[tptacek]

If any of this resonates with you, I'd also highly recommend _Angler_, Barton Gellman's account of the vice presidency of Dick Cheney. It's hard to overstate how far-reaching and insidious Cheney's efforts were during the first Bush term; he more or less co-opted intelligence efforts, and ran what at times amounted to a shadow presidency with his staff and Donald Rumsfeld.

On the other hand, it's hard to get around the Harriet Miers and Alberto Gonzales debacles, both of which involved comically bad judgement calls.