The greatest story ever sold : the decline and fall of truth from 9/11 to Katrina

Format:

Book

Title:

The greatest story ever sold : the decline and fall of truth from 9/11 to Katrina

Author:

Rich, Frank.

ISBN:

9781594200984

9780143112341

Publication Information:

New York : Penguin Press, 2006.

Physical Description:

341 pages ; 25 cm

Contents:

pt. 1: Making the sale. "Home to the heartland" ; "Dead or alive" ; "I don't think anybody could have predicted ..." ; "You don't introduce new products in August" ; "Mission accomplished" -- pt. 2: Buyer's remorse. "We found the weapons of mass destruction" ; "Slam dunk" ; "Reporting for duty" ; "When we act, we create our own reality" ; "I don't think anybody anticipated ..." -- Epilogue: The greatest story every sold -- Appendix: What the White House knew and when it knew it : time lines of the selling of the war.

Summary:

Reveals the spin campaign of the Bush administration that the author contends enabled the support of a war against a non-September 11 enemy, furthered conservative agendas, and consolidated presidential power.

Personal Subject:

Bush, George W. (George Walker), 1946--Friends and associates.

Bush, George W. (George Walker), 1946- (OCoLC)fst00363849

Subject(s):

Deception -- Political aspects -- United States.

Spin doctors -- United States.

Public relations and politics -- United States.

Propaganda, American.

September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001 -- Influence.

Iraq War, 2003-2011.

Hurricane Katrina, 2005.

United States -- Politics and government -- 2001-2009.

United States -- Foreign relations -- 2001-2009.

Geographic Term:

United States -- Politics and government -- 2001-2009.

United States -- Foreign relations -- 2001-2009.

Iraq

United States.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Monmouth Public Library	973.931 RICH 2006	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Newberg Public Library	973.931 RICH	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

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Summary

When America was attacked on 9/11, its citizens almost unanimously rallied behind its new, untested president as he went to war. What they didn't know at the time was that the Bush administration's highest priority was not to vanquish Al Qaeda but to consolidate its own power at any cost. It was a mission that could be accomplished only by a propaganda presidency in which reality was steadily replaced by a scenario of the White House's own invention--and such was that scenario's devious brilliance that it fashioned a second war against an enemy that did not attack America on 9/11, intimidated the Democrats into incoherence and impotence, and turned a presidential election into an irrelevant referendum on macho imagery and same-sex marriage.

As only he can, acclaimed New York Times columnist Frank Rich delivers a step-by-step chronicle of how skillfully the White House built its house of cards and how the institutions that should have exposed these fictions, the mainstream news media, were too often left powerless by the administration's relentless attack machine, their own post-9/11 timidity, and an unending parade of self-inflicted scandals (typified by those at The New York Times ). Demonstrating the candor and conviction that have made him one of our most trusted and incisive public voices, Rich brilliantly and meticulously illuminates the White House's disturbing love affair with "truthiness," and the ways in which a bungled war, a seemingly obscure Washington leak, and a devastating hurricane at long last revealed the man-behind-the-curtain and the story that had so effectively been sold to the nation, as god-given patriotic fact.

Author Notes

Frank Rich served from 1980 to 1993 as the chief drama critic for The New York Times and since 1994 has been an op-ed columnist at the paper. He lives in New York City with his wife, the writer Alex Witchel.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

This blistering j'accuse has vitriol to spare for George Bush calling him a "spoiled brat" and "blowhard" and his policies, but its main target is the PR machinery that promoted those policies to the American people. New York Times columnist Rich revisits nearly every Bush administration publicity gambit, including Iraqi WMD claims, Bush's "Mission Accomplished" triumph, the Swift-boating of John Kerry and the writing of fake prowar letters-to-the-editor from soldiers. He uncovers nothing new, but his meticulously researched recap-cum-debunking complete with appended 80-page time line comparing administration spin to actual events builds a comprehensive picture of a White House propaganda campaign to bamboozle the public, smear critics, camouflage policy disasters and win the 2002 and 2004 elections through trumped-up security anxieties. Along the way, he pillories a sycophantic media (Bob Woodward gets spanked hard), spineless Democrats and an infotainment culture that happily accommodates the Bush administration's erasure of the line between reality and fiction. Sometimes Rich's critique of Republican politics as cynical image-manipulation goes overboard, as in his "wag the dog" theory of the Iraq war as a Karl Rove electoral maneuver; more often, though, it's on target. The result is a caustic, hard-hitting indictment of the Bush administration, timed to make a splash in the upcoming election campaign. (Sept. 19) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

New York Times columnist Rich offers few revelations, but the weight of all the things already published about the war in Iraq and the rationale for going to war provides a staggering indictment of the Bush administration's penchant for truthiness and public-relations glitter rather than substantive policy. Rich's analysis is acidly pointed as he reviews the litany of half-truths told by the Bush administration in the lead-up to the war and since then. Faced with the prospect of an FBI whistle blower disclosing the administration's incompetence in recognizing terrorist threats before 9/11, the administration launched a stream of PR distractions: Bush's Top Gun appearance on a carrier with a banner announcing Mission Accomplished, the false packaging of Private Jessica Lynch, the blustering about uncovering administration leakers when Valerie Plame was publicly revealed as an undercover agent. Rich maintains that Bush himself was behind the leak. By the time Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the PR spin machine that had sustained the president since 9/11 was in undeniable tatters. Rich offers a time line of events and commentary that makes the case that the government has played fast and loose with the facts regarding Iraq for political advantage. --Vanessa Bush Copyright 2006 Booklist

Library Journal Review

The acerbic Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times on the President's predilection for myth-making instead of fact. With a national tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.