Mike Lofgren, The Deep State

I'm really interested in this book.

Lofgren's not a leftist, apparently, which was my first question when I heard about the tome: "Yeah, yeah. Here's another attack on the Bush regime and government despotism, secrecy, and massive civil liberties violations, etc." But it's not written by a leftist, and it's not primarily about Bush (you gotta go with Jane Mayer for that, heh).

In any case, I'll prolly pick this up on the 1st.

At Amazon, The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government.

Every Four years, tempers are tested and marriages fray as Americans head to the polls to cast their votes. But does anyone really care what we think? Has our vaunted political system become one big, expensive, painfully scriped reality TV show? In this cringe-inducing expose of the sins and excesses of Beltwayland, a longtime Republican party insider argues that we have become an oligarchy in form if not in name. Hooked on war, genuflecting to big donors, in thrall to discredited economic theories and utterly bereft of a moral compass, America’s governing classes are selling their souls to entrenched interest while our bridges collapse, wages, stagnate, and our water is increasingly undrinkable.

Drawing on sinsights gleaned over three decades on Capitol Hill, much of it on the Budget Committee, Lofgren paints a gripping portrait of the dismal swamp on the Potomac and the revolution it will take to reclaim our government and set us back on course.