Talk about a preemptive strike ...

I'm put off by the partisan, polemical tone of the flap copy, but you might be interested. Personally, I prefer a more even-handed approach.

... This book will be released on June 8. I'm interested in reading reviews as they hit the press, but I think I'll wait for the 9/11 Commission report in July.

The bestselling author of Body of Secrets and The Puzzle Palace presents his most hard-hitting book to date -- a sweeping, authoritative, and fearless account of the failures of America's intelligence agencies and the Bush administration's calculated efforts to sell a war to the American people.

Bamford argues that the Bush administration has co-opted the intelligence community for its own political ends, and at the expense of American security.

A Pretext for War homes in on the systematic weakness that led the intelligence community to ignore or misinterpret evidence of the impending terrorist attacks of 9/11 -- a failure rooted in the refusal to acknowledge the central role of the Palestinian cause in igniting Arab rage against the United States. Compounding the errors, the Bush administration's immediate response to 9/11 was to call for an attack on Iraq, and it subsequently invented justifications for the preemptive war that has ultimately left the United States more vulnerable to terrorism.

A Pretext for War is an unprecedented, utterly convincing exposé of the most secretive administration in history.

Any cheese to go with that? I'll buy a book that makes solid recommendations. And I don't need to spend $18 to hear Bamford tell everyone to "be more open," "stop lying," and "create an independent Palestinian state."

How much can I get for "Remember to floss and exercise regularly"?