by and for liberals, but this is one that tells us how to solve our problems by taking the right wing machine head on. I recommend this book to anyone, who thinks we can do better and wants to do something about it.
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Summary: Great "How-To-Make-A-Difference" Reading!
Review: Not only will you enjoy Carville's humor and dead-on analysis of the Bush administration, you'll thank him for his useful ideas as to how you can help turn things around.This is a small book, kind of short, actually (or maybe I was just sorry to see it end) but it's long on solid thinking and great ideas.
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Summary: Excellent how-to guide
Review: While recent months have brought a number of excellent books expressing liberal political views and correcting the dishonesty of those on the right, Carville adds practical advice and guidance to help people make a difference. This belongs on your shelf along with the recent titles from Al Franken, Joe Conason, Molly Ivins, David Corn and Alan Colmes. They all show you where the Bush neoconservative agenda is misguided and destructive, but only Carville offers solutions. The others tell us why, Carville shows us how.
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Summary: A True Handbook for the Fed-Up Progressive
Review: Angry? Yes.
Partisan? You bet.
Fascinating? Very.
James Carville has said what progressives across the country seem to be afraid to say - that the policies of the Bush administration are leading America down a destructively gloomy path.
His information is well-researched. Using verifiable facts, he points out the glaring inequities in Bush plans and the bait-and-switch tactics Dubya uses to get his way at the expense of ordinary Americans. For example, he cites a report from the Congressional Budget Office that shows how malpractice awards, long demonized by the Bushies as the reason for spiraling healthcare costs - are actually responsible for less than one percent of cost increases. Bush has used malpractice awards as an attempt to push through tort reform that would leave ordinary citizens with virtually no recourse when they are wronged by doctors or corporations.
The book is peppered with Carville's homespun philosophy and Cajun wisdom and is as entertaining as it is infuriating. conservatives will loathe this book. Progressives will adore it.
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Summary: The Best book for Lefties or righties
Review: I read this book straight through from front to back. It was asbolutely amazing. the Ragin' Cajun makes his points easy to understand and doesn't over-do it with political mumbo jumbo that the regular joe can't understand.
Whether you are a liberal or Neo-con everyone should read it. It brings up valid points with great evidence. By far Carville's best book.
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Summary: I LOVE YOU, JAMES CARVILLE
Review: Like the title of my review says, I love you James, even though I'm probably young enough to be your granddaughter (I just turned 21).
Ever since I've become politically active (I didn't get to vote in the 2000 election), I've watched you on Cable, and you make the points about how horrible this Bushwacker is so clearly and down to earth that even someone new to politics like me can understand the complicated nature of it all. I went to every demonstration and Democratic rally I could down here in Florida. It is sad that it was all for nothing.
This book continues that plain, truthful speech, only in much more detail. I understood the inner workings of politics and the corruption of that by "Dick" Cheney and Carl Rove, the real Co-Presidents of the United States, so much further after reading this book.
This book is a must read for anyone who hates what Bush is doing to us and is still part of the peaceful, but forceful, resistance. The only book I suggest even more is Bill Jabanoski's SCARECROW because it not only explains what James Carville does, it leaves you in tears with its graphic reporting on the cost in REAL human lives that Cheney, Rove, and their frontman Bush have caused and now will keep causing.
Please. I'm 21. I want to have children someday. I want the same chance that those of you who are older than me had, until four years ago, to live my life in a Free country that doesn't treat justice like it's a joke, deliberately destroys the environment, and can't wait for the next war. Please. Read this book and Jabanoski's. Please don't stop resisting.
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Summary: A must read for any democrat, independent, or undecided.
Review: It's amazing how most of the bad reviews of this book are an attack on James Carville's character rather than the contents of the book itself. With that said, this book will is an eye opener on everything that has gone wrong in the past four years. Take a look at the various timelines that describe how Bush blocks funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Take a look at the timeline for all the international treaties we've backed out of and why the NATO countries are not coming to our aid. Carville lays out the problem, the (ineffective) administration's response, and proposes a solution. It's book like this that make me wonder how many American people realize that Kerry voted to for a DIFFERENT bill that would fund the troops by taking back the tax cuts from the richest 2% in the U.S. Why not have the richest 2% fund the soldiers in Iraq instead of the combined lower, middle, and upper classes? Think about this: If you combine the lower and middle classes in the U.S. they outnumber the richest upper class (say the ones that make over $200K a year). Why not offer all these hard workers a tax break and raise taxes for the richest 2%? Carville will inspire this kind of rational thinking while providing great recipes for food at the same time. He will inspire Democrats to take on the Republicans on issues and hopefully inspire readers to look beyond what's covered in the media. None of us have time to watch/record CSPAN 24/7. It's refreshing to have some of the major events summarized for us.
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Summary: A Conservatives opinion
Review: As a conservative I found much to disagree with in this book, however, that doesn't mean it wasn't well written and even entertaining in places. I'll even go so far as to say that I enjoyed reading Carville more than I did Hannity, however, I don't agree with nearly all of the positions of the former and do agree with most of the positions of the later so my rating is based on writing style and information not the policies espoused. I believe that conservatives should read this book and I give it a high recommendation to those that are in positions that a more through knowledge of the other sides positions would be helpful.
Now as to the specifics of the book and the things I liked and disliked.
First, I liked the actual lay out of the book (something of an outline form that stayed consistent issue to issue). And I felt I had a good grasp of how Carville believes the country should be run and why he hates George Bush so much. He actually made reference to lynching Bush, but said he couldn't go that far because "Mary would make me sleep on the couch."
Now I think it's important to understand why liberals hate conservatives like Bush so much because understanding that hatred, to some degree at least, will help those of us that are conservatives to better explain how our positions are superior and actually do a better job of securing those things that we all agree that we want, like strong national security, a strong economy and a clean environment. Yes, conservatives, despite the rhetoric from the left, don't want their kids playing in acid rain or drinking toxic water either. I think conservatives can read this book and actually gain strength in their knowledge that can be used to help defeat the left, which, in my opinion, is currently one of conservative Americas most important challenges.
Secondly I'd like to point out the weaknesses I found here while trying not to get into the position of merely arguing my opinions on the issues, but rather, to point out how Carville has left out factual and important arguments regarding policy that, while perhaps weakening his arguments (and maybe perhaps even totally unfounded) would have made a stronger book. I read this book to see what the other side says, and Carville gave me that, but what he didn't give readers on the left was what we conservatives actually believe, he mostly built straw men to knock down.
Any disagreement on that last issue is fine, but if someone on the left wants to believe that I as a conservative believe something just because of one simple fact that Carville places in his book, and not the hundred of other facts that I also believe, hasn't really done himself much service, but, again, that's fine by me.
The most glaring example of what I'm trying to explain here can be shown in how he deals with the issue of vouchers in the section on education. Carville explains that there is this study that showed that vouchers worked, and tons of conservatives praised the study, etc. Then the study was shown to have a major flaw, it didn't really prove that vouchers worked, so, vis a vi, conservatives are wrong and progressives are right. The problem with this kind of logic is, or should be obvious, even without this study, there are hundreds of examples and dozens of very strong arguments in favor of vouchers. Now, people may disagree to the validity of some or all of those arguments but that's not the point, Carville didn't include them in this book. What he's done here is on the same level of someone saying that since the Yankees lost yesterday they have no chance of winning the series this year.
When discussing tort reform, Carville quotes Bush decrying "frivolous" lawsuits then writes "Of course, by "frivolous lawsuit" he means "any lawsuit." He then goes on to give some examples of important lawsuits that stopped industry abuses and tries to equate the conservative position on tort reform as being the same as if we conservatives want little girls to have their guts sucked out by swimming pool pumps and babies burnt to death from faulty pajamas. This kind of reasoning may be fun to those that like to think of Bush as an evil tyrant, however, as intelligent argument goes, I find it very lacking. I recently read an article about the shortage of ob/gyn doctors because the high cost of insurance makes entering the field less inviting, if Carville wants believe that we conservatives want real malpractice to continue and real victims to be denied relief, that's fine, but his arguments to why he believes this was lacking in my reading of this book. As a side note, he did include a policy position I'm in agreement with regarding doctors, that being that strikes against their records should be public so that the consumer has more knowledge. On that same line of reasoning, Carvilles' strongest points in the book come when he gives into "market" logic and then writes "conservatives can get behind me on this one."
Carville has a chart on taxes that he suggests readers photo copy and pass out the next time they hear someone say taxes are too high in America. Carville is arguing that taxes should be raised across the board because in his clever, but deceptive chart, it shows that America pays, as a percent of GNP, less in taxes than any of the other OECD countries (except for Mexico). Like most of the arguments in this book, we are left to try and figure out all the other information that he leaves out and just trust him that because he says a chart is important, it is. One of the issues he doesn't bring up is that Mexico has high tax rates, but because they have trouble collecting (due to the repressive rate structure), they amount of taxes they actually collect is low, thus placing them below us on his chart. At the top of the chart, of course, are the extremely socialist countries, and if America in general were to support the progressive agenda, there we'd be as well, in short order.
Besides vouchers, tort reform and taxes, Carville takes on a whole host of other issues like social security, national defense, the environment and others and my general feeling is that he handled them in similar fashion to the examples I've given above. He gets across some color in the book, he hates Bush, still defends the Clinton sex scandal and really really hates Ken Starr. Those asides actually made the book more entertaining.
Whether or not one takes the progressive (liberal) side or the conservative side as their starting point, building straw men to knock down doesn't make a stronger argument, it would have been a better book, and more intellectually honest, to try and argue the true and more complete arguments that conservatives use for taking the positions they do.
That said, I urge progressives and liberals to go out and read books written from the right, to see what arguments we actually do put forth in support of vouchers, lower taxes, less government and the like, and I urge conservatives to read this book, it was informative and instructive and I know it has helped make me a stronger conservative.
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Summary: Great recipes, political and otherwise!
Review: After all the many criticisms the Democrats have weathered lately for "opposing Bush but not having a plan of their own," Carville's latest missive is a joy to read. Short and to the point as always, he lays out a generous collection of Bush administration policies whose results have been disastrous for America, explains why they're so disastrous, and offers up plenty of progressive ideas to counter them.
Some of the ideas are over the top and clearly tongue in cheek (although I think levying a tax on SUV owners who don't know how to use a trailer hitch is a wonderful idea!) while others would be called radical in some circles, but that's not a bad place for progressives today to start from. Not so long ago, many of the ideas we're seeing the Republicans trying to put into law today were considered outlandishly radical, but their backers pushed them into the mainstream in part by talking about them seriously for a long time. Progressives could always use a source of such ideas to start from, and here's a good one.
They've got the Wall Street Journal editorial page, we've got James Carville.
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