A Book about the US Senate Devoid of Substance

This is an embarrassingly bad book on the U.S. Senate. It is devoid of real substance, lacks depth, and is utterly uninformative. I'm not even sure why any publisher would waste the paper and ink to print it.

Here the author follows several newly elected Senate members after the 2006 midterm elections where the voters repudiated the policies of George Bush and the Iraq War and the Democrats wrested control of the Senate from Republicans. The book does a rather poor job of really delving into his subjects and their personalities, with the exception of Jim Webb (D-VA) and Jon Tester (D-Montana). But even there the author interjects himself into the stories too much, to the detriment of the book and the reader.

The basic premise of the book is that nothing much gets done in the Senate, at least not quickly. Progress is measured over several years. And he shows the frustration of the high powered freshman entering the Senate and their inability to impact policy quickly. While the book gives a nod to the nation's Founding Fathers and the Constitution of the United States of America, where the Senate is supposed to be an august body that cools the passion of the people, he paints the Senate as dysfunctional because of its arcane rules and the power of the minority to block legislation. Of course, he also notes that extreme partisanship is also part of the problem. Nothing gets done. The problem is the author goes into no depth about the history of the Senate and why it really works the way it does. Nor does the book discuss the pros and cons of how the Senate is supposed to work, how it really works, and any diagnosis of what might make it work better.

Even more annoying is the author is extremely political and much of the writing is a not so subtle attack on George Bush, the Iraq War, and the Republicans. Which is all fine, but it detracts from telling the reader anything new about the Senate that isn't in the newspaper and news programs on a daily basis.

For anyone wanting to learn anything new about the Senate, look elsewhere.