June 2, 2014
National Review columnist Geraghty offers a satire of bureaucratic life in the nation's capital. Readers meet a cast of Washington players whose first interest is in creation, survival, and aggressive expansion of the obscure USDA Agency of Invasive Species, founded by President Jimmy Carter. No, this book has nothing to do with marijuana. The underlying premise, as the author explains, is that "gargantuan, ever-growing, ever-less-accountable, impossible-to-uproot federal bureaucracy is actually the sleeper issue of our time. It's at the heart of the conservative critique of modern government." Some imagined encounters with a zany Newt Gingrich, teacher-hero Caleb Gunning Lyon, and a posturing Darrell Issa are hilarious. Geraghty thinks of the book as a cautionary tale of federal expansion and entropy. Regarding talented newcomers with new ideas, he writes: "no one is really interested in utilizing their energy, their drive, their enthusiasm." Instead, the status quo is "the Permanent Bureaucracy vs. Everyone Else." Political animals suspicious of statism will enjoy this book, while fearing for the future of government.