Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This latest offering from renowned journalist Ron Suskind, "The One Percent Doctrine", proves the wisdom of the old adage regarding truth being stranger than fiction. At the same time it also serves up a number of egregious examples of just how far reaching the terrible recklessness and near total disregard for truth and law in the fateful decisions made by the Bush administration in the three year wake of the events of 911 has been for the nation and the world at large. At heart, Suskind contends, is an absurd Cheny perception that even a "one percent' probability of a terrorist attack requires immediate pre-emptive action. Given such a fascistic and dangerous interpretation of America's presumptive place in the contemporary world, it is no wonder we have gone so recklessly far astray. Indeed, it appears as though in making the world `safe from terrorism,' we seem to be have been willing to suspend any critical oversight of the Executive branch, to allow the current administration make a mockery of the supposed restraints existing among the several branches of the federal government, and to do so by so taking the U.S. Constitution on a plunge so deep into the depths of the icy blue waters of obfuscation and circular logic that one wonders if the Founding Fathers have the bends. Under the current circumstances, one has to wonder if the federal government is this free to so prevaricate, engage in character assassinations, withhold truth and important facts, and do whatever it deems prudent in the pursuit of its goals, regardless of its legality or illegality, then just what kind of constitutional republic we really have operating here. One that perhaps bears an uncanny resemblance to the early days of the Third Reich, when Hitler used similar arguments to shout down his opponents and subvert the laws, one by one. Sadly enough, like then, these days almost no rises to shout back in vocal defiance of this transparently solipsistic view of the separation of constitutional powers or the excesses of Executive action. According to Suskind, there is overwhelming proof that those at the highest levels of the food chain within the insular Bush White House, including both Vice President Dick Cheney as well as the President himself, consciously and deliberately used the events of 911 as a screen to pursue preconceived goals, many of which, like Iraq, were actually virtually unrelated to the events surrounding 911, and that the pursuit of Saddam Hussein in particular was seen as constituting an opportunity to create an example of how the new America of the neoconservative right would deal with tyrants and enemies they found along the way toward the new American hegemony they lusted after. Now, firmly ensconced in the quicksand of Iraq (one dare not call it a quagmire!), these morons continue to recklessly shed American blood as they learn, with what has become painfully monotonous regularity, the limits of American power in a complex, multifacted world. What is most frightening about Suskind's offering is the level of detail and example he provides to go over what many consider to be familiar territory already covered by Richard Clarke, Seymour Hersch, and a pursuing posse of notable others. Yes, indeed, the Bush team glossed over truths, disregarded inconvenient facts, disjointed other technical information to make it fit their preposterous cover stories, and honed the art of secrecy to a new cult of fascistic insistence that those who questioned their methods, arguments, or goals, were "unpatriotic" and are therefore somehow, unlike themselves, "unworthy to lead". They concocted a witch's brew of cover stories and different takes, employing a marketing and advertising firm to float various stories to the media in an attempt to determine which struck the most responsive chord. They pressured Western Union and First Data Corporation into providing information covered by existing privacy laws, they held American citizens like Jose Padilla without charges for years without providing him any of the due process rights guaranteed by law. When the Supreme Court overturned this interpretation of Bush's right to do so by virtue of his status as Commander In Chief, the Justice Department found other questionable means to get their way. Indeed, the nation of laws is under assault by an administration that only knows what it wants and will do anything it needs to effect the outcome it desires. In the last six years they have effectively gutted the environmental regulations constraining corporate rape of the national parks, have blunted consumer protection, emasculated the EPA, EEOC, and FDA, and have looted the federal treasury to the tune of nine trillion dollars, all subsidized, at least temporarily, by foreign investment. In the end, however, those left to pay the bill will be those taxpayers not benefiting from the overly-generous tax cuts proffered like booty and tribute by the neo-conservatives to the upper reaches of the socioeconomic ladder. It makes the mind reel. The saddest aspect of the book is the picture it paints of the principals; Mr. Tenet, a man all too willing to do anything he had to in order to both placate the President and please his constituency within the spy community; Ms. Rice, who plays fast and loose with honor and truth in service to the President's half-baked goals, Vice President Cheney, who looks more and more like the evil sorcerer, and the feckless George W. Bush, who seems to have mastered the Texas strut even while failing miserably to abide by the constitutional constraints incumbent in the office of the Presidency, and who in this account appears to be allotted the uneviable role of the sorcerer's apprentice. This is a great book, and one I can heartily endorse. Enjoy!