Stickin': The Case for Loyalty
Democratic political consultant James Carville returns with a book that promises "not a lot of highfalutin philosophizing" on the subject of loyalty.Stickin'is largely a response to the Monica Lewinsky scandal and President Clinton's impeachment, a period during which Carville ruthlessly defended the man he helped elect to the White House in 1992. Carville says Clinton was "a grown man acting stupid with a young woman" and comments that "in my world, you don't abandon a guy over sex." The predicament recalls a famous quote by 19th-century British prime minister Lord Melbourne (dutifully cited by Carville). A colleague told Melbourne, "I will support you as long as you are in the right." Melbourne replied: "What I want is men who support me when I am in the wrong." Carville considers this level of loyalty a lost virtue. "Nowhere in the entire world is disloyalty more rewarded and rewarded well than in Washington," he writes.Stickin'is a highly partisan book, full of cantankerous, sometimes funny, and occasionally unfair attacks on Republicans, which will delight Democratic readers who have cackled their way through Carville's previous bestsellers,We're Right, They're Wrongand...And the Horse He Rode in On. It's a slim book with a simple message: "Stick with your friends. And stick it to your enemies."--John J. Miller