Mark Crispin Miller

The Bush Dyslexicon

Observations on a National Disorder

"They misunderestimated me."—President George W. Bush

It seems like too easy a target, too cheap a laugh, but Mark Crispin Miller, with the deftly trenchant wit that always distinguishes his writing, uses the blunders and malapropisms of George W. Bush to make a larger point about the way in which we elect our presidents.

The book is a raucously funny ride—whether it's Bush envisioning "a foreign-handed foreign policy" or Miller skewering vociferous cultural conservatives like William Bennett and Lynne Cheney for their silence on Bush's particular "West Texas version of Ebonics"—but there is also a strong undercurrent of outrage. Only because our elections have become so dependent on television and its emphatic emptiness, Miller argues, can a man of such sublime and complacent ignorance assume the highest office in the land. To quote Bush himself, "It's not the way America is all about."

"This is a work of outrage. Never has the native intelligence of the 'ordinary' American been so assaulted as it's been by the recent presidential 'election,' and Mark Crispin Miller has sounded the tocsin of revolt. Unless we are suffering from a national Alzheimer's disease, this book will give us heart and voice, as well as a laugh or two along the way." —Studs Terkel

"Stinging in almost every line, this perceptive book reveals much about the capabilities of our new president, and about the unfairness of the process that exalted him." —Lawrence E. Walsh, independent counsel, Iran-Contra Investigation

"This is simply the finest, most comprehensive and masterfully annotated collection of Bushisms to date: a clear reminder to never 'misunderestimate' the ignorance, intellectual laziness, and sheer meanness of our first unelected president." —Barbara Ehrenreich

"Fiercely funny and insightful, The Bush Dyslexicon is also a rousing call to arms. It's the book Tom Paine would have written had he penned 'Common Sense' while channel-surfing his satellite dish. A must-read for all who take their citizenship seriously—whether left, right, or just plain disgusted." —Arianna Huffington

"Mark Crispin Miller is the smartest and funniest media critic in the business. He also has the courage to speak truth to power, which he does brilliantly in The Bush Dyslexicon—a witty, incisive, and wide-ranging critique of our unelected president, the interests he represents, and the media's role in promoting them. No one who cares about the future of democracy can afford to ignore this book." —Jackson Lears, Board of Governors Professor of History, Rutgers University

"This is no joke book, but a sobering and enlightening tour de force on the appalling state of our electoral politics. It should be required reading for those crazy souls who—like Mark Crispin Miller—still believe in this country." —Robert W. McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times

"Mark Crispin Miller has written a book not only about our appointed President, but about the ramshackle state of American political conversation. Unlike Bush the younger, The Bush Dyslexicon will make you laugh and, more important, think, worry—and even start to scream for real reform."—Mark Lloyd, Executive Director, Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy

"If, like millions of Americans, you feel that you've been living through a real life version of "The Emperor Has No Clothes," this book is must reading. Miller's critique of how the media accepted—and even abetted—the Republican snow job on Bush's alleged fitness for office is brilliant and devastating." —Susan Douglas, Catherine Neafie Kellogg Professor of Mass Communication at the University of Michigan, author of Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media