Rating: 
Summary: An Encyclopedia of Everything that's Wrong about Bush
Review: An excellent read. Although he makes a precious few inane points (such as the motive for the Electoral College), he makes many points that are not only valid, but that I have not heard from the mainstream media, from liberal outlets like The Nation and Mother Jones, or even from liberal pundits like Molly Ivins and Al Franken. The only other book from which I learned more raw data about conservatism is Greg Palast's "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy". I strongly recommend "Fraud" to any progressive who doesn't have a full grasp of the extent of George W. Bush's fraudulent ways.
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Summary: Bush, The Great Deceiver
Review: For the last several agonizing years, the news media has been presenting an incredibly idealized image of President George W. Bush to the American public, as an endearingly simple minded but extraordinarily honest and decent "just plain folk" type of guy. We have only very recently been able to get glimpses of the real truth about the man, thanks to the eye opening works of great alarm ringers like Greg Palast, Richard Clarke, Joe Conason, John Dean, and Kevin Phillips. Paul Waldman's FRAUD is a very good companion piece to many of the revelatory Bush books that recently dominated the bestseller charts. This fine work stands out just a little from the crowded field because not only is it a horror-stricken critique of the great deceiver himself, it goes a step further and finds the media itself fully culpable in having allowed Bush's flagrant lies to be spread and accepted by the public with only the most minor hints of journalistic questioning. The Bush White House's continual distortions and half truths about virtually every aspect of the current Administration's ongoing assault on the well-being of America has been disturbing enough, but having the country's major newspapers, magazines and TV news channels cheerfully spew out the relentless deceptions has been infuriating in the extreme.
Waldman is particularly insightful in his discussion of the ongoing insidious Republican Smear Machine that utilizes the media to bamboozle a gullible public into believing that anyone who dares question the current administration must either be a fool or a traitor. Waldman paints a portrait of Bush that is obviously all too real--a cold-blooded, mentally challenged and power hungry multi-millionaire who flagrantly serves the whims of Big Business while completely ignoring the needs of the people. Read FRAUD and find out the ugly truth about an ugly man.
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Summary: The Master of Doublespeak
Review: George Orwell's masterfully prescient futuristic novel "1984," which the British author wrote in 1948, has been emulated strategically by another George now ensconced in the White House. The concept of "doublespeak" has reached new levels even for a political world in which spin control had been one of the main currencies of the realm for some time.Paul Waldman begins with the premise adhered to by so many given George W. Bush's long record of grammatical errors and misstatements of fact, that he is exceptionally stupid. While Waldman considers Bush a far cry from an intellectual, he carves out a shrewdly analytical argument concerning Bush using perceived ignorance as a mask for deceit. Waldman contrasts Bush and his 2000 presidential opponent Al Gore in an interesting manner. Whereas the studious Gore was classified as a "policy wonk" who never saw a policy discussion in which he did not want to participate, Bush fell into the opposite category. Here is a man who enjoys clearing brush at his Crawford ranch and watching baseball. He disdains any type of discussion necessitating deep thought and is known for asking subordinates to shorten outlines to the one or two most basic points. He does not want to be bothered by devilish details. When the media began reporting the 2000 fall campaign, a pattern emerged. Bush could make all kinds of mistakes and they would be regarded as innocent little slips based on a lack of study and intellectual curiosity. Gore would be nit-picked over whether or not he was Erich Segal's focus in "Love Story," about why he erred in speaking about meeting with someone other than the operative he mentioned at the Federal Emergency Management Association, and whether or not he said he had invented the Internet (He never did!). This same policy has reemerged during Bush's presidency, of giving him free pass after free pass due to his supposed intellectual deficiencies. Waldman sees this is part of a strategy that insulates Bush from paying the price for a pattern of lying. One case in point stressed by Waldman is Bush's claim that to oppose his tax cuts is commensurate with calling for the raising of taxes. Waldman is correct in stating that to oppose a tax cut is not the same thing as calling for a tax increase, yet Bush has restated the point seemingly endlessly. Waldman does a superb job of exposing the Bush strategy of deception. He points out that this rich man's son is anything but the home spun, simple, down home Texan he claims to be. He also notes the strategy of masking reactionary policies in compassionate words and pictures along with diminishing criticism and a close checking of the facts by insisting that the media is biased in the direction of liberalism. Waldman has a valuable critical facility that enables him to 1) zero in on the important issues, 2) separate them from the non-essentials, and 3) demonstrate how propaganda is used to obscure the real facts.
Rating:
Summary: An Overdue Indictment
Review: Here at last we have a long overdue indictment of the Bush Administration and its lies, coverups, machinations, and distortions. Paul Waldman has investigated the strategy by which this uninspiring twig from one of the least distinguished American political families in history rose to power. Waldman also reveals the complicity of most of the American media, which wilfully ignored Bush's misstatements and lies in the 2000 campaign and painted Bush as a good old boy with an awshucks attitude. It is fortunate that this book has appeared now and can be used during the 2004 campaign. Hopefully this time the media won't have its blinders on and nothing W., Karl Rove, and the other henchmen can do can foist another four years of gibberish, war, and economic collapse down our throats.
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Summary: Fraud: The Strategy Behind the Bush Lies & Why the Media....
Review: How dare this author assemble and tell the truth! That's the job of the mass media.......isn't it? But of course, that's precisely the point. Waldman's well-researched analysis documents the many and varied sources he relies upon for every substantive statement. Waldman and those who emulate him may help save us from this corrupt administration. If only I could figure out how to get the media to do its job as well as Waldman did his.
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Summary: Look up "ad hominem", right-wingers...
Review: I can't help noticing, in reader reviews of this and other books attacking the veracity of President Bush, that the number of stars seems to be in inverse proportion to the quality of writing in the review. I refer not just to grammar, spelling, and usage, but also -- and more particularly -- to the use of ad homimem attacks to (attempt to) undercut the validity of the book's message. I've got a homework assignment for the right-wing reviewers: look up "ad homimem" in a good dictionary, and then stop using specious and irrelevant arguments in criticizing books that displease you. Comment on the substance: challenge the documentation provided by books like this one (if you can without resorting to outright deception). Every one of the facts I've checked in any of the "liberal" exposes of the Bush tendency to dissemble has been absolutely accurate -- and not so those of the right-wing commentators whose contributions to the "debate" have been critiques by Waldman, Franken, and others.
Rating:
Summary: should be required reading
Review: I think this book should be required reading for all voters. Well written, factually supported, to the point, and absolutely shocking.
Rating:
Summary: never over-bid when you're vulnerable
Review: If you're going to get shirty and try to speak from a superior position, you need to know what you're talking about. It's not "ad homimem" - it's "ad hominem." Thanks for the laugh, though.
Rating: 
Summary: buy other books
Review: Not as entertaining and not as well documented as many of the other books available on Bush and his lies.
Rating:
Summary: Scholarly yet readable
Review: Of the many books that have appeared recently about the Bush administration (Bush's Brain, Thieves in High Places, Big Lies, Bushwhacked, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Embedded, etc.), this one, in my opinion, is the best. It builds on the well-attested fact that George W. Bush and his attendants (Rove, Fleischer, Rice, et al.) are consummate liars who have made mendacity the cornerstone of the Bush II administration. It then shows how (and explains why) the media have colluded in this charade every step of the way. The book is highly readable -- I took it on a brief beach vacation and spent more time reading it than doing anything else -- and every claim the author makes is well documented.
Bush supporters will find this book highly disturbing, especially since it will be hard for them to refute any of the author's arguments; hopefully, they will appreciate the scholarly tone of the author's prose as well as his careful research. In any case, this is a very timely and important book, one that people of all political persuasions should read.
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