Jim Dooley's Reviews > Peril

At this time of year, I often enjoy various scary tomes to put me in the Halloween spirit. Little did I realize that PERIL had a horror story of its own to tell. If you don’t believe me, read through the section that opens the book. It details the steps the US military high echelon was willing to take to make certain that an emotionally out-of-control President didn’t “play the nuclear card.” Chilling, indeed.

True confessions: My political party affiliation is Independent. I was not particularly impressed by Joe Biden, but I voted for him because I could never bring myself to vote for Donald Trump.

In all honesty, I made up my mind after the 2020 Presidential election not to give Donald Trump any more of my consideration. Yes, I’d read some excellent books about his various escapades in the White House, but I was “Trumped out.” It was time to let some reality back into my life as it came to the subject of politics.

But, then came January 6. This was followed by so much distrust and hatefulness that the nastiest thing you can say about a person is that they are a member of “the other party.” To top it off, PERIL was about the transition of the Office of the President of the United States. What was it like from the inside? Yes, I just had to read this one.

The writers, Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, do an excellent job of providing clarity to events that seemed bewildering. If the Reader doesn’t have “political savvy,” it doesn’t matter. Woodward and Costa provide the information needed to be brought quickly up to speed.

The stories behind the events were riveting. Many instances that were the subject of Press coverage didn’t contain “the human element” when I first heard about them. PERIL allowed me to feel like an “insider” … and that was seldom a comfortable feeling to have!

The timeline of PERIL is from the white supremacy march (in which a monster drove his vehicle into a group of protesters, killing one) to the decision to pull out of Afghanistan, and the wheeling and dealing to promote President Biden’s recovery plan. So, the Reader will have more knowledge of the result of those latter projects than is covered in the book. It includes the very real human stories of the January 6 insurrection, and the frustration felt by the Staff with a President who obsessed on “a stolen election” when many other incidents demanded his attention.

I know it wasn’t the intent of the writers, but I ended PERIL with a huge distrust of politicians and government … both in the United States and elsewhere. The stories of the easy willingness people in office were willing to go through to “win” their agenda at the cost of beneficial negotiation was disheartening. Every Election Day, I found myself watching the movie “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” again because I needed to feel that someone, somewhere, was placing Value on Principles. After PERIL, though, I can’t say that I feel such people exist any longer.

My gloomy outlook aside, PERIL was immensely readable and disturbingly fascinating.