The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism , by Ron Suskind, Harper, 415 pages, $27.95 Ron Suskind has earned a reputation for exposing the secrets and probing the innards of the Bush administration. A former Wall Street Journal reporter, he has now published the third in a trilogy on the administration's deceptions. The first two books, The Price of Loyalty (2004) and The One Percent Doctrine (2006), showed that well before September 11, 2001, the administration was intent on invading Iraq and overturning limits on presidential powers. Like the earlier books, The Way of the World has stunning revelations, but by interspersing accounts of midlevel officials involved in the war on terrorism and ordinary individuals who have been affected by it, Suskind also attempts to provide a rich portrait of the people caught in the vortex of history. One revelation in The Way of the World has set off so great a political maelstrom that it has had the unfortunate...