The Strange Death of Republican America or The Way of the Wiseguy

The Strange Death of Republican America: Chronicles of a Collapsing Party

Author: Sidney Blumenthal

Sidney Blumenthal—trenchant analyst, best-selling author, and senior adviser to former President Bill Clinton (and more recently, Hillary)—offers a penetrating journalistic and historical examination of the ongoing collapse of Republicanism. Closely charting the Party’s imploding reputation in America and the world, as well as the potential consequences of George W. Bush’s radical presidency for the 2008 election, The Strange Death of Republican America will be required reading for anyone interested in politics and concerned about the fate of the nation. In these essays and opinion columns written by Blumenthal over the past few years for The Guardian of London and salon.com, along with a new and stimulating introduction, Blumenthal provides a unifying and overarching perspective on the Bush years.
Blumenthal scrutinizes the past and present state of the Republican Party, which he believes portends the incipient demise of their vaunted political machine and the Republican era since the Nixon administration. The issues on the table range from the legacy of Nixon’s imperial presidency and its influence on Dick Cheney to Karl Rove’s failed strategy for political realignment, as well as conflicts within the military and intelligence communities over Bush’s policies, and the underlying political shifts that are demonstrably weakening the once-strong foundations of Republican philosophy and governance.
These essays have the cumulative effect of an irresistible factual and historical tide—a portrait of a party in self-destructive decline that will grab the attention of anyone fascinated by the world of politics.

Aselection of the Progressive Book Club.

Publishers Weekly

In this incisive and timely essay compilation, Blumenthal, a former adviser to both Bill and Hillary Clinton, charts the fatal radicalization of the Republican Party, its imminent "great unraveling" and the consequences for the 2008 election. Blumenthal argues that the presidency of George W. Bush heralds the decline of the Republican Party after 30 years of political dominance, moderating his otherwise passionate indictment of the GOP by acknowledging that power ebbs and flows between the two parties over time. He likens the current shift to the implosion of the Johnson presidency and subsequent weakening of the Democratic Party, saying, "Vietnam ended a Democratic era as definitively as Iraq is closing a Republican one." The consummate Washington insider, Blumenthal has a host of high-ranking (albeit often anonymous) sources, and surprising portraits of power pepper the book: of Bush as "a classic insecure authoritarian" given to imposing "humiliating tests of obedience" on his staff (such as locking Colin Powell out of a cabinet meeting for being late), Laura Bush as deeply disdainful of Rove (allegedly dubbing him "Pigpen"), former Majority Leader Tom DeLay as the "Republican Stalin, the ruthless consolidator and centralizer." Authoritative, meticulously researched, these previously published pieces evade many of the clichés that ensnare partisan political writing and is instead a lively-if deeply sobering-panorama of political life during the Bush presidency. (Apr. 1)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: The Strange Death of Republican America     1
Implosion: From Stephen Colbert's Monologue to Mark Foley's Emails     15
The Fool     17
Coup at the CIA     19
The Nativist Revolt     25
Defeat Through Victory     27
The War Paradigm     32
The Bush Way of War     34
"Mission Accomplished" in a Business Suit     40
Surrealpolitik     42
The Avoiding of the President     50
Judgment Day     52
A Pantomime Presidency     58
The Emperor's New Veto     60
Splitting the Republican Cell     65
Birth Pangs     68
Ring of Fire     70
Axis of Failure     75
Father and Son     79
Remembrance of Things Past     81
The Enabler     86
Dreamland     88
A Radical Temperament     94
Where Torture Got Him     96
In Denial     98
The Bob Woodward Version     102
Instant Messages     108
Queer and Loathing on Capitol Hill     111
The Intervention     113
Rove's Last Campaign     116
Repudiation: From the 2006 Elections to the Baker-Hamilton Report     119
Downfall of the Culture War     121
Realignments     127
Deep Currents     129
All the Father's Men     137
"The business about a graceful exit"     139
The Prime of Ms. Jeane Kirkpatrick     145
The Escalation of Delusion     152
No Time to Heal     157
Washington's Political Cleansing     163
Delusion: From the Trial of I. Lewis Libby to the Testimony of General David Petraeus     169
Contortions of Power     171
Preparing for Failure     176
United States v. I. Lewis Libby: Washington Anthropology     180
United States v. I. Lewis Libby: Closing Arguments     185
United States v. I. Lewis Libby: The Verdict     192
The History Book Club     193
The Assassination of Dick Cheney     197
All Roads Lead to Rove     201
Law and Disorder     207
The Passion of the Judas     212
The Republican Grand Experiment     217
Dances With Wolfowitz     221
Torture Kitsch     225
Spooked     232
Royal Crush      236
Loyalty and Betrayal     238
Wolfowitz's Tomb     243
The Libby Lobby     249
Fugue State     254
Null and Void     258
The Imperial Vice Presidency     264
"The Administration of Justice"     268
Marketing, Muslims, and Methodists     271
Stab in the Back     274
The Code of Silence     281
Colin Powell's Ghost     287
Rove's Fall     291
The War of Memory     296
Fredo's End     301
Top Secret     304
The General Testifies     310
The Many Victories of George W. Bush     315
A Republic, If You Can Keep it     321
Acknowledgments     327
Index     329

See also: 500 Greatest Ever Chicken Recipes or Wine Wit and Wisdom

The Way of the Wiseguy

Author: Joseph D Piston

Here's the first nonfiction work from author Joe Pistone since his New York Times #1 bestseller and hit movie, Donnie Brasco. Perhaps no man alive knows the inner workings and lifestyle of wiseguys better than Pistone does, having spent six years infiltrating the Mafia as an undercover FBI agent. Now, years later, Pistone reassesses what the underworld was really about. Occasionally poignant, always in shocking detail, The Way of the Wiseguy gives readers a first-hand look at the thinking, psychology, and customs that make wiseguys a unique breed. The book is divided into anecdotes that reveal key principles of wiseguy life, including "Don't Volunteer You Don't Know Something," "Be a Good Earner," "Look Like You Mean Business," "It's Your Best Friend Who Will Kill You," and much more. The stories-more than 80 of them-are spellbinding, and the insights into this lawless realm of badguys are often uncannily relevant to the workings of the legitimate world of big business and everyday social discourses. Includes CD with shocking undercover surveillance audio from the Donnie Brasco operation (with commentary by author Joe Pistone).

Publishers Weekly

The romanticized view of the mob gets a reality check in this fascinating guide to the real Cosa Nostra from Pistone, who successfully infiltrated one of New York City's five families as an FBI undercover agent in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During his six years posing as Donnie Brasco, Pistone managed to gain the trust of countless mobsters and was almost formally made a member of the Mafia. That access led to numerous investigations and prosecutions resulting in more than 100 convictions, including those of the bosses who formed the mob's ruling body, the Commission. Pistone's first book, the bestselling Donnie Brasco (later filmed with Johnny Depp in the lead role), presented a detailed chronological narrative of his infiltration. This time, he has organized his experiences into short chapters describing what the gangsters he worked with were really like, with titles such as "A Typical Day in the Life of a Wiseguy" and "How Wiseguys Take over a Business." He makes abundantly clear that the codes of honor depicted in popular culture and self-serving Mafiosi memoirs are myths, as is the notion that the old-timers steered clear of drug-dealing for moral reasons. The book also contains an amazing extra-a CD of an actual FBI surveillance tape in which thugs talk about the idea of doing in Donnie Brasco. Agent, Frank Weimann. (Apr. 1) Forecast: A 50,000 printing, a $50,000 national ad campaign and a seven-city author tour should help launch this onto many bestseller lists. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Former FBI agent Pistone authored the best-selling Donnie Brasco (Pistone's assumed name), which detailed his years of deep, perilous undercover work within the Mafia and later begat the Johnny Depp/Al Pacino movie of the same name. Here he returns with a kind of Cliffs Notes guide to wiseguys for those who either didn't catch Donnie Brasco or Pistone's Mafia novels or who have trouble drawing their own conclusions about people, offering short chapters such as "Wiseguys Are Not Nice Guys," "Why Wiseguys Will Kill You," and the like, all designed to show the reader that, well, wiseguys are not nice guys. (The Bonanno family put out a $500,000 contract on him when it became known that he was a cop.) In so doing, he assumes a tough-guy persona that establishes a certain tone and probably did wonders in keeping him alive during his years undercover but does wear a bit thin. Other than his observations that the younger generation of mobster is a different breed of cat, more careless and less respectful of the rules and traditions of the mob, Pistone offers few new revelations about Mafiosi. Still, the public's abiding interest in gangsters and the Donnie Brasco connection will create demand. Recommended for most public libraries. Jim Burns, Jacksonville P.L., FL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.