My pre-ordered copy of Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec's book Bulletproof: The Truth About The Assassination Attempts On Donald Trump arrived yesterday.
The reviews I'm seeing shared in Posobiec's Telegram feed are applauding it for its military intelligence analysis, gripping story-telling, comparison of various theories of Trump's assassination attempt, new evidence, and so on.
I can't say that's not true. Beyond some qualms about the main title seeming to taunt other crazies to try again with Trump, that kind of review seems legit to me so far.
This is the second book from Posobiec and Lisec, the first being Unhumans. Their first book is probably a decent book, but I can't tell you because I didn't buy it or read it for one simple reason: I couldn't take all the promotion for it.
I follow Posobiec as one of many Telegram accounts and while there are some good news bits, it's also heavily weighed down by Catholicism, My Pillow codes to use so he gets credit, and all the things he's doing that make him important.
I'm sure he's a nice fellow. He's proud of being Polish and I'm part Polish—my grandma came from Park River, North Dakota, an area known for its Polish and Czech/Slavic connections to the families that came from Spillville, Iowa, which, if you like Dvorak's music, you know was important in several of his compositions, including the "New World Symphony" and no doubt strikes a chord in the hearts of those fans of Star Trek TNG in which there was an episode where Data mentioned his interest in Dvorak's Slavonic Dances, but anyway.
See what I did there? Way too much information. Kind of like Posobiec tends to do.
So the book is pretty good, mostly because it was what I would expect. I mean, since Bob Woodward is still alive, which we all discovered thanks to J.D. Vance asking the question we were wondering, it would not be the book you'd expect from him so you'd be disappointed if you were expecting another hit piece from an impartial journalist still riding the coattails of his one big story that pales in comparison to the shenanigans other administrations did after Nixon. His books would have a lot more Deep Throat action, which is now going to bring some very unfortunate searchers to this website.
There was one small typo right off the bat, but I'm not going to point it out because I so enjoy the grammar police when people come up to me holding copies of my own work after months and years of effort to joyfully inform me of all the errors.
Really, it's a decent book for the most part. The best part is the eyewitness accounts of what they saw and experienced. I love reading first-hand accounts. Some great analyzing and explaining to help put a better understanding of all that was going on that day. I recommend you go ahead and read the thing.
The one thing that I can't stop noticing is the use of "I."
"When I was in military intelligence" or "I do such and such" seems out of place, beyond the very basic context of asserting a position of expertise, in a book about Donald Trump and not the authors. Generally, I don't want to see the author's presence in a non-fiction book unless the book is one of opinion essays, personal experience stories, or you're going gonzo. When you have two authors, it's understandable that "I" has to be used now and then so the reader knows who is talking, but there were times it seemed to extend beyond that.
That, combined with the self-promotional Telegram feed, can be wearying. It's much the same as constant verbal selfies.
Having sifted through the almost unbearable Telegram feed of "buy my book buy my book!" for Unhumans, I had to do it again for this one. A small suffering, perhaps, but when you come from a place (rural upper Great Plains with Germans and Scandinavians) where the culture is uncomfortable with overt self-promotion and aggrandizing, it's really gross.
Yes, I'm going to pull out the big guns and go with "gross."
It feels like I'm watching the Ricky Lake Show, embarrassed for the guests, as I scroll through the self-feed just to get to news stories.
This, and imposter syndrome, explains why I barely mention my books to anyone and, when pressed, can barely choke out, "Yes, I wrote something you could buy, but you don't have to" and would never refer to myself as a writer but only as "someone who does some writing."
I only ordered this book because what happened on July 13, 2024, was monumental, and I wanted this book in my library. It has lots of charts, photos, diagrams, and screenshots on top of the written content, which goes through the before, during, and aftermath, along with theories. I suspect there will be other books that will eventually put it all into perspective once a bit of time has passed and more information comes out, but it's definitely one of those "piece of history" books that's worth having not just for the information, but because it was the first to come out and did so before the election, all of which almost makes it part of the story in its own way.
But I tell you, the self-promotion is off the charts.
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