Ron Suskind is the author Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President, a sweeping narrative about the fall of the U.S. economy, the rise of Barack Obama, and the President's harrowing battles to take his control of his White House and earn the confidence of the American people. Mr. Suskind is also the author of the NewYork Times bestsellers The Way of the World, A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism, (2008); The One Percent Doctrine, Deep Inside America's Pursuit of its Enemies Since 9/11, (2006); The Price of Loyalty, George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill, (2004); and the critically-acclaimed bestseller, A Hope in the Unseen, An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League. (1998). From 1993 to 2000, he was the senior national affairs writer for The Wall Street Journal, where he won the Pulitzer Prize. He has written for the New York Times Magazine and Esquire, and is a distinguished visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. He lives with his wife, Cornelia Kennedy Suskind, in Washington, D.C.
About Confidence Men
An explosive inside account of an Obama White House overwhelmed by the global financial crisis-and the political and economic consequences still being felt today. Rooted in hundreds of hours of interviews with key members of the Obama administration, including the President himself, Suskind's exposé offers an eyewitness account of the most momentous events in the history of global finance-and an illuminating, in-depth perspective on the Obama presidency.
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Ron Talks About Confidence Men With Jon Stewart
An excerpt from the article Obama Explained by James Fallows: "The first contention-that from beginning to end Obama has chosen the path he thought would minimize new shocks to the economy-accords with normal political logic, since the worst threat to a sitting president is exactly the kind of slowdown Obama has tried to avoid, with mixed results at best through his first three years. It also makes sense of an otherwise disparate pattern of decisions, starting with his administration's apparent coddling of Wall Street in 2009. This early failure of accountability is the main theme of Ron Suskind's Confidence Men, and virtually everyone I spoke with said that it created a substantive and symbolic problem the administration has never fully recovered from. Substantive, because of the "moral hazard" created by using public money to guarantee the bonuses and repay the losses of people who had been so recklessly destructive. Symbolic, for all the reasons that eventually came to a head with last year's Occupy movement. An official familiar with the administration's economic policy told me: "The recapitalization of the banks was a good idea, and necessary. But we did not put enough conditions on [their] getting the money. Ultimately not...
Dan Froomkin in the Huffington Post Suskind's Confidence Men Raises Questions About Obama's Credibility...
Brenner's essay, Bare Bones Obama in the Huffington Post...
The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10cExclusive - Ron Suskind Extended Interview Pt. 1www.thedailyshow.comDaily Show Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogThe Daily Show on Facebook...
Key Blurbs About The Book
"Savvy and informative. . . . The most ambitious treatment of this period yet. . . . Suskind's book often reads like Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest. But the quagmire isn't a neo-Vietnam like Afghanistan—it's the economy." (Frank Rich, New York)
"My Book of the Year. A narrative tour de force. . . . Journalism like this is all too rare in an ange in which reporters trade their critical faculties for access. And it's even rarer that skeptical reporting is turned into something lasting." (David Granger, Esquire)
"A truly groundbreaking inside account. . . . Penetrating in its analysis of why the administration's approach to the country's economic ills has been so lackluster. . . . An important addition to the growing library of books about this president." (Joe Nocera, The New York Times Book Review)
"This inside account of the Obama economic team contains enough damning on-the-record quotes to give it the ring of truth despite White House efforts to discredit the narrative of infighting and missed opportunities. Read it and weep. It reminds me of the post-Iraq invasion books that documented a similar failure to rise to the enormity of the problem, whether the insurgency was in Iraq or on Wall Street." (Eleanor Clift, Newsweek)
