Rating: 
Summary: Dr. Aime Bayle
Review: To say that this book is excellent may be the understatement of the year. I have really enjoyed reading this well-written book based on facts. Mr. John Dean provides fact after fact to make his various points. He knows his subject and he knows the way a White House operates. It is amazing and refreshing to read this book coming from someone who used to be a Nixonian Republican and, now, is an independent. I strongly recommend this fascinating, factual and well-balanced book. When you start reading it, you will not be able to put it down!
Rating:
Summary: Even Republicans are embarassed by Bush
Review: Having served in the White House with 'Tricky Dick' Nixon, Dean personally knows what a corupt presidency looks, acts, and smells like from the very begining. I am still not crazy about his own past, but at least Mr. Dean has the intellegence to avoid playing Mr. High-and-mighty, even when it is deserving in cases such as these. Like Barry Goldwater before him, Dean is a very rare breed of political animal. A conservative Republican with an intact and functioning social concience about the current state of affairs directly because of his own party's doing. I probally disagree with Dean on many other issues, but we know the country cannot be protected from terrorism while blowing it up. It is maddening this nation is in another 'Watergate' era. Because Dumbya's father became the CIA director (in the Ford Administration) immediately following the Watergate scandal, today's Iraq international intervention was signifigantly less shocking to myself than somebody who had previously taken everything at face value. The son is simply governing in the manner that his father modeled as being normal. Unlike the rest of America scandals and international destabilization are routine occurences for the Bush family. The only good government is a government that can be reconfigured to meet the will of their corporate friends. This is why the White House remains so aghast that the rest of the nation and the world do not share their bloodthirst. The only reason why somebody would not like this book is they are one of the few people who somehow continue naively believing in Dubya's 'good boy' image while overlooking the good ole boys convieniently installed all around him. The slickness that was supposedly so abohorent in predecessor Clinton's administration is welcomed here in greater intensity only because of party and ideological differences This book will become a venerable classic.
Rating: 
Summary: A strong account of Bush's misdeeds
Review: This latest addition to the flood of books critical of George W Bush is distinguished primarily by its author. For those too young to remember, John Dean was a central figure in the Watergate coverup who, caught in his lies and forced to become a prosecution witness, became the the prosecution's star witness and the first to directly implicate Richard Nixon in criminal acts. That authorial background could be a mere gimmick, but Dean uses his knowledge of the inner workings of a runaway presidency, as well as his legal expertise, to bring real insight to his analysis of Dubya. His discussion of Bush's excessive claims of executive privilege in chapter 3 benefits from both. The analysis in Chapter 5 of Bush's misuse of Public Law 107-243 (the Iraq war authorization) is another instance of Dean using his legal skills to break through Bush's deceptive rhetoric. And numerous discussion throughout the book of instances, both widely known and obscure, of the Bush II White House using dirty tricks and federal power against those who expose its secrets show that Dean still remembers Watergate, even if most of Washington has forgotten. The theme of this book is secrecy, and it is persuasive both in showing how this administration has gone farther that its predecessors - including Nixon himself - in concealing information from the public as well as arguing the danger of the conduct. And the book is nothing if not topical, it includes an extensive discussion of Cheney's attempts to conceal the records of his energy comission, argued before the Supreme Court just a few days ago. The tradeoff for that topicality is that the book isn't as carefully researched or edited as it might have been, and that leads to a few howlers. John Ashcroft is described as the first "attorney general with presidential ambitions [since] A. Mitchell Palmer". Hardly - does the name Bobby Kennedy ring a bell? But on areas more central to his thesis, Dean has been careful and seems to have all his facts right. Is this administration really worse than Watergate? Dean points out correctly that the exposure of the identity of Valerie Plame, an act which potentially endangered her safety and struck directly at the country's security, is genuinely worse than anything done by Nixon or his aides. And Woodward's new book has revealed that Bush was personally involved in using money allocated for Afghanistan to prepare for war with Iraq, probably an impeachable offense.
Rating:
Summary: Australia's version of George W Bush
Review: As a person not living in America, I was fascinated by this easy-to-read and enthralling study of the man who would be the world's dictator. However, as I was reading this work, I found myself thinking that you could substitute the name 'George W Bush' with the name of my country's (Australia) Prime Minister, John W Howard, as it seems to me, and many other Australians, that Howard is copying much of Bush's style. Little wonder that Howard is referred to as "Bonsai" - little bush!
Rating:
Summary: Liberal hack job? Puh-leez!
Review: If John Dean is a Liberal, I'm a Venusian. Actually, it appears to me that the reviewers who dumped on this book are the Venusians -- they clearly don't have the command of English that an American would have. Dean's parallels are striking to someone who lived through Watergate, and so consistent with *every* other account of the Bush administration's internal workings that I've read -- including the recent book by that notorious Liberal, Richard Clarke, who served not one, not two, but three Republican presidents -- that it's hard to take seriously anyone who complains about Dean's story. Conservatives, stop your whining. You love it when Limbaugh and his cronies distort the truth like a funhouse mirror -- try to be good sports about it when their fatuous rubbish turns out not to be supported by the facts. Oh, wait -- you wouldn't recognize a fact if it crawled up and bit you...
Rating: 
Summary: Outrageous
Review: This book is terrible. Amybody who reads this does not have a brain because if they did they would realize that is filled with lies. But no those people think that if its in a book then it must be true. George W. Bush is one of the greatest presidents we have had. He stands up for the American people and he will not back down in the face of terror like the CLINTONS have. People reading this book should think about the World Trade Center bombing the first time and how about the USS Cole bombing. Clinton just sat by and watched. My sister is over there fighting the war in Iraq and I don't care if they don't find any WMD. Saddam Hussain was a vicious murderer who killed hundreds of thousands of people and maybe more. They have uncovered huge mass graves and there are still people who are unaccounted for. He used WMD on his own people so even if he didn't have them when we went to war, we know that he did have them and that he was capable of making them again and maybe using they on American soil. Instead of have the 700 dead in Iraq there could have been millions dead on our soil. Thank You President Bush! Yo have done a great job and I am ready for another four years.
Rating:
Summary: Not just Bush-bashing
Review: What stuns me about the negative reviews of this book is that anyone who gives any credibility at all to Dean is dismissed as a Bush basher. Having been too young to remember Watergate, I kept an open mind about Dean's parallels and felt he made his case with good evidence, and felt the comparison to be accurate.
That said, here is my review (forgive its length!): "Worse than Watergate" is an insightful look at the Bush administration's obsession with secrecy, and an ongoing comparison with the Nixon "imperialist" presidency that resonates at many levels. Dean, having been Nixon's counsel during his presidency and instrumental in the Watergate hearings, draws upon his vast experience and knowledge to first introduce the reader to both administrations before sketching his parallels. The title of the book is profoundly accurate, underscoring that as devious and ruthless as Nixon had been in his time, he is an altar boy in comparison to the Bush administration. For those without a decent knowledge of political players in the '70s, it will be a bit of a shock to see that Cheney and Rumsfeld featured prominently in Nixon's administration. Dean gives the impression that Cheney, as chief of staff then and maligned by the press as incompetent, grew preoccupied about controlling information. This has culminated into the present obsession that defines this presidency. Dean also portrays Cheney as a "co-president" rather than vice president, and supplies ample proof to make the label stick. Humorous passages reinforce this idea: one analogy states that if Bush is the equivalent of a chairman of the board, then Cheney is certainly the CEO; another remarks that if Cheney's health condition ever becomes fatal, then Bush might become president. Dean details no less than eleven different areas where the administration has been unnecessarily secretive, and any one of these, should information leak out, could become a full-blown scandal capable of destroying this presidency. Among these items are Cheney's energy task force (soon to be before the Supreme Court); both Bush and Cheney's earlier business dealings(both with implications much worse than Martha Stewart's misconduct); Bush's pre-9/11 approach to terrorism, now being approached by the commission; and most especially, the vindictive leaking of Valerie Plame's CIA status in revenge against Joseph Wilson's contradiction that Saddam received uranium from Niger.
Appendix 1 lists all the misleading (if not false) statements made by Bush in his 2003 State of the Union. Dean helpfully responds to several major claims with documented evidence all but disproving each bold statement made by Dubya. The research in general that Dean has done to produce this book is impressive, and his endnotes are a reading all their own. The latest in a series of Washington insiders to denounce this presidency, this book is a must-read for those interested in the clandestine activities of this White House. (also of note: Dean separates his facts and his opinions wisely, and to his credit, he refrains from theorizing what the Bush agenda truly is; if they win a second term, he predicts that, like Nixon, Bush will show his true colors)
Rating:
Summary: Liberal hack job of the worst kind
Review: This book...hmmm...if I can even pretend to call it so since it is filled so many lies and inuendos that national enquierer looks reptuable claims that the Bush administration has commited crimes worst then watergate. It is sad to see the liberal opposition use outight lies and deception to counter the clinton era scandals and by doing so losing all credibility that they once had.
Rating: 
Summary: STOP T H I E F !!!!!!
Review: I was very alarmed by this book! Until I started reading it, that is. Initially, I thought some stealer of thoughts (Deanerini) had written of my supposedly forgotten "affair" at the Watergate Hotel. A few (seven) martinis and an unfortunate meeting with a shortish (4"7') redheaded trollope visiting from St. Louis resulted in Hoppy's first hotel eviction and a night on the lam. Nevertheless, this book does not tell of that Watergate incident or anything like it. Instead, you get some clipped, sloppy writing by a face I remember from the tv something like 30 years ago. The title is misleading as the incident described in the book is nothing like Watergate (and certainly not worse--could anything be?). And besides, there is no mention of Redheaded Rita the bullrider. Disappointing...
Rating:
Summary: At the top of my list
Review: Of all of the current stream of books exposing the Bush regime, this is one of my top two. I intend to distribute it as gifts for people who don't understand what happened when Bush/Cheney seized power in December, 2000 after losing the election. Because it is written by John Dean, who knew the Nixon White House from the inside, it carries an unusual degree of authority; for that reason, it is clear that the right wing will give this book low marks in order to try to keep it off the best-seller list alongside books by Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, and others who were once inside the Bush regime. Nobody could question Dean's credentials, and his book is as well-researched as it comes. What is significant to me about this generation of books exposing Bush is that they are deeply non-partisan; they are written by Republicans as often as by Democrats. They expose that Bush a highly corrupt operative who is outside of the framework of American constitutional democracy. People who want him seen as "just another Republican" will attack each of these whistleblowers, one by one, on a petty and personal basis, while guarding the obsessive secrecy of this regime that runs on bogus platforms and considers its mode of governance to be none of anybody's business. Americans will figure out the nature of this regime either soon, or when it is way too late. Unfortunately, it seems that many Americans would still sooner prefer to learn the hard way.
| 
