A dishy look at how insider Washington works, fueled by drugs, booze, and, of course, mountains of money.
A feature writer for the Washington Post looks into D.C.’s concentric rings of lobbyists, influence peddlers, and wannabes.
“I was rarely the kind of reporter who chased The Big Story,” writes Terris. “I was more interested in the sideshow.” As he ably shows, most of the D.C. scene is precisely that sideshow, with a shifting cast who are in one day, out the next. His text opens with a midlevel Democratic Party official who throws poker parties that were once quite popular, with juicy quotables emerging from them (of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the operative remarks, “She has such bad politics, but she’s so hot.” Of course, many of Terris’ subjects are die-hard Trump supporters, desperate to claw themselves back to either respectability or a place in a presumed second administration. Among the most visible of the White nationalist outcasts is Matt Schlapp, who, with his wife, “had once been the very picture of the old Republican establishment….But they were Trump people now.” Thanks in part to the author’s reporting, Schlapp is now damaged goods on the strength of an alleged untoward sexual advance toward a male staffer, but that didn’t stop him from hosting a Christmas party at which George Santos was loudly present—“the kind of grifter,” one GOP stalwart worried, who would have success “gaining purchase in Trump’s, and Matt’s, Republican Party.” On the Democratic side, the picture is scarcely prettier. After fomenting bad polling, one operative, already iffy because his “love of money in politics put him at odds with most liberals,” found himself on the outs with the powers that be. “It’s amazing what people are willing to overlook when things are going well for them,” writes Terris.
A dishy look at how insider Washington works, fueled by drugs, booze, and, of course, mountains of money.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781538708057
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Twelve
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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