Spanking the Donkey: Dispatches from the Dumb Season

The 2004 Election Was a Circus, and Matt Taibbi enjoyed a Front-Row Seat. As a correspondent for the New York Press, The Nation, and Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi scoured the political landscape for hard-hitting news stories. But the closer he got to the politicians, the more pompous and vapid they appeared. How could he write anything meaningful about these puffed-up martinets, much less vote for them? Nevertheless, Taibbi forged on and continued his responsibilities as a serious campaign reporter—though not without frequent bouts of blind panic, drug use, and donning a gorilla suit. Spanking the Donkey indicts the surreal irrelevance of today’s mainstream politics with barbed wit and caustic intelligence. Follow Taibbi as he covers the primary for the 2004 presidential election, joining him for a spot on John Kerry’s campaign plane, face-to-face encounters with John Edwards’s pancake makeup, enough Howard Dean press conferences to memorize the good doctor's stump speech by heart, and—just to spice things up—a two-month stint working undercover in a Republican campaign office in Orlando, Florida. Brimming with uncensored opinions and total truth, Taibbi captures the real American political mind; as a patron at Flo’s Bar in Manchester, New Hampshire, eloquently puts it: “They all suck . . . who’s running?” “Gonzo journalist Matt Taibbi will do anything . . . to bring political reporting back to life. Spanking the Donkey is all the more necessary in the aftermath of an election that harnessed enough liberal outrage to light the Vegas strip, cost more than a billion dollars, absorbed hundreds of hours we will never get back, and achieved absolutely nothing.” —Salon
ASIN: 0307345718
VSKU: BVV.0307345718.A
Condition: Acceptable
Author/Artist:Taibbi, Matt
Binding: Paperback
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: The item is very worn but is perfectly usable. Signs of wear can include aesthetic issues such as scratches, dents, worn and creased covers, folded page corners and minor liquid stains. All pages and the cover are intact, but the dust cover may be missing. Pages may include moderate to heavy amount of notes and highlighting, but the text is not obscured or unreadable. Page edges may have foxing age related spots and browning . May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.