Review of Bob Woodward's new book--"depressing and often tedious".
Behind the Scenes, the Bloodiest Beltway Battle‘The Price of Politics,’ by Bob Woodward
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Published: September 7, 2012
THE PRICE OF POLITICS
By Bob Woodward
Illustrated. 428 pages. Simon & Schuster. $30.
As a plethora of election-year polls and surveys indicate, Americans are fed up with a deeply dysfunctional Washington paralyzed by partisan gridlock and increasingly incapable of dealing with the daunting problems facing the nation: a White House plagued by infighting, disorganization and inconsistent leadership; a Republican Party bent on obstruction and increasingly beholden to its insurgent right wing; and a Congress riven by party rivalries, intraparty power struggles, petty turf wars and an inability to focus on long-term solutions instead of temporary Band-Aids.
Bob Woodward’s depressing and often tedious new book, “The Price of Politics,” reads like a minutely detailed illustration of these woes. It focuses on “the struggle between President Obama and the United States Congress to manage federal spending and tax policy for the three and one-half years between 2009 and the summer of 2012.” And the bulk of its narrative is devoted to behind-the-scenes negotiations that took place in the summer of 2011, as the country teetered on the brink of a potentially catastrophic default over the federal debt ceiling.
Much of this story has already been told in lengthy articles in The New York Times Magazine by Matt Bai and in The Washington Post by Peter Wallsten, Lori Montgomery and Scott Wilson. “The Price of Politics” adds some colorful new details to earlier accounts and examines the aftermath of the failure of the president and Speaker John A. Boehner to reach a “grand bargain” in July 2011 involving cutting the deficit, rewriting the tax code and rolling back the cost of entitlements. It also describes tensions between the White House and Capitol Hill, between the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats and between Mr. Boehner and Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader.
Beyond the most hard-core fiscal policy wonks, however, it’s difficult to imagine anyone outside the Beltway being interested in this volume’s granular telling and retelling of these matters, its almost blow-by-blow chronicle of the maneuvering, haggling, grandstanding and ideological positioning that have taken root on both sides of the aisle.
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