The GOP Summer Reading List

High school students aren't the only ones heading to the beach this August with a hefty bag of books they probably won't read. 

Republican Reps. Thaddeus G. McCotter of Michigan and Zach Wamp of Tennessee are recommending six books -- and a movie, "Islam vs. Islamists" -- to their GOP cohorts for the August recess. They're all on foreign policy, with a particular emphasis on Islam. And it's not exactly beach reading. 

This is the duo's third list in two years. And they have included books critical of the administration, including "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a portrait of U.S. mismanagement in Iraq after the invasion. 

"We don't want to protect sacred cows," Wamp said. "This is not Republican propaganda for Republicans' sake." 

The latest list: 

-- "Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America" by Walid Phares, a critically acclaimed 288-page overview of the four major strains of radical Islam and their strategies to take down the United States. 

-- "The War of Ideas: Jihadism Against Democracy," another Phares title in which the former Justice Department official offers a brief overview of the ideological divide between the fundamentalist Islamic world and the United States and the rest of the capitalist global community. 

-- "China: The Gathering Threat" by Constantine Menges, in which the former CIA official suggests a potential nuclear showdown with the People's Republic within the next four years. 

-- "The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West and the Future of the Holy City" by Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations who documents the 3,000-year history of the city and its contemporary role in a global standoff. 

-- "Epicenter: Why Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future" by Joel C. Rosenberg, an evangelical Christian novelist who explores the impact of various conflicts in the Middle East on everyday life in the West in his first work of nonfiction. 

-- "The General in His Labyrinth" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a fictional portrait of Simon Bolivar's last days in decline, lamenting the lost power that once made him such a prominent figure. 

Like I said, not exactly Danielle Steel. But something tells me Wamp and McCotter aren't expecting book reports (500 words, double-spaced, etc.) from their Republican colleagues, either.
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