Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone by Hunter S Thompson

About a year ago a collection of the writings of Hunter Thompson for Rolling Stone, edited together by Jann Wenner was published. Considered the father of Gonzo journalism Thompson wrote with a style all of his own.

This collection of his writings centers mostly on his infamous Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972. Following the election from Muskie to McGovern, Nixon to the seeds of Watergate this was Thompson at the peak of his writing.

Reading Thompson is like looking through the looking glass. When he writes that as the campaign progresses reporters all self medicate themselves to be able to live with the constant array of bullshit that is part of a Presidential campaign one has to wonder if for once we are hearing the truth.

If one takes a real look back to forty years ago and pictures Thompson's writing through the prism of what reporting looked like at that time one gets a sense of what a revolutionary he was.

The candidates themselves, Nixon, McGovern, all seemed to have a sense that Thompson was different. Surely they thought he was crazy, but all in all one guesses that talking with this crude example of reportage was if nothing else a novelty.

I enjoyed this section of the book immensely as well as I did like his later writings on Watergate, Nixon, and the election of Jimmy Carter. His later writings on subjects such as a late infatuation with polo, and a crazy story about a supposed encounter with Judge Clarence Thomas ( pre Supreme Court nomination) in the Nevada desert when the judge's limo crashed into a hard of sheep and overturned and out came tumbling the judge with a couple of matching hookers. Thompson write this story at the time of Thomas confirmation hearings and said he realized in watching that this was the judge he had met years ago but I, in reading it, could not bring myself to think it anything close to a true story. If it was shame on us all for putting this man on the bench but that questioning, in the end, became the problem with later Thompson reporting. That is, where does the unfiltered truth end, and the exaggeration and Gonzo begin.

I read the book through but would not recommend it. What I would advise someone who wants to gain the full Hunter experience is to have them read just Fear and Loathing on the Campaign in 1972. This is Hunter at his best, when he was on that fine, almost indistinct line between genius and crazy. It is not a line one can stay balanced on for long.

Mika Brzezinski on David Letterman

I have to admit something. My wife, I am pretty sure, already knows this but I have to admit publicly that I have a crush on Mika Brzezinski. I am sure that says something about me, not all of it I am sure allows me to stay in the he man club.

Mika as some know is the cohost of the Morning Joe program on MSNBC and plays the Democrat to Joe's Conservative. Her father is Zbigniev Brzezinski who was President Carter's National Security Adviser, who in fact often appears on the show as a guest.

Mika is incredibly intelligent, politically minded and engaged, a Democrat but not a knee jerk liberal and possessed of a very wry sense of humor. She broke with the administration and expressed dismay over the Catholic church as employer being forced to provide birth control and can often take the left to task. Much like Joe she is a member of her party but shows respect and the ability to appreciate the other sides opinion.

When you are 47 and you list intelligence as the most attractive thing about a woman you know you have aged. She is attractive but not in a typical way. Bottle blond and with wrinkle lines when she smiles she is a grown up.

So now that I have confessed this I want to talk about her appearance on Dave last night. Interestingly she was obviously nervous. I find it interesting that any one, herself included, who handles with such aplomb Presidential candidates and international figures would be nervous being interviewed by David Letterman. I guess it just goes to show that anyone taken out of their normal environment can change.

I watch Morning Joe most every day. I respect Scarborough, find him intelligent and rational, but I think that Mika with her sense of humor, enormous wit and intelligence, and her lone female in the boys club ability to fend for herself is the star of the show. A modern woman who recently wrote a book about women in the workplace and pay equity amongst other issues Mika is a role model for our daughters. A woman, respectful of her church, but willing to question when she feels necessary, attractive without being objectified, incredibly intelligent and conversant in the issues of the world and a mother and family woman as well who by all accounts is able to maintain a work life balance. And she has a great relationship with her father filled with respect and obvious affection.

Yes Mika is the star of the Morning Joe show, underrated as the glue that holds the show together but also an incredibly strong role model for women, especially young women, everywhere.

Wallace by Stephan Lesher

George Wallace was a pivotal figure in the politics of the second half of the twentieth century. Much is made of Barry Goldwater's ill fated fun in 1964 presaging the conservative revolution that came about with Ronald Reagan but what is overlooked is that the voters that streamed to Wallace in 68 and 72 were the voters that when the Wallace train stopped eventually landed in the Republican camp.

Wallace made his name as an anti segregationist. He ended his political life in 1987 after his fifth term ( if one counts the one term his wife Lurleen stood as his proxy) as the Governor of Alabama. In between he shook the Democratic party to it's as he put it " their eye teeth."

Wallace even in the early days dressed up his segregationist policies in the flag of states rights. Was Wallace prejuidiced against Negroes. It would seem that if he was, it was to a much lesser extent than many of his supporters. Still being a product of his times and geography it is very likely that there were some prejuidices in his soul. However much more pertinent was his use of others bigotry to advance his political cause. Realizing that in the state of Alabama success could not come with anything approaching equal treatment of blacks Wallace hopped willingly aboard.

However as the book makes clear as reprehensible as some of his actions were and as terrible as some of the results of his actions it is unlikely that any other politician that was successful in Alabama would have behaved differently. And by in the case of desegregation of schools and colleges in Alabama Wallace was adamant that people stay home and allow him to be the block. He knew he never would be but he truly was trying to avert violence and bloodshed.

More importantly in terms of his national ambitions Wallace was a populist. His views were to help the little man, tax the rich, keep government under local control albeit with largesse from the federal treasury. Wallace ran strong in 1968 and was on his way to controlling a significant number of Democratic delegates when gunned down by an asassins bullet in Maryland in 1972. His career as a national candidate faded as his disability put him in a wheelchair.

Wallace was always colorful, three wives, stormy relations with the courts and the press but through it all he provided a roadmap for the successful campaigns of both Carter and Reagan. Reagan Democrats were certainly Wallace Democrats.

This complicated hard to understand and categorize man was a crucial figure. While not the best biography I have ever read it is not due to the potential subject matter. One wonders how far, how influential Wallace might have been had not he been shot. A better book could illuminate even more brightly this polarizing man.

Then Everything Changed by Jeff Greenfield

This book starts out with an interesting premise. Alternate histories have been a game many political and history junkies have theroized for year. Greenfield takes three different actual events and twists the fates just a notch.

He has the would be assassin of JFK in 1960, after he was elected but before he was inauguarated, succeed leading to a constitional crisis and an eventual Johnson Presidency under different circumstances.

We also see what might have happened had someone spotted Sirhan Sirhan a moment sooner and RFK not been killed. An eventual convention fight between Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey leads to a President that sharply changes history.

Lastly and perhaps most interestingly we see what might have happened had Gerald Ford not made his mistake in the Carter debates about Eastern Europe. This history being one that has been considered less has more bite and is therefore the most interesting. How Ford's election and Carter's non election would have shaped the future's of both the Democratic and Republican parties is a very interesting exercise.

So the book has merit and was interesting. For me however much of the good of the book was taken away by the cutesy references that hinted at a future not seen such as LBJ proclaiming he could be caught having sex in the Oval office and still be elected. Of course knowing what did happen allows these references to be made but I found them to be clumsily inserted.

An interesting book but forgettable.

Mad As Hell by Dominic Sandbrook

This recently published book tells the tale of the United States in the 1970's what Sandbrook calls the rise of the populist right. Sandbrook, the author of several timepiece British histories captures the 1970's culturally, economically and most of all politically.

I read the book and enjoyed it and yet in no way would I call this a must read. It was an adequate history that broke no new ground. I did not find there any new look at the cultural impact of rock and roll or the ERA movement. In short if one had read no history of the seventies this might be an adequate place to stop but how many people with no background would be reading this book.

The bar is set pretty high for this type of book as some great books have been written, the best far and away in my opinion being David Halberstam book The Fifties. Of course Sandbrook is no Halberstam. Few are.

The one thing you do come away with in this book is the absolute failure of Jimmy Carter's Presidency. Taking a look at his administration should be good advice for anybody who thinks it is easy to govern as an " outsider" or that a President with his party in control of both houses is a lock to get his agenda through. Of course Carter lived in the pre filubuster as government practices of today, no Carter's problems were his own party and his evident belief that he did not need them.

Thinking of interest rates of 20 percent and inflation in double digits annually in comparison with how things are now ( and how tough they seem now) makes us realize how the late seventies were a very rough time in America.

An interesting book but certainly nothing new.