Review of "Good News, Bad News, Agnews," by Hy Steirman

Review of

Good News, Bad News, Agnews, by Hy Steirman

Four out of five stars

 Only people that lived through the years when Spiro Agnew was Vice President of the United States can truly appreciate the jokes in this book. Agnew assumed the office when Richard Nixon was elected president in the 1968 election, he resigned the vice presidency in disgrace over bribery charges in 1973, pleading “no contest.”

 Agnew was known for uttering phrases such as:

“In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.”

“An intellectual is a man who doesn't know how to park a bike.”

“I apologize for lying to you. I promise I won't deceive you except in matters of this sort.”

 The phrases in this book are in the spirit of these Agnew comments, yet with a real bite against the absurdity of what Agnew stood for. The United States constitution mandates that the country have a Vice President, there is nothing stating that they must be qualified for the position of the presidency. Agnew is one of several holders of the post that were clearly not capable of being an effective president.

 This book was obviously published in a hurry without regard to the effective use of paper. The style is to have a blank page on the left and a single, short statement on the right page. If the publishers had wanted to, it could have easily been twenty pages long. The statements are good and although the book was published in 1969, they proved to be accurate predictors of Agnew’s fate. Humor with a bite and Delphic in nature.