Idiots, Hypocrites, Demagogues, and More Idiots: Not-So-Great Moments in Modern American Politics - Softcover

Slansky, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1596913754 ISBN 13: 9781596913752

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2007

Synopsis

Outrageous, offensive, and mind-boggling political blunders of the last fifty years, collected here for the first time.

There's nothing more enjoyable than when political bigwigs stick their feet in their mouth. Whether discussing foreign policy, the choice of vice-presidential running mate, the State of the Union, or the state of their marriage, the chances to screw up political careers are seemingly endless. In Idiots, Hypocrites, Crimals, and More Idiots, humorist Paul Slansky gathers together some of the most outrageous, hypocritical, self-serving, demagogic, criminal, offensive, surreal, and just plain idiotic moments in American politics over the last fifty years. With deliciously subversive sections entitled "Inaccurate Prognostications," "Delicious Wallows In Schadenfreude," "Bizarre Blurts," and "Freudian Slips," this book brings together the worst mistakes America's politicians, policy-makers, and wonk-heads ever had the audacity to commit―sometimes two or three times.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Slansky is the author of The Clothes Have No Emperor and The George W. Bush Quiz Book. His work is frequently featured in the New Yorker. He lives in Los Angeles.

From Publishers Weekly

With the rise of the 24-hour news cycle, "opportunities to screw up have increased exponentially" for politicians, paving the way for this studied catalog of official gaffes. The New Yorker and Huffington Post contributor cheerily points out the worst of the ruling class in a fragmented but digestible laundry list of fubars, missteps and snafus, including the memorable (Hillary Clinton's sardonic, "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies") to the obscure ("Six Taped Conversations that Might Lead One to Believe Richard Nixon's Oval Office was the Back Room of the Bada Bing Club"). Certain targets appear again and again, especially Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Dan Quayle, and it becomes difficult to find a page that doesn't include George W. Bush in lists such as "Bush tells 10 inadvertent truths" and "The Inebriation of George W. Bush," in which we learn that Bush doesn't know the meaning of the word "inebriated" (literally). Of course, many of these funnies come out of context, but for the politically-minded water cooler crowd, this neatly bound collection of quotables may be one of the best sources from which to pull this election cycle.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1596913754
• ISBN 13: 9781596913752
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 227