excellent. No point in rehashing other critiques... enough to say that this book was fantastic, Molly was a fantastic person, and I highly recommend. ( )

"Throughout her long career of 'afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted,' the cause closest to Molly Ivins heart was working to protect the freedoms we all value. Sadly, today we're living in a time when dissent is equated with giving aid to terrorists, when any of us can be held in prison without even knowing the charges against us, and when our constitutional rights are being interpreted by a president who calls himself 'The Decider.'

"Ivins got the idea for Bill of Wrongs while touring America to honor her promise to speak out, gratis, at least once a month in defense of free speech. In her travels Ivins met ordinary people going to extraordinary measures to safeguard our most precious liberties, and when she first started writing this book she intended it to be a joyous celebration of those heroes. But during the Bush years, the project's focus changed. Ivins became concerned about threats to our cherished freedoms -- the Patriot Act, the weakening of habeas corpus -- and she observed with anger how dissent in the defense of liberties was being characterized as treason by the Bush administration and its enablers.

"From illegal wiretaps, the unlawful imprisonment of American citizens, and the undermining of freedom of the press to the creeping influence of religious extremism on our national agenda and the erosion of the checks and balances that prevent a president from seizing unitary powers, Ivins and her long-time collaborator, Lou Dubose, co-author of Shrub and Bushwhacked, describe the attacks on America's vital constitutional guarantees. With devastating humor and keen eyes for deceit and hypocrisy, they show just how severe these incursions have become, and they ask us all to take an active role in protecting the Bill of Rights.

"In life and on the printed page, Molly Ivins was too cool to offer a poshumous valedictory (or even take a victory lap for her many triumphs over inane, vainglorious, and addlepated politicos). But in Bill of Wrongs, her final and perhaps greatest book, the irrepressible Molly Ivins really does have the last word."
~~front flap

This book was harder to read than some of her others were. Her wickedly devastating sense of humor isn't as prevalent as it usually was. Which was probably a wise decision -- these accounts of people caught up in the flagrant abuses of power by the Bush Administration after 9/11 are chilling, and should be a wake-up call, and a call to action, for every American citizen. Humor might have detracted from the severity and urgency of these message, or distracted from the message itself. Laughter, especially a good belly laugh, and make you forget what you were doing before it hit. And this is very serious stuff -- so serious that Molly spent her last months on this earth working on this book.

Although there's a temptation to relegate this book to the unimportant history shelf, since the Bush Administration is done now, we should resist the temptation. The policies and mindsets put in place during that era didn't disappear just because Bush retired to Crawford. There are echoes and direct descendents with us today, and in many ways "they" are still trying to take away our freedoms.

But enough political rant. The book is well researched, well written and critically important. As all of Molly's books are. ( )

As usual, Molly Ivins is informative and funny. ( )

As a bit of a latecomer to Molly Ivins, I'm sure that I'm just discovering what others have known for some time. Molly Ivins was fabulous. Three pages into the introduction, I was exclaiming out loud that everyone should read this book.

Witty, compelling and with no fear of skillfully using profanity to make their point, Ivins and Dubose shine a light on the crimes of the Bush administration against the constitution, American citizens and people of the world.

They present a picture that is at times triumphal and at times frustrating but is always appalling.

They also provide a vision of hope in the courage and strength of everyday Americans willing to stand up to the abuses of a rogue administration.

Growing up in a relatively conservative environment, I used to be frustrated by the ACLU's interventionalism in various matters which I saw as ridiculous meddling. After reading this book, I say, thank god for the ACLU. ( )

I received this as a Christmas gift. While it certainly provided some good information, written in Molly Ivin's signature hilarious prose, I just don't really get the idea of a book about current events. It just seems more suited to newspaper articles and magazine essays. ( )