Rating: 
Summary: Useless liberals
Review: I read Mona Charen's syndicated work on a regular basis and find it refreshingly germane and always well-researched. In Useful Idiots, she delineates the anti-anticommunism leftist contingent of the 80's that now claims to have always been for the overthrow of communism. Hmm...kind of rings a bell with Iraq - the Monday morning quarterback liberals saying how they knew we would win, but they just didn't want to say it beforehand. Yeah, right.When it comes to classic liberalism, are the liberals really liberal? Are they the ones instituting change or fighting it tooth and nail? In recent years, the latter rings true. The so-called "liberals" want to fight tax cuts for working Americans, condone the indiscriminate torture, rape, and genocide of innocent Iraqis, increase big government, eliminate faith-based initiatives, play the race card, filibuster judicial nominees interminably, decry the merit of school vouchers despite sending their kids to private schools, proudly proclaim a former KKK member as one of their leadesr, and, when in doubt, whine that they're being called "unpatriotic" when they do espouse their nonsense rhetoric. In the classical sense of the word, conservatives are the real liberals(but we're not useful idiots like Hillary) - the ones pressing for change and reform in government - i.e. Campaign Finance Reform via John McCain & tax cuts to put money back where it belongs - in the hands of the people who made it - not a Marxist redistribution of the wealth.
Rating: 
Summary: Our Current "Free Market" Economy
Review: On the fringes of the political spectrum, we have people who simply pander to an ideology to make a buck. Mona Charen certainly falls into that category. She tries to show the evils of communism and show how capitalism won out. Well, I hate to tell her this, but we certainly don't live in a true capitalist society and haven't since the New Deal. If we lived in a true capitalism, a large majority of Americans would be starving while the select few would live off inherited wealth. Hopefully, "crazy" Communist ideas, like making sure that each person has food, medicine, shelter, etc. have permiated our society, and compassion, in the end, will win. Then, we can tax the hell out of Mona Charen to pay for social programs. Ah, Utopia.
Rating: 
Summary: Proving the Right Still Doesn't Get It
Review: I'll give Charen's book two stars because it is better than most of the garden-variety, ghost-written dribble that passes for the Conservative-Love It Or Leave It-Republican canon these days. Charen is light years ahead of ... Bill O'Reilly and the Fox ... crowd...
Rating:
Summary: great book
Review: Great work from Mona, once again shows how liberals were on the wrong side of history.
Rating:
Summary: American Pie
Review: What a shame! After years of watching Mona Charen on the Sunday morning talk shows I had, up to the release of her not-so subtle book "Useful Idiots ", a modicum of respect for her as a thoughtful and concise journalist. She had always impressed me as a woman who was capable of understanding both sides of any given issue and thereby made intelligent and honest observations on complicated issues that face America today. Well, after sorting through her latest " attack " on all things Democrat/Left-Wing I now can only wonder at how appallingly wrong I was in awarding Mona that respect she obviously has yet to earn. While fairly recently being subjected to a glut of books by so-called thinking Conservatives ( an oxy-moron? ) such as Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly and the 'Queen of Mean' Ann Coulter I had come to the sad conclusion that many of these hate-filled, finger pointing diatribes were written not to necessarily inform what they felt was apparently an ill-advised American voter as to the evils of Liberalism but also, I deeply suspect, to make a name for oneself on the lecture circuit and perhaps even make a dollar or two. I mean, it is a free market society, is it not? Now, while I would never have put Ms. Charen in that grouping of 'intellectually challenged' die hard Conservatives
( vast right-wing conspiracy anyone? ) I sadly see Mona has jumped on the bandwagon in that ' go for the throat ' style of getting her not so subtle point across as to us Liberals. Including, it should be noted, having the temerity ( and an abundance of poor taste! ) of having the photographs of Peter Jennings, Hillary Clinton ( #1 on the Conservatives hit parade! ) Katie Couric and others, who apparently gotten on our author's bad side, on the cover of this so-called piece of journalistic lynching. A tasteless act indeed but done all in the name of selling a few more copies no doubt! And while, to be perfectly frank, she makes several fine points i.e. the Vietnam War, El Salvador and the Cold War ( which the Right still not surprisingly feels Reagan single handedly won on his very own! ) I will state that, as the saying goes " hindsight is 20/20 " and it certainly doesn't take a degree in foreign policy for this author to smugly point her finger, all the while saying, " See I told you so! " There's much of that to be found within the covers of her release and sadly Mona is so busy " attacking " the Left " she simply refuses ( or perhaps is unable ) to understand that writing devisive and narrow-minded books such as this doesn't necessarily better inform the American voter as much as simply catagorizes them into easy to understand allegiances....which I suspect is what Conservatives have desired all along. Personally, I've never subscribed to that ' are you with us or against us ' mentality when judging peoples political alliances but I suspect for some out there ( insert your favorite right-wing talking head here! ) it's a matter of convienence. I suspect I've had my fill of so-called right wing talk show hosts and commentators playing the ' blame game ' on anyone who has the nerve to disagree with their rather narrow view of what America stands for. Well, I suspect in the long run that I probably should have waited before purchasing Mona's " Useful Iidiots. " Though to be honest she does mention in the beginning that she 'suspects ' that Commuinist dictator Lenin originated that phrase but she just isn't sure. So much for doing your homework! All in all I'm off to donate my copy to my local library....another bastian of Liberal thinking no doubt. And if you've failed to pick up your copy of her book, not to worry. I suspect it will soon be in remainders next to Sean Hannity's " Let Freedom Ring " which I noticed the other day at a bargain basement price. A shame indeed!
Rating: 
Summary: Writing their wrongs.
Review: This book is very timely, as the left wing is again taking the position of blaming America first. Mrs. Charen does a marvelous job of charting the course of liberal wrongness through the Cold War. There are numerous parallels between the rhetoric and biases of the Cold War and the liberal rhetoric surrounding 9/11 and the Iraqi war. "Useful Idiots" addresses the Cold War, but is, more largely, a review of the anti-anticommunists. Mrs. Charen begins with Vietnam, and covers Nicaragua, El Salvador, the USSR, and touches on our current war on terror. She cites the blatant biases in media coverage, the blind sympathy that the left had (and has) for anything relating to socialism, and the refusal of liberals to admit wrong. From the nuclear freeze to the woes of Chomsky, Charen leaves little untouched. Eventually, the attacks get monotonous. That's not necessarily a criticism of Mrs. Charen; the liberals have made a lot of mistakes in the last half-century. But the liberal hypocrisies look very similar after 200 pages. Overall, this is a well-constructed and insightful book. This encyclopedia of liberal errors is a good read, and helps to reaffirm conservatism in a very trying time.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book!
Review: I first read this book about 6 weeks ago, and read it again immediately thereafter. I long felt that those with liberal/ leftist political views, including many of our elected officials within the Democrat party, were mistrustful, suspicious, hostile, even hateful, toward the United States. Ms. Charen's book confirmed this feeling. The book also nicely summarizes events regarding several cold war hotspots including Russia, Vietnam and Latin America. After reading this book, I am truly thankful Messrs. Carter, Mondale and Dukakis did not with their respective presidential elections. Otherwise, we'd still be fighting the cold war at this time. This book is chock-fulls of information. This book needs to be in every personal and public library. In this time of world volatility, let us ensure we never elect those that were so wrong in the past.
Rating:
Summary: A better title might be Dangerous Dimwits
Review: This is a great read. I read it while also reading Ronald Radosh's book "Commies". One thing that struck me is that many of the same people who made a living from communist, Marxist ideology, identified by Radosh, are not only still in the education and entertainment business (and government) but seem to be growing bolder every day. It does not take a careful reading of these works to see that they are fighting every day to destroy America and what it stands for. One other thing that comes out quite clearly is how the Democratic Party has been taken over by these people whose goal seems to be to topple everything that America stands for. The "Blame America First" crowd can find no fault with the killers of millions of people (every communist regime that has ever existed) but can find anything America does reprehensible.
The real shame is that only people like you and I are likely to ever read these and other similar works. The vast majority of Americans still get their news from the biased, anti-Americans masquerading as journalist, or from the Democratic "America haters" such as congresswoman Bargara Lee. And it is frightening that these same Americans continue to allow their children to attend schools whose curriculum is clearly to ignore anything good about America and the great people who risked their lives, fame and fortunes to create the most wonderful nation ever to exist.
Rating:
Summary: More conjecture than fact
Review: A bunch of gobbledeegook especially as regards Elian Gonzalez.
Was she around for that travesty? The mother did kidnap the boy;
she took him out of Cuba without the father's permission. As far as
saying that all Janet Reno had to do to get the boy back from the
loca familia was to knock on the door, the family here did everything to thwart the legal system, throughtout which Maryellisa kept getting put in the psychiatric ward. The media never left the poor boy alone.
It is not anyone's place to decide where the best place to raise the child is except his living parent who wanted him back, Cuba's pressure
on him notwithstanding.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but simplistic and just wrong
Review: The author does a good job of documenting the quotations and actions of political and celebrity figures who have either idealized
corrupt and evil regimes (U.S.S.R., Cuba, Pol Pot's Cambodia, the former North Vietnam) or who, if they condemn them, must always add some criticism of the U.S.
However, she uses the term "liberals" over and over without defining what that term means to her. This is an anti-intellectual approach and more appealing to the emotions. In addition, she minimizes the damages of McCarthyism (suggesting it lasted "just" four years and damaged a small number of people). She also blows off Watergate in about two sentences. She needs some more history lessons. I wish I had waited for the library copy.
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