Nixonland

Fair warning: This book will take over your life. Yes, Perlstein writes about events 40+ years ago, but I swear, you could have changed the candidate's names in the book to McCain & Obama & not noticed much of a difference.

I started it in August/September, put it down and picked it up again in November and finally! finished it just after Christmas. Le Boyfriend kept asking me what was taking so long, because he's seen me hoover up most books in a day or two.

This is one of those books you can't read straight through for many different reasons, the main one being it is soo fucking depressing to read how these opportunistic bastards went about their little games. Also it's about 750 pages long, not including the notes & the index.

While Perlstein leans Left, he doesn't lack perspective and points out when the Dems are venal, inept, and tone-deaf, usually all at once.

There are shades of the 2000, 2004, and 2008 elections in this book. One could easily compare McGovern to John Kerry, and in fact, that's why I had to put it down during the height of the election season because it was as if the 1968 election was replaying itself word for word and it was messing with my head.

Of the many things I've taken away from this book, a few really stand out. Such as,there really is nothing new under the sun--when you read the quotes about fighting them over there to keep them off our shores & have to remind yourself that they're talking about those Godless Communists in Vietnam & not Al Qeada. Another is that David Broder is at the very least an idiot and quite possibly mentally handicapped.