Politics: One positive aspect of the recent focus on US politics and overseas war is the extraordinary amount of books generated. The bestseller lists bristle with books about the Bush presidency, some supportive, but most against - very against, in fact. Far from the dumbed-down apolitical culture once predicted, this shows a positive engagement with the big issues, writes Eamon Delaney.
It also shows that the liberal left in the US has never been so assertive and unapologetic. If progressive Clinton and his scandals encouraged the neocons, then the actions of George W. Bush have galvanised the liberals, and old-style conservatives. This vivid and wildly partisan diatribe, with its damning subtitle, is a good indication of the sort of rage Bush produces, a rage which author Jack Huberman admits is like a "strange new psychological disorder" which has now become a national "epidemic of irrationality".
Huberman doesn't mince words and part of the book's appeal is the fluency of its invective, both hilarious and, at times, deeply depressing. Inside, he promises "a record of deception, of hypocrisy, relentless rollbacks of progress of every kind, tireless devotion to the interests of big business and the wealthy, and complicity with the programmes and prejudices of right-wing and religious zealots". You could not imagine such a book about Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan, even if the recent obituaries of old Ronnie described someone almost unrecognisable as the man whose policies, especially in Latin America, caused great outcry. However, as well as his geniality, Reagan was a pragmatic ideologue who actually engaged with the Soviets. Bush, by contrast is, after 9/11, like a man possessed, who by his over-reaction seems to have boosted the profile of al-Qaeda and spread danger everywhere. Or worse, as Huberman suggests, Bush and his circle are just cynical, and are "using the war on terror to entrench and expand their own power, and further the rest of their agenda". But Bush was unpopular before 9/11, as this book makes clear, and Huberman bluntly outlines the Bush record on the environment, tax cuts, welfare programmes and - ironic this - reduced benefits for veterans. He also quotes other politicians and, most damningly, other Republicans, many of whom despair of the president. Interesting, for example, is Marilyn Quayle who complains that all of the things unfairly said of her husband, Dan, are true of Bush.
"He never accomplished anything," she says. "Everything he got, daddy took care of." Ouch.
In fact, this goes to the heart of Bush's unpopularity; the overriding sense of what Huberman calls "spoiled-adolescent cockiness, callousness, and puerility".
"His gaffes aren't a symptom of stupidity," adds Joan Walsh of Salon, "but of his rich kid's luxurious detachment, his frat-boy's 'whatever, dude!' attitude. He veers weirdly between this fortunate-son insouciance, and, when seeking gravitas, a born-again absolutism (the force that helped pull him out of his drunken youth)". And it is this Christian evangelism that scares many. Nor does it seem to extend to much charity, as shown when Bush appeared on TV, mimicking the death-row inmate, Carla Tucker, allegedly pleading for her life. "Please don't kill me," he mocked - a piece of juvenile cruelty which took even right-wing pundits aback.
In a rare utterance about his successor, Bill Clinton summed him up thus: "I own a baseball team, my daddy was president, they like me down here ." The crowd loved it, and a furious George Bush senior immediately came to his son's defence, thereby confirming Clinton's jibe. "I didn't mean he calls him 'daddy'," said Clinton, playfully. "I know he calls him 'father'."
Hilarious stuff. What a shame Clinton won't be around in the autumn to take him on. Now there would be a contest.
Eamon Delaney is a writer and critic