Basic Brown: My Life and our times
After reading the Dan Walters review of this book I almost passed.
For Brown, it has to be a disappointment when someone writes the defining biographical work of your career before you can get your two cents in. James Richardson beat Brown to the punch with his book from 1996 on the former Speaker of the Assembly and Mayor of San Francisco.
Being Mayor really did nothing to add to the legend of Willie Brown. To most conservatives it was good to have him confined San Francisco instead of roaming the state. If he wanted to spend his time getting an Amtrak station somewhere in Texas — that is his deal with President Clinton.
There are only three things that I found interesting in this book. The first is the Brown version of what happened with Assemblyman Paul Horcher after the 1994 election. It was certainly not the way I viewed it but that is his version.
The second interesting thing was his version of NIMBYism when he served as Mayor of San… Read More