I agree with every word of this post, too. Thanks for taking the time, Ann Hedonia. I especially agree with what you said about anyone claiming the book is a pack of lies merely reveals they haven’t read it.
I must admit, I’m reading the book and quite enjoying it. I, too, am inclined to agree with Ann Hedonia’s comments though I haven’t got that far in the book. I’ve just finished the chapter on Bannon and started the one on “Jarvanka”.
The dismissive comments here and in the “clusterfuck” thread in the Pit seem to center on the notions that (1) all the “juicy” bits are already being widely reported so the book doesn’t really add anything, and (2) much of it may not be true, anyway.
My issue with #1 is that the book is a lot more than a few sound bites. It fleshes out in a fair amount of detail the fascinating question of what would happen if you put comically inept idiots in charge of the executive branch, except this isn’t an elaborate simulation, it’s infused with all the richness of real life. Running through it all are fascinating insights on the principal characters and Republicans and the alt-right in general, like Steve Bannon’s unsavory past. To a political junkie like me it’s entertaining reading.
#2 is more complicated. How accurate is the book? Obviously I don’t know, and the principal players are hardly going to be objective about it. Wolff himself has said, as near as I can recollect, something along the lines that he doesn’t know if all the details are true, but he did his best with hundreds of credible interviews with insiders in a position to know the facts. To me the book – so far – rings generally true and certainly fits with the broad pattern of facts that have been widely reported. I would judge it to be like one of Michael Moore’s better productions: we know that Moore can be selective with the facts and sometimes prone to hyperbole, yet in films like the Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine or Sicko, the broad outlines of the facts about gun violence and health care, respectively, are basically correct, and many of them are revealing and shocking.
Thank you 
Some of the takeaways I’m feeling here:
If nobody was expecting to win, then the whole collusion thing goes away. Right? Why would they really be colluding if they weren’t trying to win.
So Flynn, Don Jr., etc. just were naive/stupid and weren’t really plotting anything evil with a hostile government.
That’s actually a plus for the Trump camp.
And many of the people around Trump are hard working, sincere, true blue patriots doing the best the can under the circumstances.
Another plus for them.
Um, this is sounding more and more like a book trying to help a lot of the Trump people.
Maybe the president can buy a copy for every American.
Except there’s a vast difference between “trying to win” and “expecting to win”. If the local junior college soccer team plays a match against, say, Manchester United or Real Madrid, they certainly don’t expect to win. But they’re going to try their best to win anyhow.
Having read nearly every Stephen King book ever written, and despite being only 1/4 of the way through Fire And Fury, I believe Michael Wolff is the true “King Of Horror”
Well, only the “right” kinds of Americans… :dubious:
I’m paying nine bucks a month for Netflix, dammit. I want gorillas, I want them angry, and I want them 24/7.
Well, after the author came out and publicly said the book was bullshit, I have no desire to read it. I’ll just put it on the list with other books full of lies, like An Inconvenienty Truth and anything by the Clintons.
do not worry, the new directives will be channeled to you via the web from the SVR so you can talk further about the clintons and ignore the svr work.
I believed it up to a point. I could absolutely believe that he had seen Animal Planet or something and couldn’t remember what it was called, or even understand what most of the programming was.
As far as the book goes, I’ve just started. The Trump-verse is dealing with the new reality that he won, and all of their grand plans for what to do when he lost are now worthless. So far, so amusing (I choose to find it amusing, not soul-crushing).
I am about halfway through it. As others have said, much of the content has been reported on elsewhere. What I find enlightening, again as others have said, is the narrative flow coupled with background info on actions that I already knew about.
The biggest shock in the book so far for me has been the statement by Bannon during the dinner party at the author’s house:“I don’t drink.” This was said as he declined a glass of wine. Based on his appearance, I would have bet real money that Steve Bannon is a daily drunk.
Perhaps Bannon is now sober but did drink to excess for a long time?
It wasn’t so much his saying that the book was bullshit, as the moment when he sprouted purple polka-dotted tentacles, that clued me in I was imagining that whole episode. The tentacles didn’t clue you in to that?
On the off chance that you’re thinking of something else, what exactly are you paraphrasing as “the book was bullshit”?
Quite possible, but if he really is currently sober I will have to re-calibrate a “drunk-dar” I cultivated over many years of playing music in bars. Bannon always looks to me like a guy who woke up with a bad hangover today. Every day.
Fever dream.
Probably this. As usual, a total misinterpretation.
“Wolff has written for left wing publications like USA Today”
BWAHAHAHAHAHA
While there may be a subjective narrative to the book, it seems to me that nearly all the sources are cited, and very few (if any) individuals cited have spoken out to claim their comments were not theirs, incorrectly cited, taken out of context, or blatantly untrue.