Post 4:

While The Corruption of American Politics: What Went Wrong and Why was an informative read I would not recommend it to other readers who didn’t major in political science or have a tremendous excess of time on their hands. The Corruption of American Politics: What Went Wrong and Why is by no means an easy read. Elizabeth Drew knows what she’s talking about, there’s no doubt about that; but she can’t translate what she knows into words for those of us who don’t for her life. Even a reader with a good grasp of the American political system may struggle to figure out exactly what point Drew is trying to prove. In addition, Drew provides an excess of totally unnecessary detail. No offense to her work (or Fred Thompson’s hair), but I have absolutely no need to know Fred Thompson’s hair color to understand his role in the Nixon trials. These purposeless tidbits serve only to aggravate readers like me who are in pain trying to decrypt Drew’s seemingly enigmatic writings. In addition to this, Drew seems to draw almost no conclusions over the course of a chapter: She throws details and quotes this way and that for pages, leaving the reader in wonder, and then finally, at the end of a chapter, explains how her writings were actually relevant to her point. Suffice to say, Drew’s writings were not intended to be read by the faint of heart… or the casual reader.

Despite how annoying some of the portions of Drew’s book were, her work was (ultimately) informational and it did enhance my understanding of the American political system (the reason why I wouldn’t recommend it, of course, is that there are much less grueling ways to go about doing such).  Drew’s deceptive seemingly-off-topic details actually do give the reader a good knowledge base from which to draw conclusions about American politics that they may be able to back up with such facts. She provides excellent information as to exactly what happened to the American political system to allow corruption and indicates that such corruption may be fixed by the events being somehow reversed (such as campaign finance reform blocking soft money). Hence Drew’s work does provide the reader with an better understanding of American politics.