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Utter Incompetents: Ego and Ideology in the Age of Bush
The problem wasn't just Iraq.
It didn't even start with Iraq.
It was bigger than Iraq.
In fact, it was everything George W. Bush touched, from the very early flop on energy policy to the walking fiasco named Alberto Gonzales. Even adding the tragicomedy of Hurricane Katrina doesn't come close to describing the governmental catastrophe of the Bush administration. The collapse of the Bush presidency is a broadly acknowledged fact. Everyone who's anyone, from politicians to comedians, has taken shots at this ever-growing target. By any fair assessment, much of the past seven years has been disastrous. The challenge is to understand why.
Few analysts have stepped aside, abandoning easy hits and quick gibes, and analyzed the totality of the Bush Administration. Now, bestselling author Thomas Oliphant does just that. With his keen, experienced eye, he asks the simplest of "How could some of the smartest, most experienced and politically savvy people in Washington screw up so badly?"
After all, this was the team led by a man with an MBA. They came to Washington with the mission to run the government in an orderly, businesslike manner. Instead, chaos has ensued. How did this happen?
From domestic policy to international goofs, from soaring energy prices to the health care crisis---Thomas Oliphant tackles it all, closely inspecting the initial projections and promises of Bush and his key senior officials, and the ways in which they lost control of these well-publicized and overconfident plans. By comparing their rhetoric to their dismal record, Oliphant provides a historic analysis of the Bush administration---showing how a system so seemingly competent and mechanized could fail so miserably, and with such frequency.
In the wake of the Republican loss of Congress and unmet promises for future change, and as the presidential campaign to choose Bush's successor heats up, Oliphant provides a rigorous examination of what went wrong and what this means for the next administration. Utter Incompetents is at its heart a searching look at the George W. Bush administration, its policies, and the legacy that it will leave behind on January 20, 2009.
It is also the substantive backdrop for the next president.
It didn't even start with Iraq.
It was bigger than Iraq.
In fact, it was everything George W. Bush touched, from the very early flop on energy policy to the walking fiasco named Alberto Gonzales. Even adding the tragicomedy of Hurricane Katrina doesn't come close to describing the governmental catastrophe of the Bush administration. The collapse of the Bush presidency is a broadly acknowledged fact. Everyone who's anyone, from politicians to comedians, has taken shots at this ever-growing target. By any fair assessment, much of the past seven years has been disastrous. The challenge is to understand why.
Few analysts have stepped aside, abandoning easy hits and quick gibes, and analyzed the totality of the Bush Administration. Now, bestselling author Thomas Oliphant does just that. With his keen, experienced eye, he asks the simplest of "How could some of the smartest, most experienced and politically savvy people in Washington screw up so badly?"
After all, this was the team led by a man with an MBA. They came to Washington with the mission to run the government in an orderly, businesslike manner. Instead, chaos has ensued. How did this happen?
From domestic policy to international goofs, from soaring energy prices to the health care crisis---Thomas Oliphant tackles it all, closely inspecting the initial projections and promises of Bush and his key senior officials, and the ways in which they lost control of these well-publicized and overconfident plans. By comparing their rhetoric to their dismal record, Oliphant provides a historic analysis of the Bush administration---showing how a system so seemingly competent and mechanized could fail so miserably, and with such frequency.
In the wake of the Republican loss of Congress and unmet promises for future change, and as the presidential campaign to choose Bush's successor heats up, Oliphant provides a rigorous examination of what went wrong and what this means for the next administration. Utter Incompetents is at its heart a searching look at the George W. Bush administration, its policies, and the legacy that it will leave behind on January 20, 2009.
It is also the substantive backdrop for the next president.
308 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 13, 2007
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32 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 13, 2016
I am so disgusted with the American voters for taking the Bush family at face value. If more American voters would take the time to learn the history of the politics of the Bush family they would camp out at polling places because they would have learned just how pertinent it is to keep any and all Bushs and/or their relations out of American politics!
From the book
Conservatism is often an inflexible, even radical, ideology that, beginning with Reagan, has had trouble adjusting to the realities and inevitable compromises of responsible governance.
…six months before the 9/11 attacks, Bush took a series of actions and took a pass on several other responses that produced an enormous transfer of wealth and income in the wrong direction and endangered the country’s security.
The same agency that was blocking renegotiation of the power contracts, moreover, had already concluded that at least four major energy firms (including the notorious Enron) had been manipulating conditions in the western markets,…
He failed to see the crisis coming, and bet heavily on the wrong side of the mess to chase the fool’s gold of more production to meet ravenous international demands.
…Dick Cheney…, not only leaving the country weaker and more exposed to dangerous forces but severely injuring the administration’s political standing.
And no businessman had been more closely allied with the Bush family than Enron’s chief executive officer, Kenneth Lay.
…Bush has always been a closet privatizer, anxious to lure insurance companies and investment firms into Medicare as competitors for the healthiest and wealthiest beneficiaries.
Bush’s commitment was to carve out some $8 billion annually for religious groups activities in social causes where before there had been virtually nothing.
To pay for just one young person in a four-year public university, the basic costs shot up 44 percent for the five years after 2000. …now eating up nearly 30 percent of a fully employed male’s earning.
Dick Chaney…used his skill and experience in politics and government to do pretty much what he did to see the invasion of Iraq. He combined a toxic mixture of obfuscation, misdirection brute force, threats, false promises and misleading statements…
If these passages haven’t convince you to read Utter Incompetents and conduct your own research on the presidencies and politics of the Bushs’ then nothing will.
From the book
Conservatism is often an inflexible, even radical, ideology that, beginning with Reagan, has had trouble adjusting to the realities and inevitable compromises of responsible governance.
…six months before the 9/11 attacks, Bush took a series of actions and took a pass on several other responses that produced an enormous transfer of wealth and income in the wrong direction and endangered the country’s security.
The same agency that was blocking renegotiation of the power contracts, moreover, had already concluded that at least four major energy firms (including the notorious Enron) had been manipulating conditions in the western markets,…
He failed to see the crisis coming, and bet heavily on the wrong side of the mess to chase the fool’s gold of more production to meet ravenous international demands.
…Dick Cheney…, not only leaving the country weaker and more exposed to dangerous forces but severely injuring the administration’s political standing.
And no businessman had been more closely allied with the Bush family than Enron’s chief executive officer, Kenneth Lay.
…Bush has always been a closet privatizer, anxious to lure insurance companies and investment firms into Medicare as competitors for the healthiest and wealthiest beneficiaries.
Bush’s commitment was to carve out some $8 billion annually for religious groups activities in social causes where before there had been virtually nothing.
To pay for just one young person in a four-year public university, the basic costs shot up 44 percent for the five years after 2000. …now eating up nearly 30 percent of a fully employed male’s earning.
Dick Chaney…used his skill and experience in politics and government to do pretty much what he did to see the invasion of Iraq. He combined a toxic mixture of obfuscation, misdirection brute force, threats, false promises and misleading statements…
If these passages haven’t convince you to read Utter Incompetents and conduct your own research on the presidencies and politics of the Bushs’ then nothing will.
April 19, 2009
This book demonstrates that you don't need to be a Democrat to disapprove of Bush's tenure in the White House. It covers every major issue Bush & team faced during his presidency, and how his mishandling of all of them alienated not only the Democrats, but also the moderates and many Republicans. Astonishing.
February 5, 2008
Thomas Oliphant does a great job of describing the problems of the Bush administration - Hubris is a great word for what has happened during his term. It is one of the best books on the topic I have read.
January 8, 2009
This book was very satisfying to read. Oliphant does excellent research and has informed opinions. Because there have been so many, one tends to forget how many screw ups (crimes) this administration has perpetrated.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews