Hocus POTUS

Malcolm MacPherson, a former Marine in Vietnam, longtime foreign correspondent for Newsweek magazine, and the author of 12 fiction and nonfiction books, covered the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad for Time magazine in 2003. What he saw there inspired 'Hocus POTUS, ' a hilarious yet passionate antiwar satire that centers on the US search for a WMD to justify invasion and a con man's ingenious plot to supply one. MacPherson's breakneck narrative--redolent of Carl Hiaasen's exuberance and Elmore Leonard's cynicism--is an irresistible portrait of greed and incompetence run amok.--Anna Mundow, The Boston Globe (August 12, 2007) A rollicking tour-de-force black satire by a reporter who was there . . . .What's driving all the ultra-dedicated staffers crazy in Baghdad's fortified American Embassy, the former palace of Saddam Hussein? Is it the stacks of Saddam's romance novels, or the Michael Jackson outfits belonging to his son Uday, clogging up the place? The rising insurgency outside, with bombs going off everywhere? The lack of power and water, or the danger to civilians? No. What's bothering them is that it's making POTUS (security shorthand for President of the United States) look bad. Where are the WMDs to justify it all?And then there's Rick Gannon, Ambassador Goodhair's advisor-turned-renegade, recently imprisoned but now on the lam.Little does the embassy staff know that Rick--along with his cohorts including a disgruntled Air National Guard pilot, a disaffected Department of Defense agent, a disgusted CNN cameraman, and a Iraqi soccer star--may have the solution to POTUS' problem . . . .Malcolm MacPherson is a former longtime correspondent for TIME and Newsweekmagazines.