Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is not a very good book. It's a disorganized collection of Charles P. Pierce's articles for various magazines, and although it briefly meanders off to utterly unrelated topics (such as the nineteenth-century eccentric Ignatius Donnelly and the old WLAC radio in Nashville) which he unsuccessfully tries to graft into the desultory narrative, most of the book is merely a litany of the horror of the Bush administration and the sins of the neoconservatives. Nothing new is revealed, and no insight is provided, so since you've already read at length about all these topics, why would you want to read it all again? After all, the culture wars are over and we won; it is universally acknowledged that the neoconservative policies brought ruin to the land; the Bible-thumping puritans have again been exposed as hypocrites and as morally fallible as the rest of us, so do we need another account of it all so soon? Offhand, I can think of two reasons this book might attract an audience. One is that some (typically of the distaff side) people are paradoxically happiest when they are outraged over something. During the day they glory in protesting, but at night the fires of their indignation are stoked by reading these accounts of Republican mischief over and over. The second reason this book has earned such enthusiastic reviews here is precisely the same reason millions of dittoheads listen to Rush Limbaugh daily. Those who listen to Rush or read Charles do so because it gives them a feeling of superiority when epithets such as "Idiot" are hurled at the opposition -- them! And you know who *they* are -- they're the idiots! Listening to or reading someone who merely reinforces your beliefs -- Hey, yeah! That's just what I think! Good for me! -- is satisfying to those who prefer a narrow bed of security to being challenged. Most grating is Pierce's smug style. He fancies himself an arch-cynic, perhaps the greatest since H. L. Mencken. Well, I grew up reading Mencken, and I can report that Pierce is no Mencken. For one thing, Mencken was often very charitable to his opponents, and I recommend to all his assessment of communists and other radicals in his essay, "The Coolidge Buncombe" (found in many collections). Furthermore, Mencken had wit and originality in his work. In comparison,"Idiot America" is nothing but a digest of Pierce's readings, including the same books on Iraq that you and I have read. There's nothing new here. Nothing. Rather than another rehash of the sins of the Bush administration, it seems to me a far more interesting topic would be, Now what? We've won; we at last have a more rational administration (albeit one that has yet to prove itself any more effective); so what is to be done? Instead of merely dismissing them as idiots, how can we deal with our countrymen who, in Obama's infamous assessment, are ". . . bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them. . ."? I don't think that all of these people are idiots, and I'm tired of the culture wars, so I'd like to read some fresh ideas about our society and its future. There are new books which call for us all to lead simpler, locally oriented lives that are less centered around multinational corporations; there are books which advocate a solution in more rewarding jobs such as trade jobs which require the use of one's hands. Are such ideas of any value, or are they facile palliatives -- a return to the make-believe good-ol'-days? I certainly don't know, but neither does Charles P. Pierce. Nor does it seem as though he's given any of it thought, because he's still wallowing in righteous indignation over the Terry Schiavo case. Do you *really* want to read about that again?