Speech-Less, by Matthew Latimer

This audiobook was 7 hours and 20 minutes long and was read by Lincoln Hoppe. It was obtained from Overdrive Audio for free through the Alachua County Library.

A young speech writer in the Bush White House details his early years as a Reagan Republican, through his work life as a staffer for congressmen and for Donald Rumsfeld, until his ultimate goal of writing speeches for the President. This book is a kind of tell-all by a disillusioned young man, yet it is not the kind of exposé that a closet liberal would have written.

Matthew Latimer is a young conservative who saw the disaffection of conservatism from the inside. He and the other speech writers were sometimes ordered to write things they thought were ridiculous. They were often the last check before mistakes were made. It was disheartening to read, yet it was good to know that the failures of the last administration were not the failures of conservatism, but of the people who merely used conservatives.

This one gets 4 stars.

Against All Enemies, by Richard A. Clarke

This audio book was 11 hours and 54 minutes long, and was narrated by Alan Nebelthau.

I had heard all the detractors, my fellow conservatives, pick this book apart and speak of Richard Clarke as if he were the worst traitor. But I wanted to read this book for myself and draw my own conclusions. Now that I have done that, I will share with you my assessment of this book.

It is pretty fast moving and engrossing reading. Clarke begins with the horror of September 11, 2001, and then retraces his steps as he worked for 3 US Presidents before George W. Bush. He had a ringside seat to many decisions made about US policy on terrorism, and was a major player in some of the counter-terrorism efforts made under Bill Clinton's administration.

If I didn't pay any attention to the news at all since the early 1990s, I would have to believe that George W. Bush and his administration made every conceivable error leading up to 9-11, and that the justification of the Iraq War was a total fabrication by Bush, Cheney, and Condi Rice, who just wanted an excuse to go back and in and finish what George H.W. Bush did not. This book is a pretty tight argument for scorning both Bush Administrations for all time as a collection of bunglers unequaled in American history.

I truly did enjoy this book because I do believe that it will be instructive for generations to come, and because it shows us enough of the workings of counter-terrorism to actually give us hope that there is rhyme and reason to how terrorism is fought. However, there is just enough missing, and just enough that smells wrong to cost Clarke some credibility points. For instance, he makes a great deal of his information that demonstrates there was absolutely no reason for invading Iraq. Yet, it is completely ignored that Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, was in violation of the UN's orders to comply with the dismantling of his nuclear and biological weapons program for 12 years. This was worth mentioning, even if he just wanted to discount it for some reason.

Read with a healthy dose of skepticism, but with the sobering realization that mistakes were made that led to 9-11, and that mistakes were certainly made afterward, this is a four star book.

Saving Graces, by Elizabeth Edwards

This audio book was 13 hours and 42 minutes long and was narrated by Bernadette Dunne.

This is not the Elizabeth Edwards book in which she tells about her husband's affair. Senator John Edwards is a kind and idealistic husband and politician with a noble and intelligent wife in this book. I am not yet aware of how she portrays her relationship with John the philandering weasel, but he contrasted poorly with the hard luck missus he has in this one.

This is her story, from her upbringing in post-war Japan as the daughter of a Naval officer to the tragic death of her teenage son and her discovery of a cancerous lump just a few weeks out from the 2004 election, when her husband was the Vice-Presidential candidate. She is a smart and thoughtful woman who was devastated by the loss of her son, Wade, in a car accident that had nothing to do with alcohol. She deals with the day to day coping that goes on for years and never leaves her consciousness. This could have been a dreary book, but she is such a good writer that it never bores you. This is a solid 3 star book thtat rises to 4 if youu identify personally with either of her losses.

Boom, by Tom Brokaw

This audiobook was obtained for free from Overdrive Audio through the Alachua County Public Library. It was narrated by Robertson Dean and was 18 hours and 16 minutes long.

I was quite taken with Tom Brokaw's last best seller, "The Greatest Generation". This book is about the baby boomer generation and it's journey through the 60s. Of course, the 60s is defined not by the numerical dates, but by the events that were a part of the 60s narrative. So, it begins with the assassination of JFK and ends with the resignation of Richard Nixon. It is also about people who were pretty much adults at the time. I was only 9 years old during the 1968 Summer of Love, so my own memories of that tumultuous year are undiluted by hormones or hallucinogens. Memories like mine are not represented here.

This is very much a reporter's collection of interviews, which means his subjects do most of the editorializing. And although Tom Brokaw weighs in with his opinions, you also get the recollections and reconsiderations of Gloria Steinem, Arlo Guthrie, Hillary Clinton, Karl Rove, James Taylor, Pat Buchanan, Carla Hills, Tom Hayden, and a lot of people you may have never heard of, but who played a role in the Viet Nam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Movement, or did a lot of dope.

Whether you miss the 60s or wish they had never happened, there is something here for you. Some of its most famous participants have their criticisms and regrets on both sides of every question. So there really are no definitive answers here, which is appropriate for a book about the generation that made moral relativism and ambivalence our national mood.

It's 4 star entertainment.