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The Failure Factory: How Unelected Bureaucrats, Liberal Democrats, and Big Government Republicans Are Undermining America's Security and Leading Us to War | 
 enlarge | Author: Bill Gertz
Publisher: Crown Forum
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $16.07
You Save: $10.88 (40%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 1275
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 5.7 x 1.1
ISBN: 030733807X
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.931
EAN: 9780307338075
ASIN: 030733807X
Publication Date: September 30, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: R20081114232523H
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Product Description
The U.S. government is in crisis.
With America’s attention fixated on who will step into the Oval Office in 2009, no one has noticed where the real power has shifted—to a vast network of unelected officials whose authority has grown wildly out of control. In his latest blockbuster book, acclaimed defense and national security reporter Bill Gertz exposes these astonishingly powerful leaders and their enablers in the political class—and their devastating impact on America's national security.
Gertz shows how entrenched liberal activists have become dominant even under an ostensibly conservative administration. And he names names of those who actively subvert official U.S. policy—including not only liberal Democrats but also a number of so-called Republicans who have joined this insidious “Blame America First” crowd.
The Failure Factory reveals:
• The shocking, previously untold story of the partisan bureaucrats who completely undercut the U.S. position on Iran’s radical Islamist regime
• Barack Obama’s disastrous national security policies—and his stable of advisers who have already put America at risk
• The recent showdown in the Pentagon that laid bare the U.S. government’s ongoing failures to tackle the threat of Islamist extremism
• Flagrant cases of sabotage by top State Department officials that have emboldened dangerous states like Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Communist China
• Stunning new intelligence failures—including one that may have allowed a terrorist group to penetrate the FBI and CIA
• How even the Bush White House was overrun with Democrats and liberal Republicans
• The legions of “Clinton generals”—top military brass whose careers blossomed during the Clinton administration—who make the United States more vulnerable
• How Democrats are exploiting the antiwar movement for political gain, with little regard for the potentially devastating consequences
• How the defense secretary’s public defiance of official U.S. policy could have gotten him fired—but instead went unchallenged
Based on scores of exclusive interviews and displaying the groundbreaking reporting that has made Bill Gertz’s previous books smash bestsellers, The Failure Factory offers a chilling look at the threats to our national security that exist within our own government.
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| Customer Reviews:
Bureacracy versus Democracy November 16, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I am not an expert on the minute details of foreign policy or national security, so I will take Gert'z word on the events and facts in is book. How we intepret these facts is a different matter. What is interesting here is his complaits about how unelected bureaucrats have subverted US foreign policy. It should not come as too much of a surprise that unelected bureaucrats shape policy to their own ends. High officials do face serious obstacles to achieving their aims through large public bureaucracies, given the size and complexity of these organizations (not to mention the absence of proper accounting). Bureaucrats can exercise considerable discretion, and in so doing undermine official policy. So the idea that state department bureaucrats turned on Bush because of the Iraq war is quite understandable. Gertz is probably right about that.
Gertz often comlains about liberal-minded bureaucrats, but there is a more general problem with bureaucrats of any mindset. The lesson we should learn from this book is that the Federal bureaucracies are too large to be very responsive to voters. The President and Congress cannot keep track of the daily functioning of government, so low level bureaucrats often exercise a surprising amount of discretion. Consequently, elected officials wield less influence that most people think: which means that voting matters less that many people imagine. Of course, voters are not powerless. But most of the voting public has accepted large and uncontrollable bureaucracies. Americans need to wake up to the fact that we cannot have both a free society and a bureaucratically regulated society.
That being said, I would say that the author's arguments need to be tempered with some economics. China is not the economic powerhouse that it is often made out to be. China inflates its GDP stats, and has long term problems with an ageing population. Yes there are some panda huggers, and Gertz notes, just as there were those who hugged the Russian bear during the Cold War. But the US won the Cold War against the USSR through strong economic development. Why? Because out economy benefited from greater economic freedom. Here is where we really need to watch out for big government conservatives. Our long term security requires prosperity, and that means bringing Federal spending under control, first and foremost. We have serious problems with domestic discretionary spending and entitlements. If Mr Gertz wants to make the case for peace through strength, then he should push harder for a return fiscal sanity. Strength costs alot of money, and there is a strong case for peace through prosperity anyway.
The fact of the matter is that the Republican Congress and President Bush spent us into unprecedented debt. What can and should blame GW Bush for the recent explosion of Federal Spending. He could have vetoed some spending and proposed smaller budgets, but he chose to feed Federal bureaucracies more of our income. What we need is a return to the fiscal policy enacted by the 1994 Gingrich-Kasich Congress. That will help secure our long term economic interests, while at the same time starving the Federal bureaucracies. A smaller more manageable Federal bureaucracy might also be less prone to causing the problems discussed in this book. There you have it, two birds with one stone.
 Disturbing, yet highly informative November 4, 2008
45 out of 49 found this review helpful
This book makes me sick to my stomach and extremely fearful for our national security. Slimeballs from each party have infiltrated our security and military administration and are working to defeat our country from the inside. It's a hard subject to stomach but more people need to know about what's going on.
 Bloated Conspiracy Theory October 30, 2008
4 out of 105 found this review helpful
It's amazing that this author gets away with crap like this. Really, it's the fault of the liberals that Bush, Cheney, et al. lie to the American public; have taken the surplus they inherited and run up a deficit that will probably reach a trillion before they leave; have cynically reduced the taxes on their friends (the super rich) while leaving the middle class to hold the bag all the while claiming they've reduced taxes for everyone? This is sickening.
Mixed Bag October 28, 2008
37 out of 54 found this review helpful
This book is probably the first of many to come. The book repeats the Hillary claim in reverse. That claim is that a secret conspiracy is the reason for inefficiencies or incompetence. However in the case of this book the finger points the other way. The book goes to great extent showing how Bush's failures weren't his fault, it was the great liberal conspiracy hiding in the civil service did him in. No attention is given to the bad decisions that have come out of the White House. However the author does mention names. He should get credit for backing up his accusations. However he goes overboard. His words are very laced with partisan rhetoric. I am sure there will be other books coming out from Administration folks saying much the same thing Gertz is saying, it is the other guy's fault we shot ourselves in the leg.
The book isn't a total failure. The book is like a collection of his famous columns in the Washington Times. He does draw attention to a few issues that need that attention. They seem to have slipped through the cracks in the media attention. Gertz broke the stories in the 90s about the Chinese influence in the country. He continues that chant in the book. He has a story all should read in the book. Gertz tells the story about Air Force General Butler of Strategic Command who went on a one man war to disarm the US military of nuclear weapons from the inside. More should be told of that disaster. Gertz also shows in very clear detail about how our political correctness is handcuffing the nation and sticking a bag over their head. It really does blind us to what the true harm is out there.
Overall it is a good easy read but lacks real meat about some of the underlying structural problems in our country.
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