Word: fromson
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Anyone who has ever spent some time on the Hill or in a federal agency will catch Fromson exaggerating left and right. For example, a housemate of the author describers her first day as a legislative intern: "I drafted legislation in the morning, lunched with the Senator at noon, and spent the afternoon in the Senate cloakroom counting votes with the lobbyists." The second day she probably argued a case before the Supreme Court, lectured the President on foreign policy, and climbed the Washington Monument...
...private fiefdoms within the Congress and the executive branch. Bitter about his own inability to effect major changes during his brief tenure in Washington, the author doesn't push his analysis much past interpreting the motives of his former colleagues. In fact, now that he has abandoned public service, Fromson seems to have gotten serious about writing qua writing, and therein lies the problem with his book...
There's a lot of interesting stuff in there about government-business relations, the role of presidential aides, and elective politics, but it could have been explained without making up a quote and sticking it in someone's mouth. If Fromson is willing to fabricate intricate conversations that couldn't possibly have been recorded, how do we know he hasn't made up whole characters and situations to lend his commentary texture...
EVEN WHEN the author remains within the realm of realism, he relies heavily on shoddy New Journalism techniques to add flavor to his descriptions. From every party and intimate conversation, every private meeting and public confrontation, come long, laborious, detailed quotes. Was Fromson wearing a Dick Tracy-style tape recorder-wristwatch--when, for instance, he challenged his boss on arms sales and got this (exact) reply...
Finally, for no good reason at all, Fromson tacks on a little adventure involving KGB spies and American counter-intelligence. Again, the episode may be grounded in truth, but the amateurish way in which the author presents it only distracts the reader from the more sober, believable sections of the book...