Ran across an interesting column about an interesting book in my hometown newspaper today. Newspaper, you know, large sheets of flimsy paper with black ink with a few splotches of color thrown in that show up at your doorstep or roadside box. Anyway, I was reading a column by Trudy Rubin about the deteriorating conditions in Pakistan/Afghanistan’s lawless border area.

In it, she was quoting the author of a new book, Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia. He should know. Also author of Taliban, Ahmed Rashid is know as “Pakistan’s Best and Bravest Reporter.” He knows the players: outgoing Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, the assassinated would-be returning hero Benazir Bhutto, W., the Taliban, al-Quaida and other insurgents and so-called Federally Administered Tribal Areas in northern Pakistan, which really aren’t administered by anyone except the inmates in that particular asylum.

Perhaps better known (not much) by its snappy acronym, FATA, it is believed to be home to Osama bin Laden, assuming he’s still able to sit up and take nourishment.

It’s just another garden spot that W. thought he could waltz in and clean up, with the help of his good friend, “General,” as he famously named Musharraf in a TV interview (BEFORE he was elected!! People, how could you elect someone that uninformed??).

I’d like to read the book, but I’m afraid it’ll send me off on a long rant, and honestly, I don’t think that’s healthy.

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Dave Wilson is the Grand Pooh-Bah of Editorial Content at DelMio.com, a site developed by SunLit Communications LLC. He also is at times janitor, chauffeur, chief cook and bottle washer. Once upon a time he was a metro editor and copy editor at the Akron Beacon Journal. Send love letters and trash talk to dave.wilson@delmio.com. Or post a comment. Whatever.

Citizen McCain, first published in 2002, is back for another run in this election year. Spiffed up with a new cover and “A new introduction by the author,” Elizabeth Drew, the book recounts McCain’s fight to push election reform through Congress in 2001, then making many high-profile appearances in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Some reviewers found the account of the various events surrounding the reform fight tedious and they thought Drew fawned a bit too much over the senator. (One reviewer mocked him as being kind to small children and puppy dogs.) Others were impressed with his maverick “can-do” attitude and desire for “change” (sound familiar?) in how Washington does business.

Folks who want a close-up look at how McCain built coalitions (seven years ago, anyway) can get it with Citizen McCain.

Citizen McCain, ISBN 9781416593171, is available in stores and online.

To learn more, CLICK HERE.

BONUS: John McCain’s citizenship, eligibility for presidency challenged. (Conspiracy theorists: Enjoy)

To buy, CLICK HERE.

After a rough and sometimes bitter primary campaign, Barack Obama has presumably won the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
In Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream,” the 46-year-old Illinois senator employs a love of American history and law to lay out his vision for how to restore faith in our economic and political systems.

Click Here for the Exploration