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Title: The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder by Mark Crispin Miller ISBN: 0-393-32296-3 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: June, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.21 (157 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Best When Discussing TV
Comment: The world changed on September 11th, but our President didn't. This book talks about why.
It's hard for a liberal to give a liberal 3 stars, but! There's a parade of Bush quotes and Miller's attempt to explain most of them in terms of Freudian slips. This becomes tiresome, and of course, when it comes to Bush there's always the suspicion that they are merely stupid slips and not Freudian ones. When, for instance, he uses the word "commiserate" instead of "commensurate", you just know he's barely aware of either word's definition. The quote section is sandwiched between lengthy diatribes wherein Miller shows us he's a bit too rabid to be helpful (don't preach to the choir, guy, reach out to the other side!). And it's obviously time to get ready for 2004, but Miller has no suggestions.
Miller's at his best when he's exposing TV as the willing accomplice of the Right. Sounded correct to me anyway, especially his fingering of Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts. When points start getting too profound, they reach for the trivial.
Lucky us.
Rating: 5
Summary: Superb - Perceptive, Accurate, and Badly Needed
Comment: Despite some of negative comments by other reviewers about this book, most of which seem to reflect the fact that they didn't bother reading the book before criticizing it, I think the DYSLEXICON does a wonderful job of outlining the ways mainstream media covered and interpreted the Bush campaign.
All partisan rhetoric aside, this book is a lucid analysis of the state of media and electoral politics today. That George Bush, Jr. provides such a wealth of...evidence to support the disorder Mr. Miller contends we are suffering from only attests to the generally degraded state of mainstream media today.
This is not a compendium of...shots assembled to disparage our current President, and I hope even those who supported Bush's run for office would at least consider opening their minds enough to engage the arguments Mr. Miller presents. They're worth it.
Rating: 4
Summary: Read this in October 2004
Comment: I confess I may not have purchased this book if I didn't recognize the author's name. Mark Crispin Miller was a film professor at a Baltimore university when I was an undergrad well over a decade ago. I enrolled in his lecture course and he helped make Stanley Kubrick a little less inscrutable, so I figured I'd give him a chance to deconstruct George W. Bush as well.
The "Dyslexicon" is three books in one. The center book, of course, is a lengthy compendium of the unelected President's misquotes. They're helpfully indexed by political issue. There are all your old favorites ("Families is where... wings take dream"). There are several quotes from Bush's own campaign autobiography ("A Charge To Keep") which doesn't sound as if it was written by Bush at all. Since the book contradicts his own views on turmoil at Yale in the late '60s, he probably didn't. Most important, I think, are the lengthy passages from the three debates with Al Gore in late 2000 that probably won Bush the election (or rather, put him in a position to get selected by the Supreme Court). For example, seeing in print how Gore dismantles Bush on issues such as affirmative action still had me scratching my head, just as I scratched my head in 2000 when the media declared that Bush "won" the debates.
The quotes, as I said, are the core of the book. Around that is a lengthy media-science discourse on television news and how America as a nation selects their presidents. This part of the book is a polemic, highly political, and I confess that I wasn't 100% on board with Miller's arguments. However, his case is compellingly stated. The point of publishing a book like this is to raise issues and engage discourse. On that level it is a far higher quality of discussion than you would see from, say, Regnery Press, which is the preferred platform for those who spread Bushisms.
The final portion of the revised book is the post-9/11 material. This book came out shortly after Bush was inaugurated, but was updated rather sensibly to show the changing focus of Bush's administration and policies. Miller deals well with the canonization of Bush after the tragedy, as spun by Ari Fleischer and Karl Rove. Less successful is his final argument, presented on pages 325-332 as "The Reason Why". First of all, you don't want to go around quoting Noam Chomsky to explain why 9/11 happened. There is a middle ground between the Chomsky and Bush views as to why America was selected for attack, but Miller doesn't stake it out. Are these the opinions Miller would have endorsed had Al Gore been President in 2001?
In the end, though, Miller does an important job dissecting Bush's policies. America was sold a bill of goods, electing the most radical President in a century, believing him to be a centrist. Miller presents his unvarnished words, which are at turns laugh-out-loud funny, and deeply disturbing. The middle book is the one you need to own, and the supporting essays are worth considering as well.
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Title: Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! by Michael Moore ISBN: 0060392452 Publisher: Regan Books Pub. Date: 19 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Bushwhacked : Life in George W. Bush's America by Lou Dubose, Molly Ivins ISBN: 0375507523 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization and High-Finance Fraudsters by Greg Palast ISBN: 0452283914 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 25 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Shrub : The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush by Molly Ivins, Lou Dubose, Lou Dubose, Molly Ivins ISBN: 0375757147 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 10 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: Is Our Children Learning? : The Case Against George W. Bush by Paul Begala ISBN: 0743214781 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 20 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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