Rating: 
Summary: Blinded by the Money
Review: Having read Brock's books on Anita Hill and Hillary Clinton, and remembering his hatchet job on Clinton in the now defunct "American Spectator," I was not all-together surprised at the tone of this particular book. Half-way through "Blinded by the Right" I decided Brock's politics/books will probably always be aligned with whatever party or circumstance that will help him make a buck. I, for one, won't be surprised if he becomes a "conservative" once again when it will be financially to his benefit. Read this only if you can't think of anything else to spend time on.
Rating: 
Summary: read it and be frightened
Review: If one is to believe one half of what the author says then Hillary Clinton's accusation of a right wing conspiracy to topple President Clinton was right. Brock details the financing and tactics of a the modern right wing which so hated and loathed the idea of a Clinton presidency that they wished to destroy him at every turn. When Reagan was president, the Democrats complained but did so within the framework of democratic dissent. The GOP right wing as led by Gingrich, the Christian right, Richard Mellon Scaife, the American Spectator magazine, Rush Limbaugh and so many others coordinated their efforts for maximum effect. Their initial concerns were of moderate Democratic policies. They also believed in revenge for both simply beating incumbent Bush 41, of defeating Bork for Supreme Court and of being liberal minded. One wonders from reading this book if our notion of fair play and honest debate was hijacked by the right wing which so believed in its own mantra that they would do anything to demonize those who disagreed with them. And, the sex scandals that Clinton brought on himself were only additional fodder for the cause; this group was out to destroy Clinton and his 'liberal' friends well before Lewinsky. This book makes for a good read and needs to be considered as a wake up call. The isolationists of the 30s, McCarthyites of the 50s, radicals of the 60s and White House criminals of the Watergate era have all returned to the Republican party of the 1990s. Brock details it; we read it and decide for ourselves.
Rating:
Summary: calling all conservative rightwingers. . .confess
Review: My primary concern about this book is that it will influence conservatives to examine their consciences (yes I believe they have consciences). You can't read a book like this without being completely disgusted at the depths that some people will sink to to get their way. Even Lee Atwater regretted during his last days that he had behaved in an unethical if not criminal manner. The sooner we realize that you can't beat people into agreeing with you the sooner we begin to grow as human beings.
We need look no further than Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Isreal to see the outcome of self-righteous behavior and that's exactly where I see the behavior of the extremist right wing is pushing us. ...
All of which to say that I highly recommend this book and I hope it serves to raise the level of discourse in this country.
Peace
Rating:
Summary: Escape From The Cult.
Review: This is an incrcredibly brave book, describing Brock's trajectory as the architect of Clinton's downfall (the fraudulent Troopergate-Paula Jones imbroglio to the architect of Clinton's salvation (revelations of the vast right wing conspiracy that Brock leaked to Sidney Blumenthal.) Critics with no imagination will take Brock's mea culpa too far -- an admitted liar and hatchet man for Gingrich, how can he now be trusted? But this is an enormously important, original and revelatory work, the most important book to be published about American politics in years... Brock has made enemies of some of the most hateful (and powerful) propagandists on the American scene. He should be supported...
Rating:
Summary: What's really important.
Review: I am not in a position to say whether what David Brock presents is accurate and true. That will be up to other people. But if his book is not factually refuted, then it should spark an intense dialog and debate in this country. If it doesn't, if the media and politicians ignore it, the silence will be profoundly disturbing for our nation's future.Readers of this book need to demand of the media and their elected leaders that it does spark debate.
Rating:
Summary: The Civics Lesson of the New Century.
Review: Reading this book is liike flipping the record over and hearing, for the first time, the real hit. After 10 years of mysterious references to a vast Right-Wing Conspiracy we find that, although many of us scoffed at the notion, it actually existed. This book lays it all out, and will rearrange, permanantly, our foolish beliefs about the current state of representative Democracy. It is a precise and credible chronology of the hijacking of the American political system by a small but determined group of angry, irrational, and misguided individuals. Many of the players in this farrago are now the most powerful and influential figures in our governmemt, and utterly untouchable since 9/11. This confessional may turn out to be the most important historical and cultural document of the new century. It certainly casts light and heat on the past 10 years. I was tempted to disbelieve Brock, since I had been hearing serious criticism of his credibility long before the book was released, but it's become clear why he's been called into question, largely by the very same indiviuals he exposes here. He simply knows too much, and his account rings too true for their comfort. And it's long about time these folks suffered a little discomfort.
Recommended to anyone who cares about this country, and believes in the ideals upon which it's based. Would that we all had the conscience this young man has found in himself, although it's certainly the case that we all suffered greatly because he couldn't find it more quickly.
Rating:
Summary: Ah, well, finally....the truth
Review: This is not an easy book to read: the paragraphs are long,
and there is no character assassination--just plain honest
truth, and man, is it scary. I mean, the Ring Wing tried
to unseat a twice-elected President of the United
States just because they hated him and his principles. Finally, in an illegally-obtained wiretap, they set a perjury
trap for him and he was caught lying about a consensual
sex act. What about Whitewater? Nothing. What about
Troopergate? Nothing. What about Filegate? Nothing.
What about Vince Foster? Nothing. What about Travelgate?
Nothing. They could find nothing wrong with the Clintons"
lives except they finally widened the net until they got him
on sex. How many of us could stand up to that kind of scrutiny?
I couldn't. Meanwhile, the storry of Bush's AWOL while
on active duty with the National Guard is untouched.
Well, history will sort all this out, and David Brock has
started the process...
Rating: 
Summary: Surprisingly good and accurate
Review: Though nowhere near the importance or writing quality of a Koestler book, nevertheless Brock's book blows the lid off the moral emptiness of movement "conservatives." I'm "anonymous" for a reason: I witnessed a lot of the events that Brock portrays accurately in his book, and I am a conservative who was also a first-hand witness to the Gingrich revolution. I bought the book with the mindset that Brock was a scam artist and opportunist; I finished the book with the mindset that he has done this country, and true conservatives, a great service. Take it from me: though Brock may have lied in the past, in the service of his paymasters, he is NOT lying now. Brock describes so accurately how hypocritical a lot of conservatives are. No one is flawless, but it's sickening to read Brock's chronicle, and to remember my own recollections, of how movement conservatives would attack others for the same behavior they themselves engage in. Hypocrisy is just the tip of the iceberg. Brock accurately cites the bigotry that pervades the movement, especially sexual bigotry like homophobia. Movement conservatives' obsession with sex, which culminated in the constitutional bonfire of the Clinton impeachment, did not just cause the undoing of some conservative politicians' careers (Livingston, Gingrich), but is a particular epidemic of the movement. Washington is Sodom and Gomorrah rolled up into one, at least on the conservative side. Sex, as well as disregard for the rule of law and common sense, is why conservatives went after Clinton. I was no fan of Clinton when he was in office, and my only beefs with him were legal (lying before a grand jury) and political, not personal. Still, I became sickened as the impeachment process wore on, but I laughed at the same time, because many Clinton critics' own personal lives would put Monica Lewinsky's to shame. And I remember being in Washington, and watching Hillary Clinton attacking a "vast right-wing conspiracy." Though I knew of many coordinated efforts to "get the Clintons," I was not aware of how vast this extra-constitutional effort really was. Brock is so incredibly precise in explaining the machinations, fueled by far right-wing money, of movement conservatives trying to undermine a sitting president. I can't say enough about Brock's book. As a conservative, I am appalled at how the party of Reagan and Lincoln has been taken over by hucksters, charlatans and confidence men, posing as principled members of the right. With both political extremes showing themselves capable of pursuing their aims at all costs, I fear for our nation, because one day our system may break from the stress of yet another hypocritical witchhunt. Or, maybe Brock's book will touch enough people and change enough minds, like it did mine, and we will become less destructive in our politics.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good dish
Review: This book has lots of good dish about conservative talking heads. And it's an interesting look at the internecine warfare going on between conservatives and liberals. The problem with Brock, though, is that he seems to be unable to grasp that Anita Hill and Paula Jones might both be telling the truth or that Clinton and Clarence Thomas might both be lying louts. Toward the end of the book you find out who's pulling the strings now: Clinton apologists Joe Conason and Sid Blumenthal. I guess I'd recommend a buy: I'm so mad about what the right did to Anita Hill, I want Brock to have the dough just to get back at them. If you don't share my rage, get it out of the library.
Rating:
Summary: A disturbing portrayal of the moral life of the Right
Review: In one way, this book does not break much new ground. Much of what Brock has to share has been presented to the public before by a number of investigative reporters, though it should be added that for many of them, Brock was an important source of information. Indeed, I learned many of the details in this book from reading Conason and Lyon's THE BETRAYAL OF THE PRESIDENT, which mentioned Brock's experiences on several occasions. What is new is the insider's perspective the book offers. The many books on the Clinton years and the shenanigans of the Right in trying to destroy Clinton are mainly written from the viewpoint of the Left. Although a convert, Brock gives some insight from within his old position. In many ways this book is much better than I had anticipated, though in a couple of ways the book bothers much like his book on Anita Hill did. The book does seem more honest and truthful than I had expected. He seems to have matured a lot over the past few years. The genre to which the book belongs is largely that of conversion narrative, which he rightly acknowledges in the Preface. Conversion narratives-both in books and films-were extremely common in the 1940s and 1950s, during the days of the Red Menace, and in the 1970s and 1980s, as former radicals moved to the mainstream. The book is unique in chronicling one person moving from the Right to the Left, instead of the opposite, more common direction in such narratives. But the book is also in part personal confession, as well as an indictment of his former friends. It is the indictment aspect of the book by which I am most bothered. Brock rightly is disturbed by much that he discovered on the Right: cultural and social intolerance; the unconcern for the truth and obsession with harming their enemies, even if it meant telling lies or half lies; the lack of ideas apart from attacking their opponents; their demonization of those on the Left; and the enormous hypocrisy on the part of many of those who were morally intolerant of Clinton. The problem is that in proving their hypocrisy, he deals a bit more than I like with the adulteries and other sins of those on the Right. The book is already getting some press because near the end he suggests that Matt Drudge, of The Drudge Report, pretty transparently made explicit homosexual overtures to him. I am always uncomfortable when anyone "outs" someone who is not already "out." Also, Brock also uses a lot of negative physical imagery in discussing his former colleagues. He has a genius for describing people in profoundly unflattering ways. I can understand pointing out someone committing adultery while at the same time condemning Clinton. But what is the point of talking of how unattractive someone is? The crucial event in Brock's beginning to move from the Right to the Left was, he recounts, the publication of STRANGE JUSTICE: THE SELLING OF CLARENCE THOMAS by Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson. The book was in many ways a refutation of Brock's own book on Anita Hill. In it, the authors uncovered significant evidence that Justice Thomas had an ongoing interest in kinds of subject matter of a kind that would have bolstered Anita Hill's claims, even video stores where he rented certain kinds of videos. In attempting to disprove this, Brock discovered that although he had not previously known that Thomas was involved with naughty subject matter, many of Thomas's friends and colleagues, who were Brock's friends also, already knew of his interest. In other words, although a knowledge of Thomas's involvement with these things offered a powerful corroboration of Anita Hill's testimony, many on the Right kept it secret and damned Hill when they knew she was probably being completely honest. Although he defended his book at this occasion, his confidence in both himself as a journalist and the Right as a moral force were both seriously undermined. One telling anecdote comes relatively late in the book, after Brock has left the Right and the American Spectator and is doing some freelance writing. A woman calls him to ask questions about an article he has written for the New Yorker, asking him for notes and additional information about some of the things he has written. The woman was someone that he had never talked to in all his years working in Right wing journalism: a fact checker. While writing for the Washington Times and the American Spectator, he had never talked with one. He earlier in the book related that at neither publication did anyone require the standard two sources that all reputable newspapers and magazines employ. One disreputable and biased source that was not checked for believability was a more than adequate basis for running a story, as long as it was damaging or embarrassing for the opposite side. The book is yet more evidence that the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court is one of the most shameful incidents in recent American history. Ted Olson, the current solicitor general, who was narrowly and controversially confirmed just before Jeffords leaving the GOP and giving the Democrats a majority in the Senate, also comes across very, very badly in this book. And as in all books on the Right's political activity in the past twenty years, the presence of Richard Mellon Scaife is felt everywhere. The more I read about Scaife and the enormous fortune he has expended in bankrolling some of the more nefarious activities by the Far Right in the past few decades, the more I wish that someone would write an exhaustive biography about him. No one should wield that much influence on the American political process without being very well known by the public at large. The book also provides yet more confirmation of something that has by this point been proven pretty much beyond question, that there was indeed a conspiracy on the Right to undermine the presidency and the Clintons. Brock's only quibble is with using the word "vast" to qualify it.
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