In the summer, I read mysteries and the odd thriller. That’s just what I’ve always done. The academic year was filled with reading for courses I was teaching, or about a confusing patient. Interesting stuff, but hardly light reading. So in the summer, beach reading for me. My favorites are the ones with serial characters – Tony Hellerman’s Joe Lephorn, Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon, Robert Crais’s Elvis Cole. I don’t enjoy the heavy handed thrillers as much, like Tom Clancy. They’re either too fanciful, or too real.
Even in my retirement, comes summer I start looking for the new mysteries. I’ve also taken to reading the political books. I started with the "other side" – Ledeen, Mylroie. I guess I wanted to know how they thought [or if they thought]. But lately, there have been some fine books from our team – Greenwald’s How Would a Patriot Act? being my favorite so far.
So, yesterday, Hubris came. I like David Corn except for two things. He’s a severe self promoter – so I skip that stuff. And he could have never mentioned his pal-ship with Viveca Novak and it would have been fine with me. But his blog is otherwise informative. I just read Isikoff’s articles along – no real opinion. So, today, I picked up Hubris and read the Introduction. It reads like one of those summer thrillers – well written. It’s hard for me to imagine that it’s not a summer thriller as a matter of fact, too fanciful to be real. I was torn between holing up and reading it cover to cover versus putting it on a shelf and forgetting it’s there. It’s not the book I’m reacting to. The book is obviously well-sourced and well-done [so far]. It’s the subject matter. Just reading the Introduction, it’s far worse than I thought, what went on behind those closed doors after 911.
I remember what we were told. I’ve been over it and over it enough times. Judith Miller’s articles. Bush and Cheney’s speeches. I’ve drawn timelines and charts, pored over emptywheel’s, Waas’s, eriposte’s parsing of the details. But what happened on the other side of that door confirms my worst fears – and all I’ve read is the Introduction.
Hubris, indeed…
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