Rating: 
Summary: Love that Picture
Review: Look if you like the picture on the front cover, you'll love this book. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes ironic, sometimes sarcastic, these things are enough to keep you reading. Add in the fact that these are truths....well, it really does scare you to think that we have a president this unethical and inept.I first approached this book from a..."nah, can't be perspective." But, the more I read the more I followed up with my own research and the more I understood the gravity of the Supreme Court's gift to the Bush family. Though it may sound far-fetched, all of the statements in this book can be confirmed as fact through basic research.
Rating:
Summary: America's Emperor Has No Clothes
Review: Is this book good? That is a tough question. It is well written, well documented and well sourced. It can be laugh-out-loud funny at times, but the subject matter is enough to make you howl with anger. Several questions arose while reading this, chief among them being: "HOW CAN WE BE LETTING THIS HAPPEN TO US ?!?" What has become of our righteous indignation towards those that attack our cherished ideals? Towards those that choose to tear at the very fabric of what makes this country the envy of the world? How can we sit idly by while America is being torn apart from within by a group of neo-cons hell-bent on making our form of government a dictatorship? This book points out the MANY deceptions and falsehoods perpetrated by "Dubya" Bush prior to his departing Texas, and keeps tab on him and his gang in the nation's capitol. Ivins and Dubose do a great job showing how Governor Bush failed the people of Texas, then took the same failed programs and is trying to use them on a national scale. The programs didn't work in his home state, and they continue to fail at the national level. While the book spends 98% of it's time documenting these travesties, it also dedicates time to offer ideas on how to begin to change America for the betterment of us all. Molly Ivins, in her own unique Texan-style, writes an "angrifying" [my new Bushism for being angry and terrified all at once] book about living life in the brave, new, pseudo-fascist world of Dubya Bush.
Rating:
Summary: Don't be fooled by the ranting
Review: Conservatives do a better job than sane people of ranting, crying, and stomping their feet when presented with anything that does not support their view of the world. They are so loud, and morally superior ("How dare you criticize Bush, he is the Commander and Chief in wartime!"), that sometimes it seems like they must constitute a majority. Well guess what? Elections are won (and lost) in the middle, and this country is spilt right down the center. That's how Gore won the popular vote but lost the election. It was that close. Both sides know this, so they ratchet up the rhetoric in an attempt to win converts from the middle (Franken on the left, O'Riley on the right), and in the end, as far as the vast middle is concerned, they cancel each other out. The middle doesn't pay attention until its time to vote, and even then far more of them vote when they feel something more important than politics is at stake. That is why this book scares conservatives. The middle is worried about keeping or finding a job, and wondering if George just flat lied about WMD as the clear and present danger in Iraq or if was duped by hawks that decided to get Hussien once and for all on Sept 12, 2001. Either way, there is cause for concern. When people are concerned, they start asking questions, and they vote. Smart people approaching this book, asking honest questions about George, will almost certainly end up voting against him. That's why conservatives will yell and scream about what a liberal flak Ivins is. They want to prevent the undecided from reading it, and the best way to do that is to label it as liberal propaganda. Well, it isn't. Just as she did in Shrub, Ivins lets it be known where she stands, but she lets the facts speak for themselves. The scary thing is, once you start to see George for what he truly is, its clear that all you have to do is scratch the surface to see through this guy, and it makes you wonder why the mainstream media are so scared of doing just that.
Rating: 
Summary: Sentimentalist and lacking logic
Review: Wouldn't even give it the one star...but not allowed to give 0 which it so profoundly deserves. Wouldn't waste time reading this...wish I hadn't. Good insight on the ways and methods of thought used by those wishing they'd been properly educated---in order to project a correct evaluation of information placed before them for legitimate review. This will no doubt make those who think like Molly and Lou revel with joy to find fellow logic-lackers. Love the cover...my, wasn't that pure genious? Need I say more? Please don't waste your time reading such Pre-Pre-K drivel.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing and Timely
Review: Bushwacked is a profoundly disturbing look at how the U.S. government has been hijacked by a cabal of greedy corporations and ideological madmen who threaten the future of this great country. Their clueless figurehead leader is undoubtedly the worst President in American history and perhaps the most dangerous man to hold office since the founding of the Republic. Every American should read this book, and then lobby their representatives to begin impeachment hearings that are now long overdue. It is fascinating to see how the Bush apologists who "review" this book fail to ever note any factual errors or other problems in research. Instead, they rely on personal attack like rabid pitbulls, replacing argument with insult. The mindless hate spewing out of these so-called reviews speaks volumes about the people who back this mis-Administration. Hey necon fanatics, read the book and come back with a real critique based on fact rather than emotion. Ivins and Dubose report -- you decide.
Rating:
Summary: Stunned
Review: I read Molly's book first and then logged back on to read all the reviews. I'd never done that before. I'd expected to see some thoughtful reactions and, of course, I have. What left me "stunned" were the viciously ignorant ravings of the one-star reviewers. My first thought was that they must be part of a deliberate campaign - okay, conspiracy - to shout Molly down. My second thought was, "No,a deliberate campaign would suggest a measure of intelligent planning, arming them with facts, encouraging them to sound as if they'd actually read the book, etc." So instead I'm just saddened to realize that there are some dangerously stupid people out there. I say saddened, but not surprised, and I do mean dangerous. Throughout history, tyrants
seem to have had no trouble recruiting death squads numbering in the tens of thousands. They were recruited, I'm sure, from the
same sort of mindless goons who wrote those one-star diatribes. I used to think that it can't happen here. I'm not so sure anymore.
Rating:
Summary: great research, well-written
Review: Ivins is always entertaining, and she's her best when dissecting Bush, as she has previously in Shrub. Bushwhacked will be sure to raise blood pressure on both sides of the aisle: liberals will be outraged all over again at Bush's administration's actions, and knee-jerk conservatives will drag out the tired old bag of anti-Clinton mantras. But while conservatives lambast Ivins, her book, and other like-minded people in rude, irrational, and uncivil ways (just see most one-star reviews here), Ivins (as usual) manages restrain herself to reasonable discourse. She doesn't stoop to childish name-calling, and can discuss Bush's policy without taking cheap personal shots. She doesn't need to. Instead, she intelligently, thoroughly, and convincingly documents her research and argues her points with gusto nonetheless (and, I suspect Ivins' assessment of Bush's policies and adminstration will be vindicated by the history books). It's such a relief to step away from the hate-filled rhetoric that so often fills political discourse. Ivins is indeed a breath of fresh air.
Rating:
Summary: Sadly True. Damn it.
Review: Mooly Iwins is a Texan; therefore she has lived under W for more than most. She's been paying attention. I can't speak for Bush's Texass term, but Ivins' observations here were, as far as I could check, pretty accurate. This is very depressing because there is little good that she has to say. She gets a little emotionsl here and there, but try as I might, I couldn't nail her with any errors. What is awful are the "reviews" of this book (like the one by the "doctor") that don't even refer to the book. Instead they mindlessly ramble on about "class warfare" and the horrible liberals who hve come to take us from our gated communities and destroy our SUVs.
Anyway, an enjoyable (am unfortunately accurate) book. (Note to the "doctors": please read it before reviewing it)
Rating:
Summary: Its really sad...
Review: It's a shame that the Amazon.com reviews have degenerated into forums wherein individuals who have not read the book (any book?) hold forth with their self-righteous pabulum. Instead of challenging themselves with new ideas and information, as presented in this book, they cling mindlessly, like a sea squirt, to their own well-worn rock of ignorance. They prove conservatism to indeed be the opposite of Bertrand Russell's definition of liberalism: "The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held but in how they are held, instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment. This is the way opinions are held in science, as opposed to the way in which they are held in theology." Many of those individuals giving the book 0 stars could not think their way out of a box, let alone use a spell checker!
Rating:
Summary: good mesh of hard numbers and biting commentary
Review: It should be obvious from the title that unthinking fans of Bush will not like this book, will probably not read it, and if they do will probably not believe it. More thoughtful Bush adherents still might not believe all of it, but there's so much detail and hard factual background to it that it might cause them to think twice about some of his policies. Bush-haters, of course, will enjoy it both for its content and its style, though anyone looking for more "red-meat" blistering sort of attacks would do better to read Franken's new book which has less depth but more anger and sheer nastiness (also more humor, uneven as the book is). Ivin's book is more along the lines of Joe Conason's--a step-by-step critique of Bush's policies: their formation, implementation, and effect leading to the hard to argue against conclusion that Bush' policies, intentionally or not, by far benefit the power class.
Each chapter is devoted to a separate policy for the most part, though some are closely related and they all flow smoothly from one to the other. Though constant in its criticism, it is not a rant because, rather than just doing a lot of shouting, Ivins marshalls her facts in strong support of her arguments. She gives the numbers, the extended quotes from memos, the quotes from senior officials, etc. And while the wit is sharp and biting, it is never over-the-top or overly personal.
To complement the large supply of statistics and officialese, Ivins brings in real-world people affected, negatively of course, by Bush's policies. She isn't saying no one has benefited from Bush's policies, that simply isn't her focus here. Her argument would be that those who have benefited are overwhelmingly the rich and/or powerful while those middle-class and lower who have benefited are in the clear minority. Her use of people who have suffered due to deregulation and other Bush policies serves to ground the more abstract arguments in a reality that is hard for the reader to ignore. It's easy to ask whether the cost-benefit analysis of screening meat supplies more rigorously makes it worth it in the abstract; it's less easy to make that argument faced with the tragic reality of the mother whose son died in lingering, horrible fashion due to contaminated meat. And it is that sort of person-on-the-street reporting that makes this book more than a preach to the choir sort of book but may open some non-Bush-bashers to thinking a bit more about the effects of some of his policies.
Much of this has been gone over before (some of it in Ivin's work Shrub, much of it in newspapers and magazines), but not in this detail. And when all of it is laid out together, it makes for a much more damning critique than the isolated stories that dribble out every few months. There is so much here that even though some might find a few details worth quibbling over or some of it overstated, that still leaves a lot of substantive criticism that's hard to refute. And the style is so reasonable that it's hard to dismiss as just an angry liberal venting. Anyone who saw Molly Ivins during the Franken-O'Reilly dust-up on the book panel can see this is a woman of fairness and reason, not a red-faced blusterer.
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