Monday, June 29, 2009

Fictional Washington politics

The NY Times Book Review published a good piece by Thomas Mallon on the Allen Drury novel Advise and Consent on its fiftieth anniversary. Policical scandals once seemed so...noteworthy. Nowadays they seem to arrive on a daily basis. We're probably not better off for that.

TM: And yet, 50 years later, most of the subject matter remains recognizable. Drury’s 99 men and lone woman wrestle with the issue of pre-emptive war, the degree of severity with which lying under oath must be viewed, and the way the coverup is invariably worse than the crime. Part of what kept the book on the best-seller list for 102 weeks is its comforting assumption that many politicians come to Washington hoping to do good. More....

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