Buck Up, Suck Up ... And Come Back When You Foul Up.

• Author: Crowley, Michael
• Position: Little League Insights

BUCK UP, SUCK UP ... AND COME BACK WHEN YOU FOUL UP by James Carville and Paul Begala Simon & Schuster, $23.00

IN THEIR STRANGE NEW BOOK, veteran Democratic campaign strategists James Carville and Paul Begala implore their readers to never stop taking risks. "Success breeds risk-aversion," they note, smiling brightly upon those "people who experiment and dare greatly--and sometimes fail greatly." Original members of the Clinton "War Room," Carville and Begala themselves know success well; the business of politics has brought them fame, wealth, and the enduring status that comes from having whispered into a president's ear. Now that Bill Clinton is a private citizen and they are looking for new directions, perhaps they thought a zany self-help book would be just the sort of risky experiment they so admire. Unfortunately, they have failed--but not even greatly. What they have produced feels like little more than an excuse for the pair to sound off about politics, sports, movies, their lives--you name it. In other words, it's just the sort of book successful people produce when they've grown self-satisfied, complacent, and risk-averse.

Buck Up, Suck Up ... is less a book of "secrets," which might excite political junkies and insiders, than one of some fairly elementary rules of thumb for politics and life. These are fleshed out by a sloppy Cajun gumbo of anecdotes, observations, and short portraits of such famous winners as Teddy Roosevelt, Muhammed Ali, and Bill Clinton. The prose sounds as if it had been dictated at a Ramada Inn lounge, and the jokes are terrible ("The War Room was designed for action. No, not that kind of action. Stop snickering.") The 12 secrets the subtitle (including "Kiss Ass," "Kick Ass," and "Work Your Ass Off") amount to nothing more than basic principles like hard work and clear communication, with a special emphasis on playing rough and tough. "The bottom line," they write, "is that if you're faster, smarter and more aggressive than the other guy (or gal), you're going to win more often than not." Who knew?

There are a handful of insights sprinkled through this book, however, especially on the specific turf of campaign strategy. For instance, Carville and Begala argue that campaigns must always be predisposed towards bold action, warning against what Jesse Jackson once called "the paralysis of analysis." During the 1992 Clinton campaign, they would fire off ideas at 7:30 a.m. meetings in the War Room and vow to...