Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches

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Penguin, 2007 - Political Science - 332 pages
The former White House counsel faults Republican mismanagement for the current state of the government

John Dean has become one of the most trenchant and respected commentators on the current state of American politics and one of the most outspoken and perceptive critics of the administration of George W. Bush in his New York Times bestsellers Conservatives Without Conscience and Worse Than Watergate.

In his eighth book, Dean takes the broadest and deepest view yet of the dysfunctional chaos and institutional damage that the Republican Party and its core conservatives have inflicted on the federal government. He assesses the state of all three branches of government, tracing their decline through the presidencies of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II. Unlike most political commentary, which is concerned with policy, Dean looks instead at process making the case that the 2008 presidential race must confront these fundamental problems as well. Finally, he addresses the question that he is so often asked at his speaking engagements: What, if anything, can and should politically moderate citizens do to combat the extremism, authoritarianism, incompetence, and increasing focus on divisive wedge issues of so many of today s conservative politicians?

With the Democrats now in control of both the House and Senate, the stakes for the 2008 presidential election have never been higher. This is a book for anyone who wants to return government to the spirit of the Constitution.

From inside the book

Contents

First Branch Broken but Under Repair
25
Second Branch
71
Third Branch Toward the Breaking Point
119
Repairing Government
175
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
203
NOTES
253
INDEX
317
Copyright

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About the author (2007)

John Deanwas counsel to president Richard Nixon for a thousand days and the government’s key witness in the Watergate trial. He also served as chief minority counsel for the House Judiciary Committee and as an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice.

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