Just Finished - The Great Derangement by Matt Taibbi

Matt Taibbi, a political journalist from Rolling Stone, recently went undercover as a new Christian convert in John Hagee's Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas to document one of the most troubling manifestations of the Religious Right. His report was excerpted in Rolling Stone, and contained scenes that were just too funny to be made up. If the name sounds familiar, John Hagee was in the news recently when John McCain "disavowed" his endorsement after Hagee made a bunch of anti-Catholic statements.

Unfortunately, the rest of The Great Derangement - A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire was not nearly as hysterical. In order to support his thesis that our political system has gotten so corrupt that significant segments of the population in both sides of the political spectrum have withdrawn to "deranged" subcultures, he needs to find a boogeyman on the Left. The one he came up with was the 9/11 Truth movement, which, according to Taibbi's own description in the book, are made up mostly of misfits who lacked the social skills even to organize a movie night. It's hard to accept that there's any equivalence between this group and the lunatic fringe of the Religious Right, who has the electoral clout to get congressmen and senators elected.

Between chapters that detail his adventure in Hagee's church and with the 9/11 Truthers, Taibbi described some of his experience covering Capitol Hill to demonstrate how dysfunctional our government is. Montages of late night committee meetings where multi-billion dollar corporates handouts are given to interviews with frustrated staffers who resent they're asked to "handle" the constituents may shock readers totally unfamiliar with our political system, but it's hard to believe that the average voter in America does not know that the system is "rigged" and that lobbyists don't make their multi-million paychecks for nothing.

In the end, I would recommend this book on the strength of the Cornerstone Church chapters, but you are probably better off reading the excerpt in Rolling Stone.