Lewis, Charles and the Center for Public Integrity. The Buying of the
President. New York: Avon Books, 1996. 271 pages.
The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit watchdog research
group located in Washington DC. Its founder and executive director is
Charles Lewis, a former producer for CBS's "60 Minutes." While CPI does
excellent work, it generally falls within the narrow focus of researching
and criticizing the infrastructure of Washington, from party politics
to lobbyists to campaign finance. It never seems to occur to CPI that
perhaps we're beyond the possibility of political reform, and that it
may be time to start looking at Wall Street, or the military-industrial
complex, or the structures and personalities behind private-sector global
finance and international trade. But then, their grant money would dry up
if they were to take such an approach. At PIR we guarantee this.
If you assume that the two political parties are really different,
and if voters looked more closely at who's running and showed up to cast
their votes then we'd all be better off -- if you believe this in your
heart, then this research is important. It has chapters on each of 15
presidential candidates in 1996, summarizing what's available from the
public record about their wheeling and dealing during their political
careers. But if you have doubts about fine-tuning Washington politics,
then this book is merely more evidence that our system is beyond repair.
ISBN 0-380-78420-3
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