Book review: It's Getting Ugly Out There

Title	It's Getting Ugly Out There: The Frauds, Bunglers, Liars, and Losers Who Are Hurting America
Author Cafferty, Jack	Jack Cafferty
Rating
Tags	jack-cafferty, cnn, politics, media, george_w_bush
Your review	Jack Cafferty does commentary for CNN. He has been in the media for forty years. I haven't watched him before now, and probably won't watch him after reading his book...mostly because I hold those in the media to a higher standard of knowledge than most. They should really know what's going on, right? Yet Cafferty was favorable to George W. Bush as a candidate, buying his "uniter" and "bringing integrity back to the White House" rhetoric. I didn't, for one simple reason. I read Molly Ivin's book Shrub, and it was a record of venality and incompetence that has run true to form in the Bush administration. In other words, the information was out there, just as the information about the lack of WMDs and the lack of a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Quaeda was out there before the Iraq war, but had little public exposure. Cafferty does rant about the media's attention to such things as Anna Nicole Smith and the lack of attention to important stories, and does blame the media consolidation and need to make a profit, but also the public. Sickeningly, he reports that the CNN coverage of Smith's death quadrupled their ratings!!! I also agree with Cafferty that the Bush administration may be good for the country in that its incredible level of arrogance, ignorance, and corruption may have awakened voters to the need to throw the bums out, and keep throwing them out, until they get the message and pass real reforms.
Other authors 1
Publication	Wiley (2007), Hardcover, 288 pages
Publication date	2007
ISBN	0470144793 / 9780470144794