Rating: 
Summary: Grow Up, Mona
Review: A book called "Useful Idiots," written by an idiot for idiots. Mona is so dimwitted she has to rely on the old "blame the liberals" game. In Mona's perfect world we would go back to the "good ole days" of McCarthyism, segregation and female supression. Get a life, Mona.
Rating: 
Summary: Bland Read
Review: While Charen's ultimate point, expressed in the subtitle - that "Liberals got it in wrong in the Cold War" - is, to no small extent, true (insofar as they supported Soviet Communism), her extrapolations from that don't fit the historical record. The "war against Communism", for both right and left in the US, took on a totally different intention around the world, and led to many of the crises we are now seeing unfold around us. From our overthrow of a democratic Iranian government (which then inspired, through brutality, the Islamic revolution of 1979) to the arming and creation of the Taliban, we've been creating, with good intentions, at least, tomorrow's terrorist armies. This is a fact even I, a voting conservative, am forced to admit to by the historical record. It's rhetorically exciting to denounce all liberals everywhere - and even fun - but it's not in the service of a good argument that could hold up for liberal readers, for instance. The point, it would seem, would be to write a book that can excite neocons, so to speak, while provoking mute reaction in the left wing - because, as it is, this book is very easy to disagree with, and very easy to pick apart. It may be refreshing to read, but it is, fundamentally, a rant. You can't win any arguments with this book; you can only lose them.
Rating:
Summary: political pundits: useful idiots
Review: This book is a wake-up call for all those who think that the threat of communism ended with the cold-war. As Cheren clearly points out, the communists are still out there doing their pinko-communist thing that they're always doing. Sure, Stalin and Mao and Groucho Marx and John Lennon may all be dead, but the communist idealogy is alive and well in the world, and make no mistake, it is again seeping into the body politik of America. Cheren reveals that it lives on in the guise of liberal-minded politicians and media personalities. As Cherin thoughtfully advises, it is time to set up another McCarthy type comittee to root out all the communists in congress and Hollywood and to expose these pinkos before they cause any more damage. As Cheren notes, it is clear by all the recent left-of center movies and tv shows like "Undercover Brother", "Martin", "The Cosby Show", "Finding Nemo", and "Piglet's Big Movie", that the communists have again infiltrated American show business and are pushing their dangerous leftist ideology on an unsuspecting American public. The current trend appears to be an ominous march back to the the 50's, when the commies were brainwashing the masses with I Love Lucy, Mr. Ed and Disney's not-so-subtle homage to Lenin's manifesto, Snow White. Cherin is doing her part to prevent the communists from taking over the world. The question now is, apart from installing bomb shelters in our backyards and petitioning our congressmen to enact a law that will rename pink lemonade to "freedom lemonade", what are WE going to do?
Rating: 
Summary: Liberals...again!
Review: I'm about half way through this book and it's great! I have no idea how people blame President Reagan for things going wrong in the 1980's. And no, Gorbachev did NOT end the Cold War, Reagan did. It's just another instance of liberals twisting history to fit into their own agendas!
Rating:
Summary: The Truth Hurts
Review: My recommendation: Read all the 1 star reviews of this book, then go read the book. At that point, decide for yourself who has hold of the truth and who is in denial.
Rating:
Summary: Communism: a brutal, dictatorial death machine indeed!
Review: The Leftists and their 1-star "reviews" fail to provide any rebuttal and only spew hateful, ad hominem attacks (just like their 1-star "reviews" of Ann Coulter's excellent book, "Treason"). This book rubs the truth (and the truth hurts) right in their faces: That their side was soft on one of the most evil and bloodsoaked ideologies of the 20th century: Marxist-Leninist Communism - an ideology that has killed an estimated 100 million people, which is more than killed in both world wars combined! Again and again Charen shows us the liberals (ya know, the so-called "champions" of "human rights") in the media, Hollywood, academia and even our own government who whitewashed heinous Communist atrocities and demonized America as some kind of international bully: I.F. Stone, Robert Scheer, Katie Couric, Andrew Young, Tom Downey, Pete Seeger, Ed Asner, Mike Farrell, Noam Chomsky, Peter Jennings and of course Walter Duranty, who denied Stalin's forced famine in the Ukraine (and pretty much every other atrocity committed in the "Worker's Paradise") and won a Pulitzer for his dishonest and disgraceful reporting, which the now discredited (thanks to Jayson Blair) liberal rag The New York Times refuses to give back. These people should be as reviled as those who would whitewash the crimes of Hitler's National Socialists! Why is this important? Because as the saying goes: Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. Mona Charen's book forces us to look at not only the horrendous atrocities, mass murders and genocides committed in the name of Marx's utopian pipedream, which have pretty much been swept under the rug by the elite media and Hollywood, but also those in the West who bent over backwards to make excuses for them. In addition to this book I would recommend the following: Treason by Ann Coulter (of course!)
Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million by Martin Amis
The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, by Stephane Courtois, et al.
A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia by Alexander N. Yakovlev
Death by Government by R.J. Rummel
Rating:
Summary: Old facts, good style, insightful.
Review: Simply a very good job. Worth reading even if you don't quite consider yourself a conservative.
Rating:
Summary: Join the parade of right-wing fantasy fulfillment
Review: Yet another entry in the burgeoning parade of right-wing tirades polluting our book stores in the reign of George II. Like other rightists such as Coulter, Charen sets up a ludicrous straw man, proceeds to knock it down with a combination of rhetoric and distortions, and then tries to tag all non-Republican thinking with the "liberal" label, as if that settled all argument. I never ceased to be amazed at this kind of profoundly unamerican and antidemocratic right-wing writing that wraps itself in the flag, shouts down dissenting voices, labels diversity of opinion as "treason", rewrites history, and ignores the constant Republican undermining of the democratic process from McCarthy to Watergate to Iran-Contra to George's election to the "Patriot" act, all while bleating about "liberal media bias" and accusing the left of the very things that the right is perpetrating! Liberal bias? Have you looked at the bookshelves in your local store lately? They are groaning under the weight of the nonsensical outpourings of these reactionaries.
Rating:
Summary: Look at the other reviews...
Review: .... ... On the contrary Ms. Charen does not just offer her views. Instead she has assembled quotes from a number of liberal or leftist people to create a mosaic that is very illustrative. If you don't like what is being quoted in this book do not blame Ms. Charen, blame the people who are being quoted. Many of the reviewers also criticize Ms. Charen for referring to the people quoted in her book as "Useful Idiots". However, it is not Ms. Charen who started calling such people "Useful Idiots"...it was none other than now-deceased Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. He was referring to liberals and leftists who were useful to him in their support of his government and communism but idiots for doing so. The fact that it comes from him of all people is also...very illustrative. ...
Rating:
Summary: Powerful Indictment
Review: This is another tour de force book spotlighting events that have had a big impact on recent history but have been largely under-reported and are not well-known. This is an important book to read for any citizen who wants to be well-informed and make good decisions about policies and when voting. Don't miss it!
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