Product Description

John Dean takes a sobering look at how radical elements are destroying the Republican Party along with the very foundations of American democracy

John Dean’s last New York Times bestseller, Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, offered the former White House insider’s unique and telling perspective on George W. Bush’s presidency. Once again, Dean employs his distinctive knowledge and understanding of Washington politics and process to examine the conservative movement’s current inner circle of radical Republican leaders—from Capitol Hill to Pennsylvania Avenue to K Street and beyond. In Conservatives Without Conscience, Dean not only highlights specific right-wing-driven GOP policies but also probes the conservative mind-set, identifying recurring qualities such as the unbridled viciousness toward those daring to disagree with them, as well as the big business favoritism that costs taxpayers billions. Dean identifies specific examples of how court packing is seeking to form a judiciary that is activist by its very nature, how religious piety is producing politics run amok, and how concealed indifference to the founding principles of liberty and equality is pushing America further and further from its constitutional foundations.

By the end, Dean paints a vivid picture of what’s happening at the top levels of the Republican Party, a noble political party corrupted by its current leaders who cloak their actions in moral superiority while packaging their programs as blatant propaganda. Dean, certainly no alarmist, finds disturbing signs that current right-wing authoritarian thinking, when conflated with the dominating personalities of the conservative leadership could take the United States toward its own version of fascism.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6483 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-11
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Amazon.com
In Conservatives Without Conscience, John Dean, who served as White House counsel under Richard Nixon and then helped to break the Watergate scandal with his testimony before the Senate, takes a vivid and analytical look at a Republican Party that has changed drastically from the conservative movement that he joined in the mid-1960s as an admirer of Senator Barry Goldwater. Listen to our interview with Dean as part of our July 13 Amazon Wire podcast (along with interviews with Garrison Keillor and Henry Rollins) to hear how he originally conceived of the book with the late Senator Goldwater, and the social science research he drew on to put together his portrait of the "conservative authoritarian." (You can subscribe to regular Wire podcasts here.) And take a look at Dean's choices for the best books to read on the American presidency in our Grownup School feature.

From Publishers Weekly
In his seventh book, Dean, the former Nixon legal counsel whom the FBI has called the "master manipulator" of the Watergate coverup, weighs in with a rebuke to Christian fundamentalists and other right-wing hard-liners. A self-described Goldwater conservative (indeed, Goldwater had planned to collaborate on this book before his death), he rails against the influence of social conservatives and neoconservatives within his party. Suffused with bitterness stemming from the controversies in which he has been embroiled, Dean's book paints a thin social science veneer over a litany of mostly ad hominem complaints. Purporting to show that social conservatives and neoconservatives are, on the whole, demonstrably authoritarian, bigoted, irrational and amoral, Conservatives Without Conscience offers helpful hints such as "Conservatives without conscience do not have horns and tails," and evinces a telling fascination with politicians' shady book deals. Though there is clearly much to condemn in the policies and tactics Dean deplores, assailing everyone from French political theorist Joseph de Maistre to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to the chairman of Yale University's conservative association as "Double High" social- dominance-oriented authoritarians undermines his journalistic credibility. Dean's lurid accusations may be entertaining, but they add little to the reasoned debate that Washington so sorely lacks today. (July 11)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
In his book, which takes its name from Barry Goldwater's classic work THE CONSCIENCE OF A CONSERVATIVE, John Dean, a key figure in the Nixon Administration and longtime conservative Republican, examines the rise of authoritarian conservatism within the Republican Party, whose current aim appears to be to create a one-party country run by a narrow clique of theocrats and political ultra-conservatives. However, they are far from true conservatives, as Dean defines them. Robertson Dean's reading is solid. The reading style is neither somnolent nor ranting. But at times it seems too clinical, too unemotional. While the words speak to the author's deep-felt opinions, the narration doesn't always reflect them. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

a conservative perspective on conservatives without conscience
well once again, we learn things about people in power that we would rather not know because it makes one feel so lied to, so angry that our lives are ofton in their hands in government. and this is not good for high blood pressure, but I am really thankful that there are people who will tell the truth, that there are even Republicans who have some integrity.

Great gift for a person interested in politics
We received the book in time for Father's day and it was exactly as advertised. Delivery was on time and the book was in excellent condition as it was new and a great price on your special. The gift was greatly appreciated. It is very good reading for anyone who is interested in politics.

Southern Strategy Overlooked
Although Mr. Dean gives us a very good look at right wing authoritarianism, he misses, perhaps because of the connection of the book's concept with Barry Goldwater, the very cause of the take over of what used to be the Party of Abraham Lincoln by these people. It was the Southern Strategy, developed by Goldwater and furthered by Nixon, that caused this. While many other earlier conservative movements were more libertarian in nature, Southern politics has always been authoritarian. When the Republicans invited the Southern Dixiecrats in they did not realize the implications this would have and that they would take over. As Senator Lott said many times, the spirit of Jefferson Davis is alive and well in the Republican Party. You cannot be the Party of Lincoln and the Party of Davis. No tent is that big.
Mr. Dean should have reviewed Dr Augustus Cochran's book "Democracy Heading South: National Politics in the Shadow of Dixie" and Michael Lind's book "Made in Texas: The Southern Takeover of American Politics" and Andrew Manis "Southern Civil Religions in Conflict: Civil Rights and the Culture Wars".