"The book certainly makes an effective case for the wickedness of dictatorship," said Andrew Nathan, a specialist in Chinese politics at Columbia University. "It doesn't talk about democracy, but for a person who believes in democracy, this is a valuable brief."
Nathan, who criticized what he called the authors' vague and inaccessible sourcing last year in The London Review of Books, said the biography presented Mao as a "comic-book monster," with little explanation of the psychological, sociological and historical forces that allowed him to rise.
He also said he was skeptical that the book would help in understanding China's current leadership.
"Today's Communist Party is a highly developed bureaucracy like IBM or General Motors," Nathan said. "It's not the Communist Party of Mao's time."
"The book makes an effective case for the wickedness of dictatorship".
It seems to me that Bush is completely immune to irony. Here is a president who has made the most naked grab for power in this country since "Tricky Dick" and he feels free to harshly judge the power grabs of his fellow dictators.
Cue Alanis Morrisette music.
Who in their right mind would thing that C-plus Augustus reads anything more difficult than Sports Illustrated?
ReplyDeleteMehlman and Rove are not putting these tomes in his hands for him to pretend to be literate - these are but propaganda moves by the right wing. It's a threat, not a PR move.
The only reason for the Shrub to appear familiar with dictatorship is to study it as a model to be implemented, and THAT is the point his handlers are trying to get across.
Knuckle under, America. Heads DOWN.