Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America And Betrayed The Reagan Legacy

Author Bruce Bartlett

Book review



Great book about the man I call the inarticulate retard. It is a few years old yet predicted with pretty good accuracy the recent fiscal disasters that occurred on Bush's watch. That perspective makes it worth reading for all of the Bush supporters who still have not figured out why, for all of his good points, Bush was a failure.

It stresses the Medicare Drug Benefit failures, yet it provides much insight into the basic inability of George W. Bush to react with reason to criticism of his fiscal policies.

Some quotes from the Amazon reviews are informative.

Taking the competence question first, Bartlett examines how little appetite the current administration has for serious analysis and research. Citing sources on issues ranging from national security, to economics, to healthcare, the author offers examples to prove a pattern of stifling debate, cajoling, sidelining, and even threatening those who would question the policy conclusions determined mostly by political handlers instead of policy experts. Surrounding himself with "political hacks" whose main ability rests in the ability to "say yes and ignore the obvious," the administration often begins with policy and then searches out justifications. Thrashing dissent and ignoring the traditional policy experts who work from positions of expertise, Bartlett sees the President's failure on important issues as Social Security, healthcare, and perhaps even Iraq arising from this dysfunctional process. Thus the author looks to the rough treatment of both the Treasury Secretaries and the Council of Economic advisors, used not to formulate thoughtful policy, but instead to sell an often incoherent program to the public.
- J.A. Magill

Another quote:

Much of what Bartlett says will already be familiar to people who follow politics to some degree. To me an important purpose this book serves is that it represents a well-respected conservative confirming what anyone who follows politics honestly will have concluded on their own by now about the Bush administration: that it is not conservative, that it fails to represent Republican principles, that it engages in grandiose and reckless initiatives that are not grounded in reality, and that a good case can be made that essentially everything it has undertaken has been a failure.

One particularly good point made by Bartlett is that many of Bush's initiatives have been geared toward winning popular support for the Administration and the Republican Party, rather than serving the public interest (e.g. Medicare drug program), yet they have turned out not only (as expected) to be policy failures, but political failures as well.
- Lance Sjogren

The Republican Party says now that they need to rethink what created the total trashing of the Party image in the view of the public. Stating with admitting the fiscal disaster of George W. Bush would be a good place to start.