MixedThe Wall Street JournalHighly readable ... Mr. Whitlock chalks up the scandal to \"the stench of entitlement\" that the Navy developed after public acclaim during the war on terror. A dubious theory, in my view ... The investigation into the Fat Leonard mess may have inflicted more damage to the Navy than the corruption did, and here Mr. Whitlock is incurious.
Adam Jentleson
MixedThe Wall Street JournalProgressives have launched a sustained assault on the filibuster as a racist anachronism that allows a minority of senators to hijack the will of the American public by holding up legislation until a supermajority of 60 votes can be mustered to end debate. That is the thesis of Adam Jentleson’s Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy ... Mr. Jentleson’s prescription is a \'majority rule\' Senate ... How else to make the Senate work again? Wait—make the District of Columbia a state? \'Frankly,\' Mr. Jentleson writes, \'there is simply no viable argument against it.\' Readers can be forgiven for wondering what this transparent effort to pad Democratic majorities has to do with the proper functioning of the Senate.
Anne Helen Petersen
PanThe Wall Street Journal…Ms. Petersen has, it seems, constructed an entire worldview around being irritated by small errands … Her diagnosis may be overbroad and unconvincing, but Can’t Even can serve as a guide to a class of American adults who are replacing life’s mediating institutions with careerism and political activism, to no great result … Ms. Petersen is a shrewd observer of other trends as well … Less credible is Ms. Petersen’s story about the economy … Ms. Petersen’s claim that millennials are worse off than past generations is also complicated by today’s wildly higher consumption levels, which makes comparisons difficult … Part of the author’s goal is to push back on stereotypes about millennials, but Can’t Even often confirms them … offers no policy solutions to the millennial life of overwork and overstimulation … Blaming, as this book does, capitalism, Donald J. Trump, management consultants, patriarchy, Instagram—all of that, and nearly everything else, is easier than facing up to the significance of one’s own choices.
