Product Description

From Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, authors of Shrub, Bushwhacked is a hilarious, no-holds-barred look at George W. Bush and his administration, and an essential book for understanding the full, destructive impact of his presidency.

For years, bestselling political commentator Molly Ivins has been sounding the alarm about George W. Bush. In Shrub, her 2000 skewering of presidential candidate Bush, the inimitable Ivins, with co-author Lou Dubose, offered a devastating exposé of Dubya’s career and abysmal record as governor of Texas. Now, in their second book on our current White House occupant, Ivins and Dubose take the wire brush to the Bush presidency and show how he has applied the same flawed strategies he used in governing Texas to running the largest superpower in the world.

Bushwhacked brings to light the horrendous legacy of the Bush tax cut, his increasingly appalling environmental record, his administration’s involvement in the Enron scandal, and the real Bush foreign policy—botched nation building in Kabul and Baghdad, alienation of former allies—and, unfortunately, much more. Ivins and Dubose go beyond the too frequently soft media coverage of Bush to show us just how damaging his policies have been to ordinary Americans—“the Doug Jones Average,” rather than the Dow Jones Average. Bushwhacked is filled with sharp observation, humor, and compassion for the people often ignored by the federal government and the Washington press corps.

With the war on terrorism posing unprecedented challenges to our civil liberties, and with the Bush economic policy in shambles, it is high time for a close look at the state of our Union. Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose provide just that in Bushwhacked—an incisive, entertaining, and damning indictment of the Bush presidency.


We've been Bushwhacked
Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose on:

Dubya’s involvement in the failure of Harken Energy Corporation:
“There are countless subjects on which George W. Bush might have pleaded ignorance in 1990, but a failing oil business was not one of them.”

Dubya’s accomplishments as governor of Texas:
“As full-time residents of the state that gave you tort reform, H. Ross Perot, and penis-enlargement options on executive health plans, we’re obliged to warn you that if Dubya Bush really had exported ‘the Texas Miracle,’ the country would be in deep shit.”

Dubya’s environmental record:
“Bush has a chemical-dependency problem, but it’s not cocaine. It’s Monsanto, Dow, and Union Carbide. They wrote the checks that put him in the Texas governor’s mansion....Bush had two voluntary emissions-control programs here in Texas. One involved polluting industries. The other was directed at adolescent males, who were encouraged to ‘try abstinence.’ Only 3 of our 8,645 most obnoxiously polluting refineries actually volunteered to cut back on their toxic emissions. Numbers on teenage boys are not yet in.”

Why the Republican Party is the party of unregulated meat and poultry:
“The Republicans win elections in the ‘red states’ in the center of the country, where cattle and chickens are produced and slaughtered. Democrats win their elections in the ‘blue states’ on the coasts. Republicans use the USDA to pay off their contributors in the red states. The result of that crude electoral calculus is laissez-faire food-safety policy whenever a Republican is in the White House. (If you must eat while the Republicans control the White House, both houses of Congress, and the judiciary, you might want to consider becoming a vegetarian about now.)”

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #515808 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-23
• Released on: 2003-09-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Amazon.com Review
She tried to warn us: With the publication of Shrub in early 2000, syndicated columnist Molly Ivins detailed George W. Bush’s privileged rise and disastrous reign as governor of Texas in the mid- to late ‘90s. In Bushwhacked, she looks at his first term as president. The picture she paints is unremittingly bleak—unless, of course, you’re a big campaign donor well served by Bush’s prescription for all economic ills (deregulation, tax cuts for those who need them least, and lax enforcement of worker and environmental safety standards). As the only president in U.S. history to slash taxes and go to war simultaneously, Bush wins consistently low marks from Ivins for pursuing "crony capitalism" to its inevitably depressing extremes. While many of the topics covered here have been covered extensively (Enron, the war in Iraq), Ivins does a good job of building on what’s already been written (proving Bush’s close ties to former Enron chief Ken Lay, and laying out the fundamentalist, apocalyptic view of Iraq and the Middle East that drives Bush’s foreign policy). Ivins is particularly good in taking arcane federal regulations and showing how the Bush administration’s lax oversight has hurt ordinary Americans, making their jobs, homes, water, and food less safe. Ivins is no distanced observer. She’s clearly incensed by Bush’s policies, but her reporting is so detailed and writing so witty that even those who come to the book undecided about Bush will likely be outraged by the time they finish it. ----Keith Moerer

From Publishers Weekly
Ivins's mordant wit, political passion and uninhibited energy are unique among political writers and translate into entertaining reading for anti-Bushites. Together with co-author Dubose, Ivins (Shrub) offers a ferocious attack on "Dubya," arguing that he has taken the country in a direction he conveniently failed to mention during the 2000 campaign. That direction, according to Ivins, endangers workers, the poor and disadvantaged, the middle class and, for good measure, the Bill of Rights. Her message is that Bush's education, economic, tax and environmental policies, his energy policy, his response to the Enron scandal all have one thing in common: "setting the fox to guard the chicken coop." The "fox" in this case is business interests; the chickens are the EPA, the SEC, the Federal Energy Regulation Commission and other agencies whose purpose is to protect citizens from capitalism's excesses. Simply put, Bush, according to Ivins, has abandoned the interests of American citizens for the interests of corporate America. Two things distinguish this from the rest of the burgeoning anti-Bush literature: Ivins's substantive arguments and her language and humor, which are refreshingly inventive. Members of the Texas Supreme Court, dominated by then-Governor Bush appointees, are "nine justices beloved for their canine fidelity to corporations." Bush's Middle East policy, which Ivins says is driven by the evangelical right's eschatology, "has produced alliances as peculiar as the Michael Jackson-Lisa Marie Presley union." Nonetheless, readers shouldn't be misled: Ivins and Dubose do not believe Bush is funny; they are outraged by what they identify as his excesses. They want readers to be outraged, too-and many will be.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Syndicated columnist Ivins and her cowriter Dubose also wrote Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush before the 2000 election, and as they put it, "If y'all had've read this first book, we wouldn't've had to write this one." Obviously, no bones are made about their point of view. But unlike some partisan books on both sides, which rattle off a string of injustices and call names, these authors have another agenda. Oh, they still call names, but using something of a case-study format, they show what the Bush domestic program has meant to individual citizens in particular and the populace in general: laid-off workers in Philly who can't get extensions of their benefits while the wealthy got a dividend tax windfall. In the Mississippi Delta, the hands of catfish-house workers are painfully twisted by arthritis, but with the backing of the business community, the Bush administration killed ergonomics protection. And so it goes with pro-pollution policies and a "faith-based foreign policy [which is] terrifying in an apocalyptic way." Like a fire-and-brimstone preacher, Ivins informs readers it is "time to raise hell" and gives them some ways to do just that, including fighting the evil of campaign fundraising, which turns politicians into commodities to be bought and sold. Although the sourcing could be more specific, the writing itself is pure Ivins, frank and funny and eminently readable. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

ASTONISHING, and based on fact, not argument
This book ASTOUNDS me. It's not a "spin book," trying to argue against positions or "prove them wrong," it's simply a look at actual records of decisions and political connections (and their consequences) in the Bush administration. I find myself often gasping and proclaiming out loud to my wife, "Man, I NEVER heard this stuff anywhere else!" And it's not based on fragile strands of interconnecting conpsiracies; it's rather blunt and obvious--but just not commonly revealed in any media.

For example, this book documents in detail how Bush had done exactly the same thing with his Harken stock that Martha Stewart might be serving time for, but the SEC investigator on his case was also Bush's own personal lawyer too--and he simply allowed Bush to file his disclosure forms RETROACTIVELY. End result? Bush sells his stock moments before it tanks, costing OTHER people millions, getting rich, and then slipping through the law using the very same methods he'd later scold in his "corporate crime" speech about Enron. Oh, and remember how Cheney's company stashed billions in assets in tax shelters on the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes here? Now THAT'S patriotism!

Or how about this one? Bush made emissions controls in Texas VOLUNTARY for corporate polluters. How did polluters ever manage to win such benevolence? In fact, industry campaign contributers literally wrote every word of the law regulating themselves! Of more than 5,000 polluters in Texas, not one actually voluntarily reduced their emissions. Texas reversed Bush's law within the first year of his absence. Unfortunately, nobody has yet reinstated the food safety/listeria regulations for meat products that Bush cancelled during his first few months.

Or this one? In 1995, Newt Gingrich repealed the Superfund Tax on corporate polluters, which means that cleaning up Superfund toxic waste sites is now paid for by taxpayers, not by the corporations who made the messes. As a result, the $3.8 billion trust to clean toxic waste had dwindled to only $28 million this year (2003), less than one-fourth the cost of cleaning up a SINLGLE waste site (there are hundreds). So how'd Bush respond? He installed Christine Todd Whitman, a polluter's dream of an administrator, and CANCELLED the EPA's Ombudsman program. That means citizens have no method of raising concerns or reporting toxic sites to the EPA anymore; it's the same thing as cutting the wire on every phone leading to the EPA's reporting agencies. As a result, Bush can show on paper that the prevalence of toxic waste dumps is declining--not because he's done anything to remedy the problem, but because he killed the only available process for identifying and treating contaminated sites in the first place. And the sites that already exist remain untreated! (Is there one in your area? Check at http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/)

Remember when Bush said that by far, "the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the people at the bottom of the spectrum?" And his defense that he would never pass along budget problems to future generations? And that his programs would stimulate the economy and jobs? Well, it turns out that 60% of his cuts go to the upper 10% of people (40% to the upper 1%), with NO cuts (or less than $200) to the bottom class (and yet the service cuts to pay for the tax breaks affect the lower classes the MOST, meaning it actually cost us money). The stock market has lost $4.6 TRILLION during his presidency, with 3 million jobs lost and no net jobs created, a DOUBLING of trade deficits under his gloablzied "free trade" arrangements (which he wants to expand still further!), record numbers (and a record increase-of-pace) of jobs lost to overseas sweatshops, and deficits caused by tax cuts that will extend into the senior age of our children.

And so on.

The book is plainly written, not dull, and not "catty." It just lays it right out there. Unfortunately, I suspect that any Bush "fan" would simply stop reading it after the first chapter, rather than confront the information offered. I predict you will see very few, if any, reviews that oppose this book by rebutting its facts; watch carefully and guage the balance between people who actually tackle what this books says, and those who slough it off with lazy and cowardly phrases like "more liberal [insert cliche dismissive term here.]"

Go, Molly!

Funny For A Few Seconds Til You Remember Its True!
Molly Ivins is a very funny woman. She has clearly made many enemies with her outspokenness. And with Bushwhacked, Ivins outdoes herself with her comedic approach. There are some laugh out loud lines that are just entirely brilliant in Bushwhacked.

At the very same time, Iver's humor is focused on a very real situation: the current administration of our country. To that extent, Bushwhacked is a serious examination of some very compelling political and constitutional issues.

While Bushwhacked can easily be attacked as left wing pabulum by the conservative readers who believe they are benefiting by the approach of the current administration, the issues it deals with are all too real and all too well corroborated in the media and in observations made by average people throughout our nation.

I know that humor is supposed to cushion the hard and often cruel truth. And for a while, the humor in Bushwhacked works very well. Yet, at the end of this book, I just came away sad and somewhat anxious about the state of our nation.

Vitally important issues, cleverly presented. Yet, as a reader, my concluding emotions on the issues addressed in the book were ones of genuine discomfort and a sense of powerlessness that I all too often hear echoed in the voices of many American as they discuss their views of how the country stands politically at this juncture in history.

A recommended read. Some serious issues for all Americans to consider with an open and nonpartisan mind!


James J. Maloney
Saint Paul, Minnesota USA

A powerful and depressing indictment of Bush's policies
Of the growing spate of liberal books to appear in the past few months, BUSHWHACKED by Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose is my favorite of the bunch. It also holds the odd distinction of being one of the most thoroughly depressing books I have ever read. No matter how low one's opinion of George W. Bush, it will be lowered through reading this book.

Many of the recent books on Bush and the Right have focused on the habit and strategy of intentionally misrepresenting positions held by those on the right. They are, in effect, apologias for liberalism and honesty in politics. This book is instead a direct examination of George W. Bush's policies and plans, and what they see scares them and me. As they write near the end of the book, "The six most fatal words in the language are rapidly becoming `The Bush administration has a plan . . . " (p. 295).

Ivins and Dubose don't discuss the Bush policies in abstract, but in terms of how they affect real live human beings. They argue "this country no longer works for the benefit of most of the people in it" (p. 293) and they are determined to explain precisely why. What is most informative about the book is not just the discussion of the more familiar failures of the Bush administration, but overlooked or under considered facets of their policies. For instance, in Texas they have already undergone school reform of the kind promoted by Bush in the No Child Left Behind act. In fact, as they demonstrate, it is a perfect recipe for leaving vast numbers of children behind, as high schools out of self-protection refuse to promote underachieving students past ninth grade, in many instances keeping them there until they turn eighteen and are no expected to stay in school. Or consider the vast number of students in Texas who now graduate by taking the G.E.D as a way of avoiding the exams. All education in Texas is now focused on preparing those students who have a fighting chance of passing the major exam, and shunting those with no prayer of doing so off to the side. The result, in other words, of the No Child Left Behind equivalent has been disastrous, and now this is national policy as well. As they demonstrate, with a minimal financial investment in schools, the federal government has maximum input, and not in a constructive way. I found this chapter to be one of the scariest in the book.

The book is an unrelenting recitation of horrors. 500,000 poor Americans who Bush cut off from the federal program providing some support in paying heating bills in the winter. Instituting faith based programs as a means of allowing religious institutions that would otherwise fail credentialing requirements to offer their services to individuals whose needs they are poorly equipped to meet. Consistently sending ideologues instead of public policy experts to every imaginable international meeting. In one such conference, the September 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, the U.S. delegates attempted to strike language that "would have included female genital mutilation, forced child marriage, and `honor' killings as human-rights violations" (p. 262). Ivins and Dubose go on to cover the effects of his court policies, the Patriot Acts, his naked espousal of fundamentalist religion, his tax policies, his environmental policy, the EPA, his unilateralist foreign policy, his food policy . . . the list goes on and on and on, a veritable parade of horrors.

My assessment of President Bush before reading this book is that he could very well be considered one of the very worst presidents in American history. Now, thanks to Ivins and Dubose, I think he is not only our worst president ever, but that one could make a powerful case for his being arguably the most destructive American to ever live. I consider this book to be essential reading, but working through it won't be much fun.