Book Review: The Deserter
Many writers insult, ridicule, and mock George Bush (few things are easier for a writer to do well), but this author does an excellent job of explaining why we insult, ridicule, and mock George Bush.
By Stewart Nusbaumer
Deserter: George Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past
By Ian Williams
Nation Books, 236 pages, 2004
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I've written about rotting corpses in Central America, endless bloody wars in Asia, broken-hearted mothers in America, beaten and abused people it seems everywhere. Too often, writing is an exercise in horror; I'm amazed I still have a liver. But I always write, the words always come. Yet I can't write about this. The words won’t come because the words won’t let me forget. I came to Jersey for a few casual drinks, some light conversation, to be with a good friend, and most of all to forget.
There was the trashing of Vietnam veterans for political advantage, a former POW labeled crazy because of his captivity three decades earlier, a former soldier who lost three limbs on the battlefield called unpatriotic. John McCain and Max Cleland were rejected by Americans for conservatives who never served in Vietnam, yet supported the war, who claimed to be braver and more patriotic, although they proved nothing.
There was the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which was clearly doomed from the start. Vietnam combat vets knew it was doomed, wanted to tell Americans it was doomed, yet the American was too busy. So we told each other the horrible truth: this would end like Vietnam.
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There are irrefutable reasons for purchasing Deserter: George Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past beyond our desperate need for some laughs. We need help to get through these final weeks of this horrific campaign, something to distract us from the biased garbage on television--alcohol, you may have discovered, offers only diminishing returns for preserving sanity. We need the strange comfort that comes from understanding why and how our president became a vicious nut, a pathetic hypocrite, and, just possibly, a pathological liar. And if this vicious nut of a pathological liar does win the election, you need to know that purchasing Deserter will land you on the most esteemed list in America: the Bush Administration’s Enemies List.
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