BuzzFlash interview: Kevin Phillips
Author of American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush


This interview originally appeared on BuzzFlash, the pro-democracy news source.


"Now what I get a sense of from all of this -- and then topped obviously by spending all the money in 2000 to basically buy the election -- is that this is not a family that has a particularly strong commitment to American democracy. Its sense of how to win elections comes out of a CIA manual, not out of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution."
-- Kevin Phillips

Hey, you would expect this kind of talk from a lefty, right. But Kevin Phillips ain't no lefty. He's a former Nixon staffer and authored "The Emerging Republican Majority" back then. He hasn't had any transformation that has turned him into a -- God Forbid! -- Democrat. As he tells BuzzFlash, he voted for Reagan twice and would have eagerly voted for John McCain.

He hasn't stopped being Republican. It's just that he's appalled at what the Republican Party has become under the Bush dynasty.

In "American Dynasty," Phillips weaves evidence of the Bush family's dynastic sense of entitlement -- and corruption -- throughout this erudite book.

"Few have looked at the facts of the family's rise, but just as important, commentators have neglected the thread -- not the mere occasion -- of special interests, biases, scandals (especially those related to arms dealing), and blatant business cronyism" Phillips writes in his preface. "The evidence that accumulates over four generations [of the Bush family dynasty] is really quite damning."

"Three generations of immersion in the culture of secrecy...deceit and disinformation have become Bush political hallmarks," Phillips notes.

Entitlement, elitism, privilege, secrecy, mediocrity, corruption, financial cronyism, bailouts of family failures by the taxpayers -- these are some of the true characteristics of the Bush Dynasty, according to Phillips.

To Phillips, however, the greatest threat to America posed by the Bush dynasty is not its inherent unfitness to rule. What most offends and angers Phillips is the threat that the imposition of the Bush dynasty on America poses to democracy itself. The American rebellion in 1776 represented the creation of a nation built on the foundations of a government elected by the people, not determined by the restoration to power of corrupt bloodlines.

No book makes a stronger case against an American sitting in the White House who believes that he is in power because of hereditary entitlement and divine choice. Patriots rebelled against King George in 1776. Phillips notes that Americans have the opportunity to dethrone the Bush dynasty at the polls in 2004.

That is if the electronic software is not rigged in favor of the monarchy.

More on Keven Phillips .