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September 14, 2005
Measuring Success Through Books
From walking around famous NYC bookstore The Strand yesterday, I figured that a U.S. president's quality of tenure could be measured through the number of positive/negative books written about his presidency. This is to say: There are already at least 25 mainstream best-sellers about how George W. Bush is the Worst President Ever, and nary a supportive right-wing tome from a major publisher. Of course, book readers usually show some left-wing tendencies, but I don't remember this many exposes and polemics during the Bush I years. I guess most Republicans don't bother to write a 300 page book on the only reason anyone puts up with the current Administration at this point - why we have to support "our" president. That does the job in one-line slogan form.
Posted by marxy at September 14, 2005 11:01 PM
Comments
Your tender age may afford you some forgiveness; but please, sincerely, go back to Japan to play.
You're much too observant for us here.
Posted by: Fuzi at September 15, 2005 6:17 AM
What an odd thing to say!
Posted by: marxy at September 15, 2005 7:01 AM
I concur with Fuzi. Growing up through Regean/Bush I was quite crappy for anyone who hadn't already OD'ed on the red-white-blue coolaid. Hostage crises, Iran/Contra, War on Drugs, it all totally sucked. Dissent wasn't mainstream, mind you we're talking pre-MTV when all of gen-X'ers will sloughing off the remenants of disco and 70's stadium rock. This was before anyone created such a label as "liberal media". Hell, I learned more listening to DK than I ever did on the TV.
Posted by: ore at September 18, 2005 11:20 AM
Of course, Reagan was an equal devil, but I don't remember there being such glut of mainstream moderate books on him as the WPE. Although I was like 5 or 6, so I don't actually know anything.
Posted by: marxy at September 19, 2005 3:45 AM