Robert G. KaiserRezensionen

An American rapper Young Thug said, “We need money. We need hits. Hits bring money, money bring power, power bring fame, fame change the game.” That’s the way it was with The News About The News by Leonard Downie Jr. and Robert G. Kaiser.
Newspapers rise and fall, but the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal continue to prevail. Mom and pop newspapers of the past that did so well have given way to chains like Gannett and Knight Ridder. From the early 1960’s to the 2000’s there have been cutbacks in staff and coverage of major stories. News has given way to entertainment, commentary, and fluff. And the line of what’s news has been blurred.
The same is true of television. Anchors Tom Brokaw of NBC, Peter Jennings of ABC, and Dan Rather of CBS are all not happy with the quality of news delivered to the public. This downward trend has been noticed since the passing of broadcasting Golden Age when networks had bureaus in major capitals of the world. But now even the local TV stations are struggling with formats that focus on headlines, accidents, crime, weather, traffic reports, happy talk, and entertainment pieces. “If it bleeds it leads.”
The coming of mass media’s New Technologies has further complicated matters. Although these have resulted in a greater diversity of channels, news coverage with ENG, communications satellites, cable networks, and Internet services there’s still exists more uncertainty. Large and traditional media audiences of newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio have given way to less lucrative forms of news and information. Existing today is a multiplicity of niche audiences that are greatly impacting traditional ways of advertising. What this will mean to the existing traditional media systems is still debatable. Many of these media have incorporated Internet Websites, but are still to determine how these ventures could be profitable.
Yet Downie Jr. and Kaiser explained how the terrorists’ attacks of September 11, 2001 pumped new life into print and electronic news coverage. But it was speculated that this might not necessarily mean that the spiraling downward of journalism had stopped. But it could well be that the mass media would begin to give more attention to foreign news, and not focused on predominately local events, of crime, accidents, celebrities, weather reports, and natural disasters.

Robert Kaiser's analysis of life and politics in the Soviet Union during the '70s makes a good companion piece to Hedrick Smith's "The Russians." While Smith concentrated on the day-to-day interactions of Russians with each other and with foreigners, Kaiser takes a look at the everyday politics of life in the Soviet Union. He analyzes how its political life affects all aspects of a person's life from the most personal to world politics. He, like Smith, also spent years in the Soviet Union as a reporter, became intimate with many people, both famous and not. He makes predictions about the future of the Soviet Union which were interesting in light of what we know has happened. Well worth reading for people interested in the Soviet Union and its way of life. Read together, Smith's book and Kaiser's book presents the reader with penetrating and fascinating insight into the Russian people during the apex of the Communist era.½

Robert Kaiser was granted rare access to the action behind the scenes of the creation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Act of Congress is an enjoyable study of the enactment of that law, used as tool to explore how Congress works, and largely how it it doesn't work.

Kaiser was already an associate editor and senior correspondent with the Washington Post and had just finished a book on lobbying and money in Washington. He proposed to Congressman Frank that Kaiser become the historian of the congressional response to the Great Crash of 2008. Frank was planning a big legislative changes to the financial services industry and the new president shared this goal. Senator Chris Dodd and Representative Barney Frank let Kaiser talk on the record with staff.

Act of Congress lives by the famous remark "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." The book's goal is to be both entertaining and educational as it sneaks behind the curtain to watch the sausage production.
"Of the 535 members of the House and Senate, those who have a sophisticated understanding of the financial markets and their regulation could probably fit on the twenty-five man roster of a Major League Baseball team."
Kaiser lets the stupidity of some Congress make it to the pages. He lets their public statements stand for themselves, although he tosses the phrase "intellectual lightweight" at a few. I sense he had a lot of personal perspective some of the congressmen that did not make it to the pages.

I found the book to be well-written and interesting. I suspect the interesting part may be governed more by my interest in the Dodd-Frank Act. It's an enormous piece of legislation with profound impact on the financial services industry. In places it is poorly written and in others it's full of exemptive holes. This books will enlighten you to some of the compromises that were made to get the law enacted.

I suspect those who have that interest may be limited. If you have made it this far, perhaps you share that interest. In which case you should add Act of Congress to your reading list.

Please read my review at the New York Journal of Books:

http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/review/act-congress-how-americas-essential-insti...

I love Cold War propaganda. I love the campaigns from both sides: the daydreamy technicolor pictures of Soviet factory workers enjoying ice cream by the sea, and the histrionic fervor of the US publications lamenting the Russians' lack of freedom to buy name-brand blue jeans or eat American fast food. So many subtle and sorrowful things reduced to slick trickery and slogans, the true issues glossed over by superficial images. The Cold War was a strange and frightening time to be a child, unsure of the danger facing us, dreaming of mushroom clouds, and surrounded on all sides by lies.

It's a new world now, and young adults have to hone their bullshit detecting skills in new and different ways. I look at these old photos: Russian women doctors, vegetable patches, hipsters lounging on park benches, and I have the strangest and most compelling sense of dislocation. My American dream, my god-given right to prosper more forever, seems to have vanished into a tired and hazy mass of ever-shrinking sales and a faltering feeling of insecurity. Are we really free? Would it be infinitely worse, would I do anything to escape, if I magically found myself in one of those crowded Soviet apartment blocs in these photos, poor but never to be denied a doctor or an education or a roof over my head? I don't know. I'll keep reading these missives from a land that no longer is, the country of the past, and I guess I'll keep uselessly stewing.

If you're anything of an idealist about the American system of government, this book might just break your heart. Not to say that our government is irretrievably flawed, but it's been significantly corrupted over the decades by the powerful influence of money. It's a well researched book, but it does read much like a research paper. While it detailed the growth, development, and tactics of lobbying in DC since the 1970s, what made the book interesting was the use of the Cassidy & Associates as its vehicle. We see how one individual was able to find a competitive niche, create an industry, and exploit it for over four decades. Insights into Cassidy's personal and professional relationships and the off-camera antics of prominent politicians of years past were also illuminating. Not a great book, but it should be required reading for anyone studying politics in the U.S.

Over the last thirty years lobbying has become a $4 billion industry in Washington, DC. Focusing on the story of Gerald Cassidy, one of the most successful early players in the business, Kaiser looks at the rise of earmarks and the influence of new campaign strategies to explain the interconnection between logrolling, campaign finance, corporate interests and policymaking. He makes it clear that we are collectively responsible for the corrosion of democracy that results from this new system.

The book was 60% the lobbying firm Cassidy and Associates and 40% about the political climate that allowed them to prosper. My main interest in reading the book was in the political and cultural movements since '75 or so which have caused governance to crash against that huge wall of money, and though I got some information, I got a lot more about the lifestyles of wealthy lobbyinsts.

I found it hard to read because of that, having to slog through personal histories for a political nugget. I don't normally keep on a book for two months, pure hunger for the sparse subject matter kept me slogging away at it.

I have to think there are better books on the abandomnent of governance by our elected officials, but I continue to struggle to find one. My recommendation is that you avoid this one and join the struggle..

Reviewed in 1-2/14 B&C by Amy E. Black (Wheaton) "Statemanship or Gamemanship?" how congress works (using Dodd-Frank bill becoming law as prototype); metions a number of other such books (which she highly recommends); B&C blocked my accessing them for excerpts-I contacted them

Soviet Union