Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy

A wealth of material you will not find elsewhere.

Before this book I had not heard about Signing Statements. I thought a line-item veto was a good idea if it was to remove pork from large spending bills. But Bush used Signing Statements instead of vetoes and used them to sneakily overturn laws passed by Congress for one purpose: to put the president above the law and shatter the balance of power created by the founders.

Even though I've read other books on King George and the positively evil Cheney (Best Democracy Money Can Buy, State of Denial, Greatest Story Ever Sold, Hostile Takeover), Charlie Savage's Takeover is a must read. It contains a great deal of behind-the-scenes detail and is so well written it is as exciting as a movie script to those of us who are mentally awake. Calling Steven Spielberg and George Lucas!

With each successive year, the Bush-Cheney administration gets scarier and undoubtedly more out of control. Political grabs for power have always been the name of the game in Washington, but the current White House has taken it to new and unprecedented levels, subverting the Constitution along the way. Charlie Savage's terrific new book, "Takeover", charts the "progress" of the Bush years and with it offers up some startling results.

It's been known for some time now that the run up to the war in Iraq was based on conjecture. As Savage reminds us, Tony Blair's cabinet had correctly surmised that (regarding the potential invasion) "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy". This was only the beginning for the Bush people and, having gotten their way with that, the rush to accumulate power within the executive branch of government was underway. Castrating Congress, disregarding the courts and avoiding public opinion, the administration went on a tear. Legalisms became the norm in order to sidestep the law as the White House pulled the wagons in closer and tighter.

One of the main thrusts of "Takeover" is a discussion about Unitary Executive Theory which amounts to an idea that an executive can ignore previous laws, precedents that are attached to them and to do pretty much at will as he so desires. This often takes the form of "signing statements". It is here that Savage really makes his case for how far out on a limb Bush-Cheney have gone. With their team of lawyers working seemingly around the clock to get around anything that might get in the way, (and in their mind, "weaken" the executive branch) Savage adeptly and successfully crashes their party. He documents the egregiousness and the shameful tactics that Bush has gone to with results that will be long-lasting. The precedents they set now are really the worst part and any future president can then look back on these years and claim them as their own. In the wrong hands, this could be devastating.

I highly recommend "Takeover" for the author's uncovering and recounting yet more of the disgrace that this administration has brought to America. It's a searing account of the past six and a half years in Washington and portends an even more frightful last year or so with Bush-Cheney in control. One would hope that Charlie Savage is working on a sequel that will deliver a final exposé to this most corrupt and harmful presidency.

Terrific book.meticulously researched.70 pages of "footnotes"Shows how the two presidents have relentlessly,almost every day,destroyed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.The book will help you see it happening before your very eyes.For example,the upcoming attorney general is the judge who gave Bush the right to arrest American citizens on Americal soil and classify them as "Enemy Combatents".Therefor denying them any rights.No trial by jury.Can be held forever without charges.Can be sent by"rendition" to countries like Syria who have no rules about torture.Both sides of the aisle say this guy will breeze through the confirmation process.Send a copy of the book to your congress persons.

The number of books being written about the excesses of the Bush years increase almost daily, and keeping up with all of them is becoming nothing short of impossible. That said, keep in mind that not much is new from volume to volume, but "Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency..." covers most of the issues competently if not completely.

It is difficult for some readers, especially those who refuse to see the inadequecies and subversions of this presidency to read books that are not flattering, but hopefully they can leave their ideology for a while.

Had some of the events that took place within the oval office during the last six years occured during the previous administration there would have been very credible reasons to seek impeachment, and the failure of Congress to demand a better accounting of the insane power grabs is incomprehensible, but partisan politics seems to be the only measure to take, not take action. America has lost so much credibility during this imperial presidency that it will take decades to even begin to repair some of the damage, and then only if our politicians on both sides of the aisle wake up, and soon.

There are "oh, now I get it!" moments on nearly every page of this highly readable, superbly-researched and sourced book. Although the title implies that this might be a book about George W. Bush, it's actually the story of how Dick Cheney visualized, masterminded, and executed the destruction of Constitutional limits to the power of the President. Savage shows us that starting with his work in the Nixon administration as Rumsfeld's assistant at the Office of Economic Opportunity, continuing with his term as Wyoming's representative to Congress, and then during his service in the administrations of Reagan and George H.W. bush, Cheney worked relentlessly to formulate his vision of an imperial presidency, and form a team that would assist him in stripping away Congressional oversight of the actions of the President. By the time he was selected to be George Bush's running mate for the Presidency, all the pieces and characters were in place, and the rest is history.

Savage looked at all the documents, court rulings, and white papers relating to Cheney's work, and in this book makes a powerful case that we would have known what we were in for today if we had studied the history of this man. It's a case-study of how to demolish democracy. This is compelling and mandatory reading for anyone who cares about the Constitution of the United States and the future of our democracy.