Citizen Reader

Do you know someone who thought the Iraq War was a good idea? Then I would heartily recommend buying them a copy of Rob Simpson's very interesting and somewhat depressing new book What We Could Have Done with the Money: 50 Ways to Spend the Trillion Dollars We've Spent on Iraq.

Sure, you may not want to send it to friends, if you want to keep them as friends. But maybe there's someone you dislike already who might enjoy it? I'm going to send a copy to John McCain! (And, frankly, Barack Obama could take a look at it too.)

My favorite thing about this book, other than the fifty alternatives that range from the serious to the silly ("rebuild New Orleans" vs. "Let's all go to the movies!") and all of which seem like better ideas than war? This paragraph, in the very begininng:

"A portion of the royalties from this book are being donated to Homes for Our Troops, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that assists severely injured servicemen and -women and their families by building homes or adapting existing homes for handicapped accessibility."

That's what it should say in the front of Scott McClellan's What Happened, but it doesn't. Buy this book instead.