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Wright's account is a telling description of the changes in the relationship between the executive and the legislative branches of government as well as between Congress and the American electorate. Behind these changes lie such disparate influences as the riots in Detroit, Vietnam, Watergate, gumshoe journalism, and conservative right-wing political tactics.
Typically, Wright allows an anecdote or colorful Texas-ism to illustrate what the author thinks and feels about someone or something. A certain politician's campaign commercials are "shallower than a saucer." And, in reference to the congressional ethics investigation, he writes: "I have often wondered how nature ever indulged such a profligate waste as to create the rhinoceros with a hide two feet thick and no apparent interest in politics."
Clearly, a book by a former Democratic Speaker of the House will be tinged by partisanship. Still, Wright offers insights into the character and motivation of an array of American leaders and many of this country's most defining moments since the halcyon days of the 1950s.
Marsha Van de Berg is a columnist and the Editor of The Ferndale Enterprise.
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