Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk

by Maureen Dowd

The columnist discusses the Bush dynasty and the people surrounding the administration, including Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Rice, Rove, Wolfowitz, and Perle.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Humor, History, Essays, Biography, Journalism

523 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Maureen Dowd is a Washington D.C.-based columnist for The New York Times. She has worked for the Times since 1983, when she joined as a metropolitan reporter. In 1999, she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her series of columns on the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Dowd's columns are distinguished by an acerbic, often polemical writing style. Her columns often display a critical attitude towards powerful figures such as President George W. Bush, former President Bill Clinton, and Pope Benedict XVI.

Reviews

[Elliot Schott · Rating 1 out of 5]

I honestly couldn't get through this piece. About halfway through, I got fed up with the amount of pet names Dowd was using for her political players. Overall, the tone of this book comes off like a Yahoo! news comment thread; it's way too abrasive in advance of any facts to win moderates or cynics over, thus making it something of a masturbatory piece for people already on Dowd's wavelength. There was plenty about the Bush administration to give any journalist room for extensive and outrageous narrative, without resorting to cutesy names for people and creating insulting hypothetical scenarios that occurred behind closed doors. I understand if a humorous edge is needed when discussing all the frank upheavals of democracy that occurred under Bush's terms, but there were certainly better satirical approaches out there than just going for below the belt. Read any comic strip by Tom Tomorrow if you want what Maureen Dowd is attempting here; you'll get decent humor mixed with actual facts (making it a "cry 'til you laugh" sort of situation).

[Sabina · Rating 5 out of 5]

The signs of abuses and excesses of the Bush/Cheney administration were all there in Maureen's column every week for anyone to pick up on. That we were bowled over and duped into the Iraq war is our own fault, really. She has a keen eye for the hubris in politics and draws very colorful allegories to illustrate her points.

You really should read it to get a better understanding of what makes this White House tick--and to hypothesize what trick they might try next. Never trust them; that's what I glean from from this book.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious - not the subject matter but the writing style! Eye opening and amazing when you realize that this was not written 'after the fact.' These were editorials written between the late 90's and 2004. Her insight is 'right on!'

[Rich]

Actually did not finish this; love the author, but could not stomach reading anymore about the "subject"

[Marni · Rating 2 out of 5]

She's a clever writer and has the insider information. In the midst of Trump America, I just don't want to read about another stupid white president.

[Ice · Rating 4 out of 5]

From Washington to Kennebunkport to Texas to old Europe and new Europe, during the past two decades Maureen Dowd has trained her binoculars on the Bush dynasty, putting them, as both 41 and 43 have complained to her, "on the couch." Here she wittily dissects the Oedipal loop-de-loop between father and son and the Orwellian logic of the rush to war in Iraq. It's a turbulent odyssey charting how a Shakespearean cast of regents, courtiers, and neo-con Cabalists-all with their own subterranean agendas-hijack King George II's war on terror and upend the senior Bush's cherished internationalist foreign policy and Persian Gulf coalition.

As she's written about Bushworld, "It's their reality. We just live and die in it.'"

For thirty years, Maureen Dowd has written about Washington-and America-in a voice that is acerbic, passionate, outraged, and incisive. But nothing has engaged her as powerfully as the extraordinary agendas, absurdities, and obsessions of George the Younger. Drawing upon her celebrated columns, with a new introductory essay, she probes the topsy-turvy alternative universe of a group she has made recognizable by their first names, middle initials, nicknames, or numbers-41, the Boy Emperor, Rummy, Condi, Wolfie, Uncle Dick of the Underworld, General Karl, Prince of Darkness (Richard Perle), and her own nickname from W., the Cobra-as they seek an extreme makeover of the country and the world. Bushworld is a book that any reader who cares about the real world won't want to miss.

[J. Ewbank · Rating 2 out of 5]

I fyou like political books, obviously slanted, this is the book for you, especially if you did not like Bush or are a liberal.

It has some humerous elements throughout the book no matter what political stripe you happen to be.

Obviously the New York Times is not conservative and they generally write more negatively about conservatives and positively about liberals, but this book is written well and can be enjoyed by all.

I just do not happen to care too much for this type of political book.

J. Robert Ewbank author, "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

[Sequoia · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED IT! Maureen Dowd validated many theories I had regarding the Bushwhacked administration. The comic relief angle to her accounts as a columnist helped one to get through the obscene injustices committed by the Bush administration. I hope her work will be revisited to help prosecute the buggers!

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will give Maureen Dowd credit for being witty, but this book was at least 300 pages too long. Maybe her subject was bad (mind you I don't mind a good Bush bashing) but after awhile i didn't care anymore. It took everything i had to finish this.

[Amy Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious. Dowd never had a better subject than W., and she lets loose in a series of essays taken from her NY TIMES column. She hits home so many time it almost takes your breath away. Even the cover illustration is worth a chuckle!

[Cheryl S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining and makes me soooo glad 3 term presidencies are not allowed.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

A haiku review:

Well-written but old.
Repetitive, not shocked too.
Find Bush a buffoon.

[Trista Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say except : Excellent!

[Adrienne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, if we can survive those 8 years, we just might have a chance in getting through the Trump administration.

Bushworld is all about George W. Bush, his administration, and his father. There were things I didn't know. Bush was a cowboy, right? Turns out, he's scared of horses...who knew? Not I. He's a hometown good ole boy here for the people? Well....he went to one of those same elite colleges and used to be quite the frat brother.

I was a kid during W's administration, and it's amazing to me just how much I had no idea what was going on in politics and the world. I loved W. back in the day, and so did many of my townsfolk in the rural country, and now I cringe. I was horrified. Also, I learned why my confusion about going to war in Iraq after 9/11 was justified. What did Iraq have to do with Afghanistan and bin Laden? Well....not much, according to the book, and was more about settling old scores with Saddam by rewriting the history of his father's presidency. In fact, I learned that Saddam and bin Laden hated each other and certainly weren't helping each other. Wow. It started to drag...but that's because it was the same old-same old W.'s Mr. Tough Guy bravado and machismo. Are we now in a time warp? Things today are so different, but they seem so similar.

[Roger Smitter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maureen Down’s Bushworld’s Enter at Your Own Risk may same old. After all, we have seen the work and decisions and speeches of several American presidents. N

Published in 2004, most of us since her was published in 2004. .

There’s humor just in the titles of her pieces alone (in the NY Times) tell the reader what is coming. . For example, “Freudian Face-Off:,”Bushfellas,” “West Wing Chaperone.”
(There’s plenty more smiles for the reader, maybe even some laughs.) The problem it was black humor.

But her commentary about ALL American politicians makes us think about what the pol’s (and she makes it clear it is from men, only) always do.

There are few “laugh-out-pieces.” She doesn’t tell us how we should vote. The humor doesn’t tell the readers how to vote. We know. The humor challenges us to see black humor.

[Mandi Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Feel Pithy, Oh So Pithy
Written by Mandi Chestler on August 5th, 2007
Book Rating: 3/5
"I feel pithy, oh so pithy, and witty and gay!" As My Fair Lady of the Op-Ed pages, Maureen Dowd must have warbled this tune as she plucked away at her word processor keys. She certainly comes off jubilant as CD after CD she reaches a shrill fever pitch of criticism of the Bushy bunch. Her humour is wry as ever, and the first half-dozen CD's are certainly entertaining. But 12 CD's of the same old tune made me wish for the abridged version. Obviously Dowd does not indulge in self-editing.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

well a very interesting book of columns from the bush/cheney years...wasn't much better then except we didn't have the immediate news cycle as it exists today. was rather frightening .. and we have stumbled on to this new world. so much could have been different if not for our hubris

[Wendi Enright · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Maureen Dowd, but the columns are too similar in style when presented together in a book. Plus, we lived through Bushworld, and it was not pleasant.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found another terrific, political writer. My only negatives would be the length and her prodigious use of really fancy vocabulary words.

[RJ Corby · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Bushworld" is clever, witty, sage and urbane, which is typical Dowd. I always look forward to Dowd's twice-weekly columns in the New York Times, and I'm seldom disappointed. "Bushworld: Enter at your own risk" is a collection of her columns on President Bush, going all the way back to the '99 Republican primaries. It's an informative, devastating and often tragically hilarious stroll down memory lane. Although I've previously read these columns, this is a welcome and treasured compilation of them regarding Bush's policies, decisions and contradictions all under one cover. It's a quick, fun, delightful, laugh-out-loud read.

What sets Dowd apart from Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and others on the right is that she doesn't demonize, she criticizes. For instance, she frequently takes Bush to task for his decision to invade Iraq, citing no evidence of a Saddam-Al-Queda tie, or the much-hyped weapons of mass destruction. If one of the right-wing commentators mentioned above were making a criticism about a liberal's view on Iraq, the conversation frequently begins with how that liberal "hates America" or "doesn't support the troops." Dowd doesn't swim in such sewage. When she makes a criticism, she backs it up with facts, not innuendo and political rhetoric. The very best thing about Dowd is that she frequently uses her targets' quotes against them, not some fabricated lie or unsubstantiated rumor. She does her homework, and it shows. President Bush or Dick Cheney will deny having said something, and here comes Dowd in her next column with a stinging rebuke, with the quote and date it was said. She rarely misses.

Buy this book and read it again. Regular readers of Dowd's NYT columns will love the book and the "refresher." Highly recommended for readers wanting a crash course on Bush, from the '99 primaries through June '04. (Orig. Review - Nov. '04)

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I picked up this book, I didn't actually know who Maureen Dowd was, strangely enough. Years later, I've ready probably a hundred articles by her in the NYT's op-ed section. First I loved her and now I don't really like her very much as an author. But as someone who covered the White House both during the elder Bush and younger Bush years, it is a good explanation of exactly what lies were told to whom, why, and how that got us into a preposterous war in Iraq. And while I still wish that we'd take that very open knowledge and put Bush, Cheney, Rummy, and the others behind bars for lying to the American public, then torturing prisoners, then wiretapping innocent citizens, then... (I could go on about their lawbreaking.) While I still wish we'd throw them all in the slammer for good, and this book explains PART of the lawbreaking... it's also wrapped up in a lot of Dowd's pop-pyschoanalysis, which I've grown to find distasteful over the years. So. Meh.

[Paul Dinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maureen Dowd is one of the most interesting and informative, not to mention witty columnists at the New York times. This book about both Bush adminstrations somehow is more than just a study, she seems to have the inside scoop on how their brains work. This has led to more than one politico to say, "YOu really got their number, you understand them better than anyone."(it was Zsell, the democratic senator that acutally gave the key note speech for the 2004 Republican convention. Someday historians will find this a valuable resource in understanding 2000-2008.

[Wade · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an organized collection of Maureen Dowd's columns, as originally published in the NYT. After four to nine year, only a few of the columns don't hold up.

I read many of them as they appeared. I knew Bush was lying us into a war. My children knew that Bush was lying us into a war. My friends and my children's friends knew that Bush was lying us into a war. Maureen Dowd knew that Bush was lying us into a war. So why are we in Iraq?

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maureen Dowd takes you into the psychological aspects of the Bush Administration and shows you how decisions are made from Oedipal complexes. She is hysterical and brilliant. You won't get bored from this type of political writing!

[Monica]

I'm not as consistently pleased with Mo's op-ed columns as I used to be partly because I don't find the political situation is as funny as its made out to be. I find myself annoyed when she knocks Hilary when she should be knocking Mitt, Huckabee and all the other republican a-holes instead..

[David Grapka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dowd's insights into the Bush administration's thinking (an oxymoron to be sure) were both prophetic, illuminating, and shocking. She made the insufferable idiocy of the former president more palatable with her satire and advanced vocabulary. Have a dictionary handy while you read this one!

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I remember reading this right around when it came out, and right around when I started leaving my family's traditional conservatism for the left. I was at my most insufferable, and even then, I found this book to be a bit much.

[Ronald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just because I agree with much of this book does not detract from the quality of the writing. Maureen Dowd is a keen, intelligent observer of politics.

[MsBrie]

I LOVE her columns. Look forward to the book!

[Lou · Rating 3 out of 5]

too much!