Rating: 
Summary: Great Read!
Review: John Dean has put together a well-written book that examines the secrecy of the Bush White House. The writing style of the book makes it an easy read and the content is shocking at times. Dean finds some scary similarities between the Bush Administration and the Nixon Administration and criticizes Bush for not learning from the past. He identifies many of the urban myths that have come as a result of 9/11 and blames the secrecy of the administration for not providing facts to dispel these myths as he believes they should. While the contents of the book may not sit well with Bush supporters, it certainly provokes thought with regards to the motives behind the secrecy. I'd encourage all to read this book and demand information from the Bush administration. Perhaps then, we will learn the truth about the many issues this administration conceals from the public.
Rating: 
Summary: From one who knows ...
Review: Having worked for Nixon, John Dean knows about executive deception. [...] Dean points out that Bush is certainly smart, but he and the Vice President willfully choose to be uninformed on matters that contradict their agenda. Their love of secrecy arises from the need to keep voters out of the loop. Americans should understand that the situation Dean describes is already painfully clear to those who watch news programs in Canada and most European countries, where the media is not as affected by the White House's hypnotic spin. This book should be required reading for every American voter!
Rating:
Summary: Something smells
Review: Something smells in the white house. Generals, advisors, and even an ex-Nixonite have all distanced themselves from the menace in the white house. Amazing...what will John Dean and others have to do, if the tried-and-true Republicans are so repulsed by the Bush Regime. Amazing Book....must read....detailed and convincing.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Hit Piece
Review: Anyone looking for an objective understanding of the Bush Presidency should look elsewhere. This is a hit piece, pure and simple. The sourcing consists largely of left-wing conspiracy theories that try to take the Bush Administration completely out of context. This book contains absolutely no nuance, no attempts at objectivity, and nothing more than red-meat for those who have already made up their mind. It's a hit piece, pure and simple. There are many better books on the Bush Administration less concerned about forwarding a political agenda and more concerned about actually analyzing the real ramifications of President Bush and his policies. It's possible to be critical of Bush's policies without descending into simple invective - "America Unbound" by Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay springs to mind instantly. Anyone who hates Bush and wants a piece of mindless red meat would find it in this book. Those more concerned with things like nuance, objectivity, and analysis should steer clear of this book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: You won't find this kind of material on the evening news or in the papers. The right wing republican controlled media conglomerates would not dare risk upsetting the Bush administration and losing their exclusive access to the white house. Instead, U.S. news reporting has been reduced to quoting (rather than questioning) the white house press secretary and other administration officials. That's why it is important to read books like this. It will open your eyes. For those of you who have issues with the content of Mr. Dean's book, I would encourage you to raise your issues and support your viewpoints with strong contrary evidence, rather than just calling him a liar.
Rating:
Summary: Impossible to stop reading.
Review: Unlike a lot of books in this niche, I couldn't put this one down, thus my only problem was that it ended too fast. (It didn't address the problems with Diebold or electronic voting, but John Dean can't be expected to expose everything Bush and Co. is doing, or did.)
Must read, especially for republicans. Buy it and pass it on to anyone even considering voting for Bush. We can't afford four more years, and who better to know than John Dean?
It really is worse than Watergate, or as G.Gordon Liddy recently said on C-SPAN regarding his life on the radio, "It's better than being a burglar...." (or words to that affect, I have lost the exact quote.)
John Dean, unlike G. Gordon, is seeing the new right wing for what they really are: people acting on a much more dangerous level, for ideals only they believe in; while enacting policies that don't include everyone, (only the super rich,) and with so much secrecy that Dean describes the Bush white house as "shrink wrapped."
This crowd should not be allowed to remain in the West Wing after the election.
So far, this is the best book on Bush-Cheney, not counting the Phillips book, which I found hard to read. If you haven't read Suskind's new book, this one sites it frequently.
Rating:
Summary: Scariest book of the bunch
Review: I received this book yesterday, started it last night and finished it in the wee hours this morning. I have read many of the current political tomes and a great deal of current reporting from many newspapers; I consider myself fairly well informed on our current state of affairs. "Worse than Watergate" is riveting, the scariest book of the bunch.
Dean does a good job at the outset of describing his purpose and motivation in writing the book; it started out as a concern that the current administration was either "blissful or naive" in its reliance on- bordering on obsession with- secrecy. As he realized that he couldn't even keep pace with reporting the administration's stonewalling, refusals to share information, and terminations of Freedom of Information rights, it dawned on him that this was not naivete, but purposeful and intentional.
Dean makes no bones or excuses for his participation in the Watergate fiasco, but brings to bear the insights one might hope a participant in that scandal had gained from the experience. Indeed, reflections on then versus now are a persistent and pervasive theme throughout. And as the title makes clear, Dean's conclusion is that the behaviour of this administration is worse than Nixon's following the Watergate break-in.
The central topic is the use and abuse of secrecy. Dean makes a compelling case that an over-reliance on secrecy is corrupting in and of itself, and that secrecy begets still more secrecy. In a number of places and in a number of ways, he contends and argues that secrecy is anathema to the democratic process, the democratic system, and to the functioning of democratically elected officials. In short, while certain secrets must be kept, and while officials have certain rights to privacy, secrecy can become a cancer in the body politic all too easily.
Dean ends with an interesting and I think fuctional definition of "scandal," and enumerates eleven particular issues that, in his view, could lead to scandals on the scale of- or greater than- Watergate. It is very disturbing to see all of these charges together, as one realizes just how many issues have been shunted out of the public eye.
There were not too many revelations in this book; most of the issues and instances Dean raises are ones I had read about before. The value of this book is to help the reader see the situation through the lens of a player in what was the greatest political crisis of the last Century. I am not a Bush fan, but I readily concede that many of the differences I have with our current president are more differences of degree or method than of substance. There are issues on which I agree wholeheartedly with Bush, and find Democrats just plain wrong. However, the tendency to hide behind a wall of secrecy has been disturbing to me. I absolutely do not believe this administration has anything to hide with respect to 9/11, but given this belief, it is distressing to see them acting- in public- AS IF they do.
Dean has composed a powerful, short and eminently readable book that can serve either as a wakeup call to this administration regarding its attitudes toward Congress and the public, or as a warning klaxon to people who care about the health of our constitution, our democracy and our country.
Rating:
Summary: Imagine That!
Review: John Dean, many will say, is a former jail bird and can't be trusted or believed. So read this with a grain of salt, less than 200 pages shouldn't take you long. Much of what Dean says has the undeniable ring of truth, yet staunch, unshakable Bush supporters have been so brainwashed by the ideology of the radical right they will not take the time to even consider another view. Bush IS the most incompetent president in our history, many of us "traitorous, commie liberals" have been drawing the same conclusions for three years. It isn't a mystery. Never has been. The Bush cabal has been painfully obvious all along, and yet many can't see the similarities between now and 1972. It is not made up. Dean just asembled historical facts, placed them in context, and the conclusion is irrefutable. Bush and his puppetmasters should be impeached! But that won't happen, and election (Notice I don't say, "re-election")is all too likely. The "conservatives" have been spending enormous amounts of time and money demonizing the word "liberal" and hyping the myth of a "liberal media", and unfortunately easily manipulated voters who won't read beyond the headlines will be their biggest supporters. Stealing another election, since it was so easy in 2000, probably is also in the plans for November. Diebold has provided the computerized voting machines that can be manipulated and leave no paper trail to verify results, and they are also one of the Bush campaign's biggest contributors. If you are not outraged and concerned about the survival of our democracy by now, you are asleep at the wheel.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable!
Review: This book makes the Richard Clarke book seem like child's play concerning the G.W. Bush administration. Dean had to do tons of research to come up with the information he wrote about. When this book hits the talk shows, it will be unbelievable. I never would have thought that a modern day administration could outdo Nixon in dirty tricks but the current one certainly has.
Rating:
Summary: eseential reading for all thinking citizens
Review: John Dean offers a perspective unique to any of the current books about the administration: he was in the highly scretive, paranoid Nixon administration. That experience makes him a perfect person to sound the alarm: this administration is not only the most secretive in our history, it is becoming more so day-by-day. The news stories make that clear, as recently when President Clinton okayed his papers on terrorism being given to the 9/11 commission, but Bush balked. Bush and Cheny hide information about their business pasts, their health, and their current decision-making. Why the secrecy? Partly to control evidence and information, partly to restore the imperial presidency, partly because of narrow-mindedness and anti-democratic arrogance. Dean calls his book a polemic, but he's never strident, he's very measured and careful in his arguments and in marshalling his facts. What he finds equally as disheartening as the growing threat to democracy is the slackness of the press, because there are eleven areas of scandal in the current administration that dwarf the Lewinsky Affair and any one of them could turn poisonous--if the press truly paid attention. Most disturbing of all is his view that this is a full co-presidency (despite the lack of honesty around Cheny's heart condition). Nothing could make that clearer than the fact that Bush and Cheny will appear together when they testify to the 9/11 commission. This would be perfect fodder for Leno if it weren't so shocking and unprecedented. Readable, brisk, salutory, this is a standout in the crowd of books about Bush.
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