Up 'Til Now: A Memoir, is a memoir with an interesting history andcommentary of Eugene McCarthy. I wasn't that impressed by the first section dealing withhis experiences in the House of Representives—but it gets better. The second chapteron his experiences in the late 50s and early 60s in the Senate, and the third about thePresident and his run for the Presidency are fascinating.

Probably the best story of the book is the one about his disposal of a turkey herecieved for Christmas as a congressmen. To make a long story short (see the book forthe full story), he didn't have a chest freezer at the time, so he had no place to keepthe turkey—but it was cold out, so he left it on the porch. He realized it couldn'tbe cooked in his oven, because it was too big, and then decided to give it the localchurch. The only problem was during this time, the tempeture had gotten warmer, so hewas afraid it would make them sick. So he had to dispose of it. He dared not put in thefood rubbish bin, to be fed to the town's pigs, because he didn't want it to get outthat he discarded a big turkey. So he flew the turkey back to the Washington, drove awayfrom the city, and tossed it into a ditch.

His insight on the 1968 Presidential race was interesting, if not a bit too concise.He talked quite a bit about RFK's overagressive political tatitics, and the problems heran into durning the race. His summary of Presidential history through most of thegolden age was interesting, and quite insightful.

The fourth section was the most interesting—it was called "Entropic Politics".Clean Gene vigourly attacks many of the 'reforms' of the 1970s, noting many of theirproblems. He views campaign finance reform in a very conservative view—he believesthat many limits on finance hurt many candiates who aren't corrupt, and that the PACsthat bill created actually caused far more money got pumped into politics. He views thelimitations of the FBI since the 1970s have done anything, but reduce accountability --the old model very clearly defined the model for FBI communications.

It's a very good book. I recommend you read Up 'Til Now, one of EugeneMcCarthy's memoirs. Make sure to read the whole book—the first section isn't veryinteresting, but it gets better.