Veteran journalist Allman scores the Bush administration's ideology and actions in this fierce critique of its actions these past four years. Allman (Unmanifest Destiny
; Miami: City of the Future
) begins by analyzing what he calls Bush's "hijacking" of the 2000 presidential election. For Allman, the case is clear: Nixon-appointed Chief Justice William Rehnquist disregarded democracy and acted in blatantly partisan ways to bring about Bush's presidential victory. He goes on to sneer at what he sees as the perversity of Bush's choice of Dick Cheney as vice-president, "a crafty henchman," cataloguing Cheney's "acquisition of unelected power and money" and his incompetence in his current post. Allman anatomizes the character of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld axis in terms that are simplistic but that some will find persuasive, and similarly delineates the ideological leanings of Cheney's cohorts Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. No one in the administration escapes Allman's scorn: he characterizes Condoleezza Rice as a mediocre dolt and even the more moderate Colin Powell as marginalized and untrustworthy. Allman goes on to accuse Bush of introducing divisive "wedge issues" and of alienating the rest of the world in his pursuit of American global dominance. Like many on the left, Allman paints a picture of a Bush administration lacking in reason and foresight but full of arrogance. Other culprits in this global farce (or tragedy, Allman quips) are "Bush's poodle," Tony Blair, gas-guzzling SUV-driving Americans, the accident-prone Humvee and the American media. While at times it crosses the line into stridency, Allman's tome will appeal to the ever-increasing market for readable, if highly rhetorical, anti-Bush rants. (May 3)
