The Price of Politics

New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012. First Simon & Schuster Hardcover Edition [Stated]. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Good. xvii, [1], 428, [2] pages. Illustrations. Index. DJ has rear flap crease. Minor bend to several pages at rear. Author's Personal Note. Note to Readers. Cast of Characters. Chapter Notes. Index. Signature on informal bookplate affixed to fep. Robert Upshur Woodward (born March 26, 1943) is an American investigative journalist. After a year at the Montgomery Sentinel, a weekly newspaper in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, Woodward was hired as a Post reporter in 1971 and now holds the title of associate editor. While a reporter for The Washington Post in 1972, Woodward teamed up with Carl Bernstein, and the two did much of the original news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon. The work of Woodward and Bernstein was called "maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time" by longtime journalism figure Gene Roberts. Woodward continued to work for The Washington Post after his reporting on Watergate. He has written 21 books on American politics and current affairs, 13 of which have topped best-seller lists. Woodward has continued to report stories for The Washington Post, and has the title of associate editor at the paper, which was described by Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan as honorific with no regular responsibilities. He focuses on the presidency, intelligence, and Washington institutions such as the U.S. Supreme Court, The Pentagon, and the Federal Reserve. Based on 18 months of reporting, Woodward's 17th book The Price of Politics is an intimate, documented examination of how President Obama and the highest profile Republican and Democratic leaders in the United States Congress attempted to restore the American economy and improve the federal government's fiscal condition over three and one half years. Drawn from memos, contemporaneous meeting notes, e-mails and in-depth interviews with the central players, The Price of Politics addresses the key issue of the presidential and congressional campaigns: the condition of the American economy and how and why we got there. Providing verbatim, day-by-day, even hour-by-hour accounts, the book shows what really happened, what drove the debates, negotiations and struggles that define, and will continue to define, the American future. Derived from a New York Times article: Bob Woodward's depressing book, "The Price of Politics," reads like a minutely detailed illustration of woes. It focuses on "the struggle between President Obama and the United States Congress to manage federal spending and tax policy for the three and one-half years between 2009 and the summer of 2012." And the bulk of its narrative is devoted to behind-the-scenes negotiations that took place in the summer of 2011, as the country teetered on the brink of a potentially catastrophic default over the federal debt ceiling. "The Price of Politics" has colorful new details and examines the aftermath of the failure of the president and Speaker John A. Boehner to reach a "grand bargain" in July 2011 involving cutting the deficit, rewriting the tax code and rolling back the cost of entitlements. It also describes tensions between the White House and Capitol Hill, between the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats and between Mr. Boehner and Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader. Like Mr. Woodward's earlier books, "The Price of Politics" is based on lots of insider interviews, conducted mostly on background — along with supporting documents, meeting notes, e-mails and diaries. As a result, the narrative tends to reflect the spin of people who talked the most — or the most persuasively — with Mr. Woodward. Many aspects of this book's portrait of Mr. Obama echo reports from other journalists and Washington insiders: a president who has not spent a lot of time cultivating relationships with members of Congress, Republican or Democrat, and who has similarly distant relationships with business executives; an idealistic but sometimes naïve and overconfident chief executive with little managerial experience and little understanding of the horse-trading and deal-making that make Washington run. His harshest words are reserved for Mr. Obama: "It is a fact that President Obama was handed a miserable, faltering economy and faced a recalcitrant Republican opposition. "But presidents work their will — or should work their will — on the important matters of national business. There is occasional discussion in this book about Presidents Reagan and Clinton, what they did or would have done. Open as both are to serious criticism, they nonetheless largely worked their will. "Obama has not. The mission of stabilizing and improving the economy is incomplete.".