'In his daily \"Cafferty File\" segments on CNN\'s The Situation Room, Jack Cafferty focuses on the high, the mighty, and the often mindless public figures in politics and corporate America who think they can hoodwink the great American middle class indefinitely and get away with it. Millions of people watch him, feeling that he expresses their own concerns. Now, in his first book, Cafferty kicks his outrage into high gear with a brilliant condemnation of some of the most egregious and infuriating boondoggles, screw-ups, and swindles ever perpetrated on the American public. With both logic and heart, he assesses the ongoing damage done to our American democracy by the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, illegal immigration, cowboy diplomacy, and the media that have often been all too willing to overlook or even encourage these nightmares.

While his sights are set primarily on President George W. Bush and his team—Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice, Brownie, and many more—Cafferty is an equal-opportunity curmudgeon. With the same intensity, he goes after the Democratic Party, Nancy Pelosi, the ACLU, and some causes beloved by liberals while sizing up the leading candidates for the 2008 presidential race.

Cafferty argues that those in power are so isolated from the rest of the population and so indebted to the corporations, lobbyists, and tycoons who finance their campaigns and hire them when they leave office that they simply don\'t have a clue what life is like for most Americans and don\'t care enough to find out. Cafferty does care—and he shows it. It\'s Getting Ugly Out There shares many of the thoughtful, hilarious, perceptive, and moving e-mail messages from viewers of the \"Cafferty File.\" These include some of the unprecedented thousands of e-mails received by CNN in the two days following Cafferty\'s resounding denunciation of the government\'s response to Hurricane Katrina—the ultimate example of indifference to the plight of citizens in desperate straits.

Passionate, controversial, and in your face, It\'s Getting Ugly Out There is a rarity among current-affairs books—a searing, hard-hitting critique of the powers that be, not from the left or the right, but straight from the heart of a proud mainstream American. '

From his soapbox perch producing the daily "Cafferty Files" segments on Cable News Network's The Situation Room, the author has carved out a niche for himself as a populist curmudgeon willing to rhetorically challenge the corrupt and the powerful. In this book he maintains that persona while writing about the war in Iraq, corporate scandals, constitutional outrages of wire-tapping, the government response to Hurricane Katrina, and a large variety of other issues that he believes are hurting the interests of the average American citizen. The target of his ire is often the current Bush administration, but the Democratic leadership and other ne'er-do-wells don't escape his barbs either. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

'\"It is ugly out there and Cafferty doesn\'t make it any prettier. Instead, it makes it easier to understand.\" (Syndicated Reviewby Tribune Media Services, November 4, 2007)

His deep, fatherly voice may evoke the comfort of an old-fashioned, Conkrite-era news broadcast, but newsman Cafferty has made a career of saying whatever he damn well pleases: \"I get paid to ask questions I don\'t know the answers to and to complain about the things that bother me.\" Reading the television news correspondent\'s first book feels much like watching his segments on CNN\'s The Situation Room, in which he follows a similarly straightforward formula: denounce bad leadership, media shortcomings and government missteps with a satirical tone just above withering. From Katrina to Iraq, from immigration to terrorism, from Bush-baiting to big business, Cafferty admits to \"saying some pretty outrageous stuff\" in order to get his audience riled up. Aside from skewering congress, shaming rich white guys, and repudiating Anna Nicole (the \"peroxide blonde never-was\"), Cafferty sheds some light on his own life, sharing personal episodes about disrespecting his boot camp drill sergeants and letting his terrier defecate in the lobby of the Des Moines television station for which he was working. Without his rich vocal presence, Cafferty\'s tough talking cynicism can become grating, but also cuts through, with ease, a media climate thick with rigid ideology and tabloid excess. (Sept.)(Publishers Weekly, August 13, 2007) '

Popular CNN commentator Jack Cafferty takes on the no-good, the bad, and the ugly in America today. From Bush to big business, from the Beltway to Baghdad, from Hurricane Katrina to House Speaker Pelosi, from Tehran to Tel Aviv, no subject is immune from Caffertys trademark sardonic, curmudgeonly, right-on scrutiny in his first bookJohn Wiley & Sons

"Very little of my backstory qualifies as Hallmark Card material, but it may help you to make sense of the way I see and interpret what's going on around me."

—Jack Cafferty

For the millions who watch the "Cafferty File" on CNN's The Situation Room, Jack Cafferty stands for common sense—the much-needed voice of reason who skewers right-wing nut jobs and liberal eggheads alike. For years, he's voiced the views, hopes, and fears of the average American in inimitable style. Now, in It's Getting Ugly Out There, he brings that level-headed wisdom to bear on the most critical issues facing us today—and explains why Americans must take our country back from those who are harming it.

"It's been a target-rich seven years for someone like me who enjoys pushing people's buttons and sticking pins in things that need pricking, from rich and fatuous celebrities offering foreign policy analysis to the latest lying Beltway blowhard impaling himself on his sword of pomposity. . . . Anyone familiar with my daily 'Cafferty File' segments on CNN's The Situation Room knows I'm not exactly what you'd call the mainstream media's poster boy for feel-good news and commentary. In your face is more like it."

"I'm no shrink, but I have the sense Bush has carried an angry chip on his shoulder much of his pampered life, seething just beneath the good-old-boy surface."

"The bottom line is that our government no longer works for us. The government works for the lobbyists who have had a big hand in influencing (if not helping to draft) legislation favoring not the average American citizen but instead big business: health insurance, pharmaceutical and oil companies, and defense contractors, among others. These are the guys who can make the kinds of political contributions that are needed to finance today's multi-million-dollar political campaigns."

"We want our troops home, but we also want a new army of elected officials to march into Washington and take a fresh, uncorrupted look at the needs of the vast majority of Americans. If these two parties, however 2008 breaks, can't fix what's broken, this way of life as we've known it may vanish into some deep, dark crevasse."

The popular CNN commentator takes on the no-good, the bad, and the ugly in America today

Two million viewers watch Jack Cafferty’ s " The Cafferty Files" segments on CNN’ s The Situation Room every afternoon. From Bush to big business, from the Beltway to Baghdad, from Hurricane Katrina to House Speaker Pelosi, from Tehran to Tel Aviv, no subject is immune from Cafferty’ s trademark sardonic, curmudgeonly, right-on scrutiny.

Now, in his first book, the provocative and refreshingly unpredictable CNN personality goes after the overly powerful people who screw up– no matter where they may be. Whether he’ s writing about the latest outrages in Iraq or global warming– corporate scandals, constitutional crises, or lobbyist misdoings on both sides of the aisle– Cafferty tackles the frauds, felons, liars, and losers who are doing their best to harm America– and explains why they won’ t succeed. Cafferty spares nothing and no one as he lasers in on hot-button issues that will be generating debate in the news and in the 2008 election campaign, including illegal immigration and ethics reform.

Capturing Cafferty at his outspoken best, It’ s Getting Ugly Out There will be highly satisfying reading for Cafferty’ s many fans– and is certain to win him legions of new ones as well.

Jack Cafferty (New York, NY) is a host and commentator on CNN, which is seen around the world. Six " Cafferty Files" segments appear each weekday during The Situation Room. His segments provoke thousands of e-mails each week; CNN received 20,000 e-mails in the two days after Cafferty’ s segment denouncing the government’ s response tothe Katrina disaster.

'Jack Caffertyis a CNN host and commentator who appears regularly on the network\'s popular news program The Situation Room, where his \"Cafferty File\" segments are seen by two million viewers every afternoon. Six \"Cafferty File\" segments air each weekday. '