Hard truths Think and lead like a Green Beret

Waltz (Warrior Diplomat), a former Green Beret and current Republican congressman from Florida, cooks up a fanatical political treatise flimsily disguised as a leadership guide. He claims that the skills he honed in the military and Congress can help readers get ahead in their own lives, but the prescriptive angle is little more than an afterthought. For instance, Waltz recounts how after a sniper squad failed to take down a Taliban commander, he concocted a successful plan to lure the commander out by setting up a free health clinic, a story he boils down to the trite recommendation to stay flexible. Demonstrating a tenuous grasp of history, Waltz commends the restraint shown by Ulysses S. Grant to surrendering Confederates for preventing "years of horrific guerilla warfare across the South," brushing aside the fact that that's exactly what happened as unreconstructed whites violently resisted multiracial democracy well into the 20th century. Such ignorance of the post-emancipation oppression of Black Americans takes on insidious overtones as Waltz goes on meandering rants against the alleged infiltration of critical race theory into West Point. The author pads out the book with familiar attacks on Joe Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan and some requisite kowtowing to Donald Trump, whom Waltz praises for resisting Covid lockdowns. Shoddily argued and dully predictable, this mishmash of conservative talking points flops. (Oct.)