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Rating: 
Summary: Awful
Review: Do yourself a favor and avoid this book. Mr. Judis fails miserably to explain why political cynicism seems to be at an all-time high. A devout leftist, Judis relies upon formulaic left wing claptrap to support his thesis that high minded elitists are no longer looking out for the interest of working people, but rather their own self interest. He somehow manages to strech out liberal 'bumper sticker' philosophy for 306 pages, most of it mind numbingly innane. This book is an utter failure, particularly given that his book on WF Buckley was surprisingly neutral and honest. This is the type of drivel you would expect to see from some nutjob writing for Mother Jones, not the New Republic. What a shame.
Rating: 
Summary: A cogent explanation of how we got here...
Review: Judis is particularly smart about the 1970s, which he characterizes as a moment of conservative and corporate backlash. He suggests that if you follow the money, and the think-tanks, you can see (in part) how and why the right was able to triumph politically in a degraded public sphere once we got to the 1980s and 1990s. The name of the game for them has been propaganda--"Trust us, Mr. Working Man, welfare cheats are what ail you. That and capital gains taxes that are too high."--and they've done it well. Hell, with all the Scaife, Olin, Cato, Heritage, AEI, and CEI doublespeak and disinformation spewed out over the course of the last 3 decades, it's a wonder any of us have any sense left at all. Hopefully, with the eruption of a new corporate scandal every other day in 2002 (nearly all of which have links to the "screw-the-poor-and-the-middle-class / but-fatten-the-rich-and-the-corporations" Bush-Cheney Administration) people are finally beginning to wise up...
Rating:
Summary: very informative
Review: The most compelling theme of this book to me was its historical explanation of why there seems to be no informed/reasoned middle ground in politics today, which is something I find particularly mystifying and frustrating. The history and mechanics Judis describes of how disinterested elites have disappeared while letterhead advocacy groups have become rampant is very plausible, especially with the numerous detailed examples he cites.The book might lose a little gas after the Reagan years, but I thought that was OK since Clinton+ has been dissected a million different ways and I wasn't looking for another take on that. The book also serves as a valuable field guide to policy groups of different stripes. If you are a little fuzzy on the difference between the Heritage Foundation and the Brookings Institute (as I admit I was), then that's a big part of the problem Judis is describing.
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