The System: The Five Branches of American Government

by Charles Peters (Editor), James M. Fallows (Editor)

Critical assessments of five basic institutions of American political life whose operations comprise The System. Morton Halperin assess the problems of presidents who attempt to control the bureaucracy they allegedly head. The frustrations of life on Capitol Hill are outlined by Jerome R. Waldie and Michael D. Green as they describe a congressman’s day. John Mackenzie looks at the courts as the apex of the American legal system and finds them wanting. Charles Peters examines the money-and-power-wielding of lobbyists and provides some frighteningly simples reasons why the public interest so often gets short shrift. And the deficiencies of American newspapers are described by James Fallows, who suggest what reader consumers ought to be getting in order to play the role of informed citizenry.

Unknown Binding

About the author

Charles Given Peters Jr. (December 22, 1926 – November 23, 2023) was an American journalist, editor, and author. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of the Washington Monthly magazine and the author of We Do Our Part: Toward A Fairer and More Equal America (Random House, 2017). Writing in The New York Times, Jonathan Martin called the book a “well timed … cri de coeur” and “a desperate plea to his country and party to resist the temptations of greed, materialism and elitism.”

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Charles T. Peters Jr.: Erotic