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Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President | 
| Author: Lincoln Chafee
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $12.25
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 360364
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.2
ISBN: 0312383045
Dewey Decimal Number: 328.73092
EAN: 9780312383046
ASIN: 0312383045
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Brand New. Small tear in rear upper right corner of dust cover
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Product Description
In this smart, candid, and surprising political memoir, Lincoln Chafee offers a behind-the-scenes look at the first six years of the Bush Administration from the vantage point of one of the few Republican moderates in the Senate.
When Senator Chafee (R-RI) went to Washington, he encountered a Republican Party drifting so far to the right it no longer stood for the mainstream principles that united Americans. Instead, under the direction of George W. Bush, the Party had fallen victim to extremism. In the face of this trend, Chafee stood fast as one of the most liberal Republicans in the Senate, seeking to cut across partisan lines at the very time that they threatened to irrevocably divide the nation.
A political iconoclast, Chafee was the only Republican senator to have expressed support for same-sex marriage; the only Republican to vote in favor of reinstating the top federal tax rate on upper-income payers; the only Republican in the Senate to have voted against authorization of the use of force in Iraq; the only Republican to vote for the Levin-Reed amendment calling for a nonbinding timetable for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq; and the only Republican to vote against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. Chafee favored increased federal funding for health care, supported affirmative action and gun control, supported women’s reproductive rights, and endorsed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Sometimes referred to by conservatives as a RINO (Republican in Name Only), Chafee turns the tables on the right and asks why it has enabled Bush Jr. to pull the GOP and the nation away from traditional principles of fiscal conservatism, respect for our environment, and aversion to foreign entanglements.
Unabashedly frank, Chafee’s memoir recounts his political journey from small-town mayor to a voice crying from the congressional wilderness. He offers a forward-looking assessment of what comes next for the Republican and Democratic parties, and he also addresses the potential rise of a third party within the void created by bipartisan extremism. Most important, Chafee sounds a wake-up call to his Party, and to all Americans, by challenging our government to strive, as Abraham Lincoln once articulated, “to elevate the condition of men.”
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 eyewitness account of congress May 21, 2008
This book is a must read because it describes how politics and government work or perhaps why it doesnt work. Mr. Chaffee's description of his experiences are told in such a direct and honest fashion. He interweaves his political experience as a local politician and that of a congressional candidate. He provides information regarding different foreign policy efforts of the current administration and why they failed, i.e., the palestinian and Israeli peace process. This is a refreshing look at our governmental system and the players in it. Mr. Chaffee's writing style made me feel as if he was telling the story directly to me.
 Against the Tide May 19, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
As a transplanted Rhode Islander living in New York, I understood why Lincoln Chafee lost his Senate seat in November of 2006 to the lackluster and uninspired Sheldon Whitehouse. An independent, moderate voice from the Ocean State fell victim to the Bush Administration's myopic paranoid agenda. At its best moments, Against the Tide, paints a striking portrait of idealogues centralizing power and marginalizing dissenting voices and their opponents time after time refusing to stand up and speak out for what they knew was right.
Chafee often repeats stories (he was a blacksmith on the plains of Canada, if you didn't already know) and the prose is stilted in places, but the book as a whole is a success. I hope it gives my former neighbors a pang of guilt that we are no longer represented in the Senate by Lincoln Chafee and his sense of duty and principle. His replacement is not cut from that cloth.
An engaging book from an ethical man May 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Former Senator Lincoln Chafee has written an engaging book that connects anecdotes from his political life with thoughtful observations on ethics, power, and diplomacy.
The Senator's disillusionment and disenchantment are thoroughly examined here. Although, as a son of the late Senator John Chafee, he was well acquainted with the realities of party politics in America, he went to Washington with idealistic notions about the possibilities of bi-partisan cooperation born of his experience in local government. Sadly, he was to find out exactly how regressive and obstinate both the national executive and legislative bodies have become.
This is an admirable effort from a man who has managed to retain his ideals despite the disappointing realities he encountered. This book is well worth your time and money, and I recommend it very highly. We need more people like Lincoln Chafee in public life.
Wow, A Republican That Actually Has A Soul! May 11, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Outstanding book written by a courageous man. I'm a centrist and not a far left liberal but, until reading this book, I never knew a Republican politician for which I was able to have even the tinest bit of respect. We definitely do need a third party, or better yet the ability for people that don't align with a particular party to have a chance to win an election. People like Chafee - people who put the best interests of America's citizens first rather than best interests of a party machine - would then be able to survive. Imagine a government of people like that! Spread the word about this book so people become inspired to demand this of our politicians.
A GOP wake-up call likely to go unheeded from an honorable man April 21, 2008
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
Former Rhode Island U.S. Senator Lincoln has words of wisdom for both Republicans and Democrats alike, but mainly Republicans, in this thoughtful book.
To illustrate the fact that he is straight-spoken, I take this anecdote from page 183, in light of his Senate vote against a flag-desecration amendment in the late summer of 2006, an amendment thrown up as election fodder.
"In my opinion, some members of Congress desecrated the flag every day by wearing flag pins on their lapels while voting to divide Americans and restrict freedom. ... Using the flag for political gain was the real desecration."
Chafee has a closely reasoned takedown argument for his former Republican colleagues in the Senate, for candidates who would follow the Bush-Rove method of campaigning and more: The game is up.
Chafee, one of six Republicans who lost their Senate seats in 2006, repeated this message inside the GOP caucus long before that. And, he meant it as someone who was still trying to save the Republican Party from itself.
He says he considered running as an independent in 2006, but just couldn't do that.
Now, out of office, though, he is encouraging the idea of a centrist middle to take the third-party road, if needed. This is the one biggest shortcoming of the book.
As a left-liberal who has voted third-parties in the past, I know the Constitutional system is rigged against them, unless one or the other of the major parties is in a time of turmoil. That last happened in the 1850s, when the Whigs shattered over the Compromise of 1850 and then the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Beyond that, outside apparatchiks like the Grover Norquists of the policy world and insiders, whether elected officials or strategists, will insist in maintaining GOP "message rigidity" enough that, while the party may shrink, it won't explode or implode.
But, Chafee is committed to the idea, perhaps even idealistic about it, so I won't hold that against him.
At the same time, with wistfulness, he recognizes his father's GOP is no more, and Humpty Dumpty can't put it back together. The former "Rockefeller Republicans" are lost; it is on them, and centrist-to-conservative Democrats, that Chafee appears to pin his third-party hopes.
Otherwise, Chafee struck me as someone who actually brought two crucial things to his job as a senator: Due diligence and curiosity beyond accepting spouted platitudes.
That's clear in his descriptions of his dealings with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, John Negroponte when he was ambassador to Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz and others.
For Democrats, his biggest take is continued hypocrisy on the Iraq war. That includes pro-war voters like Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton visiting the state to campaign against him in 2006.
And as for his opponent, now-Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse? Whether due to sour grapes or what, Chafee says Whitehouse had no cojones when he was a U.S. Attorney.
Finally, for both Republicans and Democrats, he says we need a real Middle East peace process, and one that does not write blank checks to Israel.
As a sidebar, I found it interesting that this son of a U.S. Senator worked for years as a horseshoer, in very much an "everyday" job. In short, contrary to the claims about a ranting tyrant from Crawford, Texas, you might actually want to sit down for a beer, a diet Coke, or whatever, with Lincoln Chafee.
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