Review -- They Eat Puppies, Don't They?

Christopher Buckley has been hit or miss with his novels of satire about government and society. I loved Thank You For Smoking, but didn't finish No Way to Treat a First Lady. Still, I was willing to give his latest They Eat Puppies Don't They? a try, and I'm glad I did.
He sucked me in right away with the main character Bird, a lobbyist for a weapons company. Suddenly Bird's job is to drum up hatred toward China so the weapons company can sell a new communication blocking system. When Bird tries to find something connected to China that Americans will be passionate about, all he comes up with is the Dalai Lama and pandas. Luckily for him, the Dalai Lama becomes ill right around that time, and the outrage with China begins to grow
Buckley's characters are not limited to the lobbyist and a militant woman named Angel who makes the news show rounds. He also takes the reader inside the Chinese cabinet as it struggles with a noble president who doesn't want to escalate and war mongering generals who don't fear conflict with the U.S.
The description makes it sound wonky, but Buckley tells the story to make all of look ridiculous as we go about our consumption, ignoring the direction our government is headed.
One exception I'll take with the book is that the end didn't seem to have much use for the main character. He was kind of allowed to drift off. And I'm not sure whatever happened with the weapon system that set off the entire situation.
By the way, for people put off by the title, there's only one brief mention of whether the Chinese eat puppies, so it definitely was not something dealt with in the book.

First Chapter, Tuesday Teaser -- They Eat Puppies Don't They

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I'm going to try Christoher Buckley's latest They Eat Puppies Don't They. My favorite of his so far was Thank You For Smoking about a cigarette lobbyist. This one deals with government types too. Here's the opening:

The senator from the great state of New York had been droning on for over five minutes; droning about drones. 

Bird McIntyre sat in the first row behind his boss, the recipient of the senatorial cataract of words. He scribbled a note on a piece of paper and passed it forward.  

Chick Devlin glanced at the note. He let the senator continue for several more mind-numbing minutes so as not to appear prompted by Bird's note. Finally, seizing on an ellipsis, he leaned forward into the microphone across the green-baize-covered table and said, "Senator, pardon my French, but isn't the whole point to scare the shit out of them?"
 

Also this week is Teaser Tuesdays.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!
Open to a random page of your current read and share a teaser sentence from somewhere on that page.
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.
Here's mine from page 63:

Lo hesitated, to show he was being courteous in vouchsafing such confidential information. "Do you want to know everything, Comrade, or just enough?"

 I'm looking forward to a fun read.