The Perfect Villain: John McCain and the Demonization of Lobbyist Jack Abramoff

by Gary S. Chafetz

Book Overview

The PERFECT VILLAIN is a work of non-fiction that focuses on the Washington lobbying scandal involving the imprisoned Jack Abramoff, and features Sen. John McCain, who takes the credit for his... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 097738988X
• ISBN13: 9780977389889
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Martin & Lawrence Press
• Length: 440 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Going Against the Grain

What I find amazing is how did this this reporter ever get Abramoff to talk to him without his own lawyers and the federal prosecutors knowing about it. It's nice to hear the other side of the story...so persuasively and carefully documented. I don't think I'll ever believe anything I read in the newspapers again without a huge dose of skepticism.

It ain't necessarily so.

A few years ago, Gary Chafetz wrote a book on a notorious malpractice case in which he countered the easy, even lazy, journalistic narrative that dominated the headlines. The story had it that an elite Harvard psychotherapist led an unfortunate, confused working-class medical student to despair and suicide. Chafetz' research uncovered a quite different, and more plausible, story that re-focused he narrative and largely exonerated the psychotherapist from the most serious charges leveled against her. It also told a story of a successful professional, who had done much excellent work and was destroyed by the financial costs of defending herself. In his new book he examines Jack Abramoff, whose name has come to exemplify the rotten core of K Street Republican politics. Chafetz's book should be read widely, not only because he casts doubt on this most recent narrative of villainy...this time the story of the evil, powerful lobbyist who has robbed and defrauded naive Native Americans, but also, and more importantly, because he deals quite harshly with the role of John McCain in the affair. According to Chafetz, McCain's desire to destroy Abramoff arose more out of a personal grudge than from his desire to root out corruption nd in the process he was both unethical and dishonest. McCain, in Chafetz's analysis, shows a vindictive and deceitful side, one far from the "straight talk express" so beloved of the sound-bite corporate media. One doesn't have to accept all Chafetz's argument about Abramoff's activities to appreciate what he has accomplished in writing a carefully researched book against the grain of common wisdom and even against such fair-minded commentators as Bill Moyers. It may be that a very flawed man operating in a deeply flawed political culture has been made a scapegoat while another greatly flawed man is now the Republican candidate for the presidency. At any rate, voters should see this book soon.