Synopses & Reviews
"They misunderestimated me."
President George W. Bush
It seems like too easy a target, too cheap a laugh, but Mark Crispin Miller, with the deftly trenchant wit that always distinguishes his writing, uses the blunders and malapropisms of George W. Bush to make a larger point about the way in which we elect our presidents.
The book is a raucously funny ride whether it's Bush envisioning "a foreign-handed foreign policy" or Miller skewering vociferous cultural conservatives like William Bennett and Lynne Cheney for their silence on Bush's particular "West Texas version of Ebonics" but there is also a strong undercurrent of outrage. Only because our elections have become so dependent on television and its emphatic emptiness, Miller argues, can a man of such sublime and complacent ignorance assume the highest office in the land. To quote Bush himself, "It's not the way America is all about."
Review
"This is a work of outrage. Never has the native intelligence of the 'ordinary' American been so assaulted as it's been by the recent presidential 'election,' and Mark Crispin Miller has sounded the tocsin of revolt. Unless we are suffering from a national Alzheimer's disease, this book will give us heart and voice, as well as a laugh or two along the way." Studs Terkel
Review
"Mark Crispin Miller has written a book not only about our appointed President, but about the ramshackle state of American political conversation. Unlike Bush the younger, The Bush Dyslexicon will make you laugh and, more important, think, worry and even start to scream for real reform." Mark Lloyd, Executive Director, Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy
Review
"This is simply the finest, most comprehensive and masterfully annotated collection of Bushisms to date: a clear reminder to never 'misunderestimate' the ignorance, intellectual laziness, and sheer meanness of our first unelected president." Barbara Ehrenreich
Review
"Mark Crispin Miller is the smartest and funniest media critic in the business. He also has the courage to speak truth to power, which he does brilliantly in The Bush Dyslexicon a witty, incisive, and wide-ranging critique of our unelected president, the interests he represents, and the media's role in promoting them. No one who cares about the future of democracy can afford to ignore this book." Jackson Lears, Board of Governors Professor of History, Rutgers University
Review
"Fiercely funny and insightful, The Bush Dyslexicon is also a rousing call to arms. It's the book Tom Paine would have written had he penned 'Common Sense' while channel-surfing his satellite dish. A must-read for all who take their citizenship seriously whether left, right, or just plain disgusted." Arianna Huffington
Synopsis
"A particularly astute analysis of the television coverage of the campaign, the election, and the political aftermath."--
Synopsis
is a raucously funny ride--whether it's Bush envisioning "a foreign-handed foreign policy" or Miller skewering vociferous cultural conservatives like William Bennett and Lynne Cheney for their silence on Bush's particular "West Texas version of Ebonics." But there is also a strong undercurrent of outrage. Only because our elections have become so dependent on television and its emphatic emptiness, says Miller, could a man of such sublime and complacent ignorance assume the highest office in the land.
About the Author
Mark Crispin Miller is a professor of media ecology at New York University, where he also directs the Project on Media Ownership (PrOMO). He is well known both for his writings on all aspects of the media and for his activism on behalf of democratic media reform. His books include Boxed In: The Culture of TV, Seeing Through Movies, and Mad Scientists, a forthcoming study of war propaganda. Miller lives in New York City with his wife, Amy Smiley, and their two sons and special cat.