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Title: Blinded by the Right : The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by DAVID BROCK ISBN: 1-4000-4728-5 Publisher: Three Rivers Press Pub. Date: 25 February, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (336 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: liberalism's prodigal son
Comment: I really enjoyed this book, as evidenced by my numerous underlinings and marginalia. With one major flaw, it is a vindication of observers' assertion that a right wing conspiracy was hounding Bill Clinton, among others, and waylaying the democratic process. In this readable political history wrapped around a personal odyssey, we first learn about Brock's relationship with his father, his awareness of himself as a gay man, and his political involvement at university. Is Brock telling the truth? An article in the New York Review of Books stated that a number of people quoted or described in the book have said that the bits about them, at least, were accurate. Is Brock an opportunist who may take the often-repudiated, often-reclaimed low road ala Geraldo Rivera? Maybe. Whether or not he does will not detract from the wealth of information he imparts. Brock was right in the thick of the Clinton-hating, Anita Hill-bashing movement -- working at the American Spectator, operating for Richard Mellon Scaife, rubbing elbows with the blonde bimbos.
I thoroughly enjoyed getting the dirt on the right-wingers who stepped all over the Constitution in two coup attempts -- the unsuccessful impeachment of a duly elected president and the successful Florida 2000 debacle that ended with the Supreme Court's silver-platter delivery of the presidency to a well-funded princeling who'd actually lost the election. These same people are running things now. They are in the White House. They are getting big paybacks that will cost this country dearly. And yes, I want to know about them.
Choice bits: Ann Coulter questioning whether "to impeach or assassinate" President Clinton; Laura Ingraham saying she doesn't really believe the things she says on television; Matt Drudge, right-wing arbiter of morality, taking the author out on a date (not that there's anything wrong with that); William "I'm-more-virtuous-than-you" Bennett saying that hate-filled Rush Limbaugh is "possibly our greatest living American"?! It's as if every bully who ever took your lunch money or beat up your kid brother or stopped a recount by sending thugs down to Miami is now in politics. Brock tries, somewhat successfully, to explain why he stuck with ideologically void strategists and publicists fronting for religious fundamentalists and worked for billionaire conspiracy-monger Richard Mellon Scaife; he is less successful at explaining why they hate Clinton so much (though he is burdened by trying to explain the irrational), but he does a fine job of documenting the phenomenon. He describes the desperate mentality that justifies all actions in the name of conservatism, whether or not it tramples the Constitution and whether or not it any longer bears a resemblance to true conservatism. Scaife, who still believes that Vince Foster was murdered, funds many conservative organizations including the Federalist Society, dedicated to bringing radical jurists to the bench. Brock addresses the consequences of a radically conservative judiciary, and it is frightening.
Where the author excels is in describing the evolution of the far right political movement in the past two decades -- the Reagan coalition, the birth of the neoconservative movement, and the Gingrich Revolution with its shift from political battles to moral. He also captures the hypocrisy of the men and women who decry adultery and homosexuality in the morning then seduce their own interns or meet at D.C.'s gay bars in the evening; the conservative think tanks and organizations that get tax-exempt status; partisan organizations that decided to impeach Clinton long before anyone had heard of Monica Lewinsky .... "trampling", as the author states, " the Constitution for partisan ends, to gain power they couldn't win in an election". Amen.
The book is also a condemnation of the mainstream media, who not only gave Brock's very biased book about Anita Hill great reviews, but who regularly confer legitimacy to even the most blatantly partisan shills. (I'm sure Matt Drudge's appearance on Meet the Press and Rush Limbaugh on This Week with David Brinkley had Edward R. Murrow spinning in his grave.) Brock states that, after years of working at the American Spectator and writing books under conservative editors, he later learned that journalists usually had fact checkers! Brock admits that his writing was filled with fabrications and sourceless rumors, and that he made no attempt to verify or balance the misinformation. Early in his career he believed what he was writing, but later he did not. You may or may not want to put your coins in the pocket of the author, but this is a very interesting and readable expose.
Democracy's only hope, if we can't depend on the loyal opposition to grow spines, is that the right is so mean, nasty and vicious that they will turn on each other. After reading this book, I fully expect that to happen.
This book is filled with a wealth of information about the links between individuals and organizations, particularly Scaife, who seems to be democracy's Moriarty -- a sinister mastermind at the hub of all that is wicked in rightist politics. The only problem with the book is that there is no index. With so many names and organizations listed, it's a real fault not to have one, but I had so much fun that I'm giving it 5 stars anyway.
Rating: 4
Summary: be prepared to be depressed
Comment: Anyone who likes to follow U.S. politics in more depth than they are likely to find on their local news channel ought to read this book.
As a non-ideologue and a registered independent, I grant no free passes to the left OR the right... however, I certainly did feel that the vilification of Clinton during his presidency, the charges of mass murder, theft, and rape, the claims that he was a security risk to the country, were deeply disingenuous and, to use a heavily loaded term, unpatriotic. Remember that many of those screaming the loudest, such as Newt Gingrich, were not the moral paragons they claimed to be when their own personal lives were eventually examined.
This book goes a long way toward illuminating what real power is in today's America and how far from any egalitarian notions of representative democracy we have come. If you don't know the names Richard Mellon Scaife and Grover Norquist then you simply have not done your homework and don't understand the true nature of the radical right wing that leads us today. Brock's book is indeed a road map to where all the bodies were buried in the nineties.
This book made me rethink my belief that the left, in order to regain whatever effectiveness and voice it had in past decades, needs to fight fire with fire, innuendo with innuendo, and ethics accusations with ethics accusations. This book left me feeling that there is no excuse for the kind of ugliness the Scaifes and Norquists and their minions have injected into political discourse. Of course, that leaves me somewhat depressed and adrift from my moorings when I consider strategies for retaking America from the ideologues who, at our present juncture, are in control of Washington D.C.
I am torn between despising Brock for the damage he did to the country and embracing him for his introspection and his desire to come clean.
Rating: 3
Summary: From an historical perspective its good, but...
Comment: This is a good book for what it puts into context as opposed to how it was written or what the author confesses about his own life.
David Brock identifies and describes how the right wing echo chamber grew from infancy during the Reagan years and hit critical mass with unsubstantiated reports and ruthless allegations during the Clinton years. He even underscores how Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearing, and the sour grapes that followed, lead to his villifying Anita Hill, the Clintons, and anyone else who dared to go against conservatism in the slightest (he makes it a point to argue Bush Sr. was never really trusted by the conservatives).
However, he places too much irrelevant personal reference into the story and his storytelling isn't always coherent or concise.
The story itself has more in line with Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair concerning the importance of proper journalism techniques than it does with political discourse--he doesn't argue who was right or wrong, only that he himself willingly chose a side and slandered those that went against it. To that end, it serves as a mea culpa in the same vein as Blair's or Glass's novels rather than an affirmation as to which side has the better argument. For Dems it verifies what many already knew and for GOPers it is the confession of a person who lost the faith.
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Title: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right by Al Franken ISBN: 0525947647 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 29 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News by Eric Alterman ISBN: 0465001769 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 04 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth by Joe Conason ISBN: 0312315600 Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books Pub. Date: 25 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Bushwhacked : Life in George W. Bush's America by LOU DUBOSE, MOLLY IVINS ISBN: 0375507523 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Hunting of the President : The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton by Joe Conason, Gene Lyons ISBN: 0312273193 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Pub. Date: 03 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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