Rating: 
Summary: Conservatives are clueless
Review: If you have any doubt as to the intelligence of the average conservative, please read the review titled "Liberals Are Stupid Idiot Traiters" from "a reader" (yeah, as if this moron has ever read a book in his pathetic life) from Anchorage, AK. He represents the narrow-minded bigoted views of all conservatives.Does it seem unfair that I should have lumped all conservatives in with the idiot who wrote that review? Then why does it seem reasonable that Mona Charen can dump all liberals into one America-hating bag? She can't. This type of drivel is what is tearing this country apart. As long as conservatives believe that liberals are all unpatriotic and hate America, then we will believe that they are all shallow racists and bigots. You're not, and we're not. OK?!!!! Don't buy this book and indulge her biases.
Rating: 
Summary: LIBERALS ARE STUPID IDIOT TRAITERS
Review: The liberals are trying to destroy America and they are traiters!they can't stand it because PRESIDET BUSH (HERO) is a good Christian man and he is going to send the arabs to HELL! I am sick of liberal liars that are trying to send our kids to Gayland. I am sick and tired of LIARS like AL FRANKLIN and HILLARY (MORON) CLINTON. They think they are so smart and Micheal Moore-on should go live in Russia or go live in a cave with BIN LADEN. GUESS WHAT MIKEY? YOU ARE A LIBERAL IDIOT! I HOPE THE TERRORIST GET YOU BEFORE ANY INNOCENT PEOPLE GET KILLED BECUASE YOU ARE A TRAITER. Go to HELL!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Unmitigated Garbage
Review: This is one book which should not have seen the light of day. It quickly takes leave of common sense very early on and, from that point on, is full of subjective drivel.
Avoid it if you can - you have better things to do, trust me!
Rating:
Summary: this little red book
Review: is not only little read, but red meat for the hate America crowd with their insatiable desire to hate people that do not think and look like them. Decent and patriotic Americans, liberal and conservative alike, will find it to lack veracity. Remember: The right wing lies. The right wing hates America. The right wing wants to take your money so they can buy drugs or gamble in a a casino. Ignore them!
Rating:
Summary: A Very Documented Overview
Review: Mona Charen is a gifted author. Many of the one star reviewers have little specific criticism and have resorted to name calling as a substitute for introspection and analysis. One infers that in a previous age she would have been in the Klan (she's Jewish) or simply calls her an 'idiot' as an apparent substitute for discourse. She actually went to Columbia University, a fairly liberal school. Should I therefore call all Columbia grads idiots? No; that would be unfair, just like it is unfair to call her names simply because you disagree with her. There ARE idiots on the Left (and Right), but Mona Charen certainly doesn't make the list. Aside from a couple of misspelled names (and a one time reference to a column by Thomas Friedman which makes him look a bit more left than I believe he really is), this book is an excruciatingly documented work, in which Charen uses quotes, combined with historical background information to let the 'idiots' speak for themselves. Several reviewers have gone on about all the liberal cold warriors like JFK, LBJ, and Harry Truman. And then their list pretty much stops. In actuality, Charen gives them their due credit along with others such and Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson in being tough (even with Johnson's botched execution) on Communism and strong on defense. This book is not anti-Democrat, it is anti-liberal policy. The obvious problem is that since the Democratic party has diverged so far to the left over the last thirty years (a phenomenon noted even by the outstanding Democratic Senator Zell Miller) that a cry against liberal policies will almost necessitate an indictment of the democratic proponents of those policies. Charen is very quick to give credit to anti-communist Democrats, as well as criticize left leaning Republicans, such as Elliott Richardson. Part of the problem with the low rated reviews of this book (besides the name calling, and my conviction that most of them have not actually read the book) is the fanciful self-delusion that the left propagates about how they (generally the Democrats) were just as hard line anti-communist as the Republicans, that, in fact it was a joint effort to defeat Communism. Charen spends a lot of time on this subject, and it is one of the keys to the book. She debunks that myth with countless citations and quotations, all meticulously researched. For instance, the section on Andrew Young, Jimmy Carter's Ambassador to the UN (and now, embarrassingly, on the Board of Directors of my company), who went on record as saying that the US is a leading agent of repression in the world, but then excuses Soviet human rights barbarism (millions slaughtered, tortured, and imprisoned) by saying, among other things, this: "We must recognize that they are growing up in circumstances different than ours. They have, therefore, developed a completely different concept of human rights. For them human rights are essentially not civil and political, but economic." This type of obvious pandering to the Soviets and apologizing for their every misdeed is clear not only in Young, but throughout the Johnson, Carter, and Clinton administrations with people like Robert McNamara (ultimate pie in the sky, liberal wonk, and conceiver of the disastrous policy of 'gradualism' in Vietnam), McGeorge Bundy, and Cyrus Vance having real power to direct American foreign (and domestic) policy, with disastrous results. The self loathing in the left did not stop in the Presidential administrations, of course. Numerous Congressmen and Senators are profiled, with Chris Dodd and Ron Dellums getting their fair share of criticism. In the 1980's Dodd was one of the biggest detractors of Reagan's Central America policy as destabilizing and threatening to our national security far more than the presence of an active Communist hotspot in the continental Americas. He of course was speaking of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Grenada. At the time the left railed on the Reagan administration for their opposition to Communism in each of those countries, always using the same ruse, of at first denying that the opposition actually were Communists (normally they would say 'leftists'), then progressing to the line that the country was small an impoverished (just like Cuba was in 1962, when a real Democratic cold warrior had to face down the Soviets in a missile crisis), and finally, that we can't win a guerilla war, just look at Vietnam. Of course, Dodd is not the only example; Ron Dellums is an even more spectacular buffoon. Dellums absolutely foamed with adoration for Communists in Latin America. Dellums was particularly enamored with Communist Maurice Bishop who seized power in Grenada (before he himself was killed by competing Communists). In a correspondence with Bishop, Dellums aide Carlottia Scott wrote this: "Ron as a political thinker is the best around and Fidel [Castro] will verify that in no uncertain terms...Ron had a long talk with Barb and me when we got to Havana and cried when he realized that we had been shouldering Grenada all alone at this time. Like I said, he's really hooked on you and Grenada and doesn't want anything to happen to building the revo [sic] and making it strong. He really admires you as a person, and even more so as a leader with courage and foresight, principle and integrity...the only other person that I know of that he expresses such admiration for is Fidel." Of course 'Barb' is Barbara Lee, now in congress, and the only one to vote against authorizing military force to combat the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. Fortunately, Dodd, Dellums and the rest are now discredited by history: El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Grenada are now all democracies. So the question remains: Why should we now listen to Dodd (and his compatriots) on Iraq? Read this book and decide for yourself who the real idiots are.
Rating:
Summary: Useful Idiots is a Useful Book
Review: Useful Idiots by Mona Charen hits the Liberal Left right between the eyes! This well researched and well written book outlines in great detail how the Liberal Left has gotten every major issue since WWII wrong. Charen comes down especially hard on the "Blame America First" crowd including Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Her chapters on Fidel Castro and the Elian Gonzalez affair itself is reason enough to buy and read this book. If you want a truthful, well researched and concise history on the Liberal Left then this is the read for you. If you are a Bill and Hillary Clinton lover I encourage you to read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: To hell with environmentalists.
Review: This book stinks. It must've been printed on recycled paper. I couldn't stomach handling it.
Rating:
Summary: Charen on Target yet again
Review: Some of the silliest stuff I've read in a long time are the Left/liberal criticisms of this book. Let's see....Charen meticulously DOCUMENTS her assertions all the way through and the best her critics can do is sputter that she's a Klanswoman!(By the way--she's Jewish and I have a sneaking suspicion that the 'pointy-headed' Klan would not have welcomed her with open arms.) The GOP passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964 OVER the opposition of the solid Democrats of the South, led by Al Gore's father and Clinton's mentor, Fullbright, from Arkansas, yet the Right is the enemy of black America?? Tax cuts become the enemy of working people....It's 2003, folks and we've seen over and over and over again that tax cuts spur the economy, create jobs, pay bills, etc......The criticisms of this book by the Left are not book critiques at all --rather they're simply brash polemics designed to advance the lunatic-Left agenda of Michael Moore and his ilk. (In all honesty, I do not understand why Amazon let's these go through as critiques of THIS book....there are wacko chat rooms for these folks!!)
Charen explicates chapter, paragraph and verse; she footnotes and cross-references much more than most.
This is a scholarly work, beautifully crafted and leads a critical reader to the inescapable conclusion that the American (and International) Left are the enemies of the individual and of individual worth and Rights.
Highly recommended as one of the best books of it's type.
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT review of the hypocritic Left!
Review: Mona Charen is the most articulate of her breed! In this book she puts the hypocracy of the Left in proper view. Shame is, so many US citizens are in denial! For a fun parallel, read ( at the same time ) Keshner's COCKPIT CONFESSIONS OF AN AIRLINE PILOT, whose title is misleading, and the innards are a fun jab at liberals, Saudi's, Muslims.... and on, and on. NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT! READ this book and be awakened!
Rating:
Summary: Fellow Liberals, Please Read This Book
Review: I think many liberals assumed from the title and the author's conservatism that this would be just another Coulter/Savage-like hate-fest.I've reached this conclusion from reading some truly ridiculous and hysterical comments in some of the one-star reviews below.Just a couple of examples: 1) A reviewer from Stamford said in another time the author would wear a white sheet,burn a cross,curse Jews and Blacks and listen to Father Coughlin (all extremely doubtful,since Ms. Charen is Jewish).
2) A reviewer from Juneau sites a "long" list of liberal cold warriors: Truman, JFK, and LBJ. A very long list indeed. Also stated in the same review is the notion that you'd have to go "pretty far left" to find a defender of the Soviet Union beyond the early '50's. No, defending the Soviets and blaming the U.S. became increasingly popular among people recognised as mainstream liberals from the '60's onward. The fact is, Ms. Charen credits the liberals mentioned above, as well as several others, for continuing to defend freedom while many others chose to defend or turn a blind eye to communist aggression around the world. It's the Cold War liberals who ought to be role models for freedom-loving democrats, not the liberals and leftists who took over the Democratic Party during the '60's. Patriotic liberals need to read this book.
| 
