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Sore Winners
(And The Rest Of Us) In George Bush's America
by John Powers


8.0

based on 8 reviews
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In this hybrid of pop mythology and political commentary, John Powers offers an irreverent guided tour of what he dubs "Bush World" - with its terror attacks and obsession with Martha Stewart, its preemptive wars and celebrations of shopping. [Doubleday]

Doubleday, 384 pages
07/27/2004
$24.95

ISBN: 0385511876

Nonfiction
Current Events & Politics

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Booklist Donna Seaman

With the presidential election looming, Powers' brilliant synthesis and recap is invaluable in its coherence and incisiveness. [July 2004, p.1813]

Flak James Norton

The purely political sections are the least interesting and least memorable parts of what turns out to be a momentously entertaining book.

Kirkus Reviews

If his arguments get a little diffuse when his gaze shifts from Bush to the larger culture, Powers sneaks in enough right-on digs at current icons -- Schwarzenegger, Reagan, and even, in a nice bit of table-turning, Michael Moore -- to cover the price of admission.

San Francisco Chronicle Kevin Canfield

Most appealing is his fair-mindedness...Powers is reasonable in a way that many authors of books on contemporary politics are not.

The New York Times Book Review Timothy Noah

Epigrams like these give intellectuals like Powers a reputation for snideness, but bless me, Father. He made me laugh.

Washington Post Jonathan Yardley

Like many others, John Powers is appalled by Bush and most of those by whom he is surrounded, but unlike most of Bush's critics -- Molly Ivins, Al Franken, Michael Moore et al. -- he takes Bush seriously.

New York Observer Glenn C. Altschuler

Defeating Bush in 2004 won't do it, because most of the defining elements of Bush World have been rooted in our culture for decades, a fact that Mr. Powers acknowledges but does not fully confront. Sore Winners is sometimes stunningly ahistorical.

Publishers Weekly

Powers can be very funny..., but scion Bush as sore winner isn't news, and the book is too thick with kitchen-sink ruminations to work as a whole.

The average user rating for this book is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Chad S gave it an8:
"Sore Winners" really soars when John Powers writes about our popular culture. He applies the Social Darwinism ethos behind the Republican Party to reality television shows like "Survivor" and "American Idol", therefore alerting liberal viewers of such entertainment of an unbeknownst conservative heart. Fox news and the Bush administration are easy targets, and Powers goes after both entities to hillarious effect, but he also zings a seemingly uncontroversial personality like Cokie Roberts, and a liberal bastion like the Sundance Film Festival. He'll criticize Arnold Schwarzenegger, and "American Splendor".

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Sore Winners (And The Rest Of Us) In George Bush's America by John Powers

Sore Winners
(And The Rest Of Us) In George Bush's America
by John Powers