Lincoln Chafee

This was a bit of a "blast from the past" book, covering as it does Lincoln Chafee's term in the Senate, from late 1999 through his defeat in the 2006 elections. During that period I had an active political blog, and very frequently was either cheering Sen. Chafee on or excoriating him for knuckling under to pressure from the White House or the Republican Senate leadership on some issue or another. As (for much of that time) a person who considered myself a moderate-to-liberal Republican in the same vein as Chafee himself, I wanted him as a leader in the Senate, one of the sane guys who could stop the madness that I saw being pushed by the Bush administration and their Republican water-carriers in the House and Senate (and, I should add, a few Democratic water-carriers in the Senate too). So I only excoriated, when needed, because I cared, very deeply, and wanted a powerful, strong voice for centrism.

Chafee's book covers that period, and in many areas it makes for a truly fascinating inside look at the Bush administration's push for their radical agenda and their sometimes shocking departures from the promises and pledges made during the 2000 campaign (including on climate change, &c.). Chafee's account of the committee hearings on would-be UN Ambassador John Bolton brought me back, instantly, to those days in 2005, when I was riveted to the C-SPAN3 feed, crying out for Chafee to lead.

The prose here is somewhat workaday, but if you have any desire to relive some of those crazy days when it was John Bolton, Iraq, and the nuclear option being used by the GOP to block the Democrats from filibustering, you might consider giving this a read.… (más)