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"Patriots" Reviewed in Huffington Post

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Well, not reviewed exactly:

Douglas Anthony Cooper (with whom I went to high school) disclaims the word:

[T]his is not a book review—it is an act of drooling voyeurism. Patriots is what anthropologists call a "thick description": a deep, firsthand account of the fascinating primitives who occupy the feral extremes of he Republican party. As a speechwriter for the second president Bush, Frum had a privileged perspective: He was Margaret Meade among the savages, and he has returned with this document. After a long shower, he has detailed their hunting and gathering habits, their costumes and mythology, and—most importantly—their mating rituals.

That caveat stipulated, Cooper observes:

Patriots can be read as a paean to incrementalism: moving forward glacially, inch by inch, never cut off from the past. It favors progress, but is a withering indictment of historical ignorance and extremism. In particular it deplores those two attributes when they merge in a single person, or institution, or political party.

"Vicious" and "elegiac" are not words you generally associate with the same book, but they are in fact a hallmark of comedies written by conservatives…

Click here to read the full review.

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About the Author

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David Frum

David Frum is a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast and a CNN contributor. He is the author of eight books, including most recently the e-book WHY ROMNEY LOST and his first novel Patriots, published in April 2012.

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