BOOK REVIEW
Book Review
Politics has always remained a subject of intense study. Students of political science, brought up on the ideals of Western Civilizational thought, right from Plato to Westphalia, have starry-eyed notions about how the world’s largest democracy, the USA, functions. A close corollary is an intense curiosity about the goings-on behind the curtains in Washington, arguably the biggest seat of power of democracy in the modern world. It is this world that Mark Leibovich (2013) writes about in his book ‘This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral- Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!’ and the outcome is a poignant admixture of cynicism, comedy and sarcasm.
Mark Leibovich has the right credentials to claim knowledge about Washington; by his own admission, he has been a journalist in the capital city for sixteen years and currently works for the New York Times. His take on whether it is possible to write honestly about Washington is a riddle: ‘who discovered water? I don’t know, but it wasn’t a fish. I am a fish.’ Thus, Leibovich underlines his status as someone who has ‘lived in the murk’, has no plans to leave, and has an unvarnished view of the shenanigans in Washington.
Leibovich’s tour of Washington serves to reinforce the worst suspicions anyone can nurture about the city. Leibovich uncovers Washington as a land driven by insecurity and hypocrisy, where friendships are purely a matter of give-and take, copying is de rigeur and acts of public service are largely accidental. However, Leibovich provides a balm of comedy for the reader to digest the bitter truths. The reader continues to read, hoping to discover if any character in the host of people living in Washington would serve to redeem the political class.
Leibovich draws in-depth sketches of a collection of profiles and scenes to reveal the essential archetypes of Washington power. He outlines the character of NBC news reporter Andrea Mitchell, whose profession and personal life underline a massive conflict of interest. Mitchell is married to former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, and covers administrations and campaigns that overlap considerably with her social and personal habitat, in the form of weekend getaways and dinners in the houses of the high and mighty. When Mitchell reports on the 2008 financial crisis and people point out that her husband might well be the chief culprit behind the financial meltdown, NBC remained morally ambivalent by allowing Mitchell to cover the politics of dealing with the financial crisis but not the conditions that led up to it. Such moral and ethical hair-splitting forms the leitmotif of the life of Mitchell, as she plays like an ‘owl trying to avoid trees’.
Leibovich paints the character sketch of super lawyer Bob Barnett. If Barnett does not represent a politician, the corollary becomes true- that the politician is not worth representing. Barnett has negotiated multi-million dollar book advances for Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. Leibovich marvels at the ‘degree to which so many elite DC players stream to a single super lawyer’. Despite his outward power, Barnett himself is hungry for a reputation upgrade. He does not like to be called an agent, and wants to ramp his status upward to be considered a wise man of Washington.
Tammy Haddad, another only-in-Washington personality, represents the quintessential traits of success in the city- if no one is sure about what exactly you do, you are probably doing it right. Haddad, part-journalist, part-businesswoman and part-philanthropist, is a ‘full service gatherer of friends of different persuasions unified by the fact that they in some way ‘matter’’. Using her disparate contacts an amorphous power, Tammy is able to conduct ambush interviews. She has brokered an Obama interview aboard Air Force One. She is, however, best known for her exclusive party marking the White House Correspondents’ Dinner every April.
As Leibovich goes about his character sketches, he ensures that the structure of the book gives no clue about the pattern of reportage to a casual Washington insider who would merely wish to ascertain if any dirt is being raked up on her name or on the name of her political benefactor. To avoid such cross checking, Leibovich has provided no index to the book. Instead, he has relied on italicizations and capitalizations through the book to provide emphasis to the reading matter.
Leibovich graduates from the run of the mill insiders to capture the essence of self-professed leading thinkers of Washington too. He recounts how David Gregory is on record for having stated that he would be willing to ‘rub out’ a few colleagues to advance his career. He unravels the Clintons’ fear that Tim Russert disliked them. He reveals the informal grapevine about John Kerry being friendless in Washington. He outlines how matter as important as security protection in the face of terror become cases of envy- with every wannabe politician wishing to be included in the list of those requiring state protection.
Leibovich knows that his book does not purport to be a timeless classic of historical import. His aim in the book is clear- to provide a flavor of Washington at the moment. In his sketch of Washington at the moment as it is, Leibovich does a good job. He captures Washington’s moments through the prism of Russert’s memorial service at the Kennedy Center in June 2008, and ends with his musings on Inauguration Day 2013. While there is no overarching theme, Leibovich does follow through the process of loss of idealism of the Obama Team, which began as a team charged with bringing about discernible change to the political climate, and ended up as just another administration, replete with conflicts of interest, proliferating lobbyists and selling-out staffers ever willing to monetize their years in government service.
Perhaps the only self-redeeming feature Leibovich finds in Washington is its disdain for hypocrisy. While Washington is not honest, Leibovich paints a picture where the city is acutely self-aware that it is playing a game, where the real stakes are not in political idealism but in getting rich. Therefore, readers of ‘This Town’ would be well served to be pre-warned that the book is merely a mirror to the times, when the tenets of political idealism are waning at perhaps the lowest ebb in recent history.
Reference
Leibovich, Mark. 2013. This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral- Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking! - In America’s Gilded Capital. New York, NY: Penguin.
