Political Media Review – PMR

Greg Palast
Dutton Adult (2007)
Reviewed by Oluchi Ebere

Palast’s Armed Madhouse (2007) is a witty but hard hitting critique on some of the recent political news stories in the past few years. Most of the book is spent probing the missed opportunities that occurred during President George W. Bush’s administration. From Hurricane Katrina to the fallacies of the W.O.M. (Weapons of Mass Destruction) debate, Palast examines how the inefficiency of U.S. government leads to mistrust by citizens. Palast uses several events in political life to illustrate how government falls short of addressing key societal needs and prefers to impose stringent national security policies. Palast, a world renowned investigative writer, addresses the Bush administration’s motivations for the Iraqi War and how the “War on Terrorism” is used to violate citizen’s privacy from monitoring library borrowing activity to sending armored Department of Homeland Security guardsmen in small towns such as Southhold, New York.

Each chapter of the book addresses a specific theme that has unfortunately been ill-investigated in the world of journalism. His style of writing is rather engaging and each chapter can be orchestrated into their own full-length book. The chapters are entitled with contemporary and eye catching phrases such as “The Fear: Who’s Afraid of Osama Wolf”, “The Class War: Hope I Die Before My Next Refill” and “Busted: …and How to Steal Back Your Vote.” He addresses other issues such as the U.S. obsession with Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries fueled by their interest in oil resources. In the chapter entitled “The Flow”, Palast’s details U.S. undying thirst for oil resources by prolonged military engagement in many middle eastern countries especially Iraq. He speaks about the two plans under Bush: one crafted by the Pentagon and the other by the State Department and the oil industry. Palast describes how U.S. deficit exploded under the Bush Administration and delivers an interesting analysis on national issues articulated in familiar language. He writes about marginalized groups such as victims of Hurricane Katrina and how they carry the brunt of their tragedies that have been typically been ill-addressed by government officials.

Palast’s exposé is a journalist’s dream as today’s mainstream media does an injustice to many important news events. With the masses being drowned in 30 second soundbites, Palast takes pivotal and, ultimately, big stories in our political life and makes them accessible to the reader using a common sense approach.