Rating: 
Summary: Compelling reading on the Dark Side of the Farce
Review: Brock's book is compelling stuff; a searing indictment of the New Right written by someone who benefited from the machinations of the cabal. Brock serves up gripping look at the connections between politicians, pundits and questionable characters on the fringe of the "Get Clinton" movement. Don't think this is just a lot of fingerpointing. Brock is pretty hard on himself and the turnaround in his thinking feels genuine. I'm not surprised figures on the Right hate this book. It's a pretty damning portrait of egos and zeal, fueled by money, perceived power and running dangerously out of control.I wish Brock had included footnotes and an index. A book of this nature needs that sort of backbone to bolster the anecdotes. Granted, Ann Coulter included both footnotes and index in "Slander," which gave her critics (myself included) plenty of ammunition to explode the lies and misrepresentatons of that tome. Still, Brock leaves himself open to some criticism by not backing up his work with sources.
Rating: 
Summary: Liberal Drivel
Review: This is just another one of those idiotic books that tries to depict non-leftist social activism in America as a criminal conspiracy. If you listen to Liberals, you'd think that hard-left, anti-Israel, anti-Christian media outlets like the Boston Globe, CNN, and the New York Times are merely honest, nonpartisan journalistic enterprises rather than rabidly biased propaganda fronts that degrade the national discourse on issues, and Democratic candidates are merely honest people who want to serve their communities. Meanwhile, right-tilted outlets like Fox News (and it's highly doubtful that Fox is really all that "conservative"), the Boston Herald, and Orange Country Register are all part of a sinister, centralized conspiracy masterminded by oil barons. The nation's Evangelical churches aren't merely theologically-conservative Protestants with a viewpoint that's virtually identical to the mainstream moral views of Americans a mere 15 years ago, but are instead a Nazi-esque cult movement meant to overturn society's "progress" toward sexual liberation and the universal acceptance of Darwinism. The truth is that the Globe, CNN, and the Democratic candidates who benefit from their coverage are just as biased and just as much a part of a grand "conspiracy" to reform our nation's values and mangle the culture into a pre-determined mold. Ted Turner, the Rockefellers, and others are just as eager to be Daddy Warbucks of the Hard Left as Rupert Murdoch and the Olins are to bankroll less "progressive" causes. The "right-wing" in this country has done absolutely nothing illicit or even clandestine. They're just citizens out to voice their concerns, and businessmen out to preserve their interests. The "left-wing" has done far MORE clandestine and conspiratorial things to further their agenda - from the homosexual movement's stated goal of branding Christians as "bigots" in the media to the active suppression and "heresy-hunting" by PC police on the nation's largest and most influential college campuses. If there is a "sinister movement" in America that needs to be exposed, I suggest the Left look at itself!
Rating: 
Summary: Too Little, Too Late
Review: I'm glad that David Brock finally saw the light and realized that his work was factually inaccurate and was part of partisan witch-hunt of a group of people that couldn't possibly believe that the American people could've elected a non-conservative for two terms. But Brock's damage has been done, people have been hurt by his "journalism" and the bell cannot be unrung, even with this attempt. It's hard to muster up sympathy for someone who admits that they were in it for the buck, the movement of the moment all the time hurting people with lies to get to the top. One has to wonder is he still at it, lying because it might be more profitable now to switch sides. Is he an opportunist or is he sincere? It's hard to believe an admitted liar, even when he is now apparently on your side. Brock's epiphany should have occurred a few years ago, not now, when the climate is safe. I will not deny that he shows a bit of bravery in describing what is indeed, forgive me, but truly a "vast right-wing conspiracy" that was out to destroy the presidency of Bill Clinton. Just like the convicted criminal in prison that finds God in his latter years in order to get a free-ride to heaven, Brock spells out his very lucrative role in practically every right-wing partisan revenge tactic performed while trying to make us believe that his inner-self knew it was all wrong. A good read, but we already knew it all. It just took David Brock a few years to get up to speed with the rest of us.
Rating: 
Summary: Do not go gently into this dark story!
Review: Be prepared for a long, very detailed examination of the morass that America was pushed into during the last decade of the last millennium.Brock's book is an extraordinary read-one which took many hours because of its complexity and length; the reader isn't pepared [at least this reader!] for a book designed with such narrow margins, few notes and with no index-a book where everything is meant to be read.As an Australian I was unprepared for the depth of Brock's analysis-I was unprepared for the breadth of the scandal and the huge cast of players in this tragedy as well as the very real personal metamorphosis that unfolded as I read his book. In a strange way it was as if these changes were the canvas upon which would eventually be painted the enormoussaga of the Clinton years.Other reviewers have commented negatively that if Brock lied, as he admitted he did in his early journalistic years, then it would be natural to disbelieve his last transformation into a liberal. However, I was struck by the sincerity of Brock's transformation-my only question involved his seemingly ease of movement from Berkley to journalist in the belly of the beast at the Spectator in Washington. Having read some of the books written by prominent conservative figures, I am left wondering how conservatives can harbour so much anger-the stress that Brock was made to endure speaks volumes for the pettiness of mind within the conservative movement.
Rating:
Summary: Conservative attack dog goes feral
Review: Brock is a person who was converted to conservatism by his observation of extreme left wing intolerance at University. He became a journalist who became famous for his polemics the most famous being a book on Anita Hill a witness who claimed that Clarence Thomas, a prospective right wing appointee to the Supreme Court had committed acts of sexual harassment. The book was an attack on Hill and it was aimed at destroying her reputation and legitimising Thomas as a right wing figure on the bench. It contained the description of Hill as a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty. Brock describes in the book the history of the development of the right in America during the last 10 to 15 years and also describes his own journey as he became disillusioned and moved to the left. The key to understanding the right Brock says is that up to the early 1990s what was seen as the key issue was the fight against communism. With the collapse of communism it was necessary to find a new enemy to fight and a new basis of its ideology. Brock sees Newt Gringich as the pivotal figure who shaped the New Conservatism. Gringich was not a person who really had any policy ideas what he was about was tactics. Gringich moved the debate from issues of policy to a debate about morals. He adopted a policy of suggesting that the Democrats were morally repugnant and not fit to govern. The key to his politics was to raise large numbers of quasi symbolic moral issues around school prayer, abortion, the tolerance of gays and try to suggest that the Democrats supported an America which was at odds with the values of decent Americans. Brocks book and much of his work was framed in this way. His attack on Hill and his later articles on Clinton was an attempt to demonise the opponents of the right. Brock says that this process led over time to considerable inner searching. He is a person who is gay, and he found himself in a movement in which preaching against gay people was one of the themes. Initially he was accepted as were some other right wing gays. His problems arose when he wrote a book about Hiliary Clinton which was seen as to fair by his conservative allies. Following the publication of the book he began to be socially ostracised by his former friends and he suffered a conversion in which he became revolted by what was happening on the right. The book is interesting, as the language of American politics is so different from anywhere else in the world. Brock shows us how it became that way and why the opposition to Clinton was based not on his policy agenda but on revelations about his personal life. Up to Clinton the sexual goings on of political figures in America had been seen to be unworthy of news coverage as they are in most other countries. However during his presidency huge amounts of money were spent to find out any skeletons in his personal closet. Brock describes in detail how this went on. Funds were set up and people employed full time to travel to Arkansas and to trawl for dirt. Half truths, rumours and untruths were circulated in right wing hate sheets in a process to undermine Clinton and to return power to the right. The book seems to have touched of an interesting debate in America where the right still hangs on to Brock the conservative and tries to suggest that his earlier work is valid and that as he has come out and admitted he is a liar you cannot trust him. However this is a simple propogandistic view. The book is fascinating and a must read so that anyone can understand the US scene.
Rating:
Summary: Hall of Mirrors
Review: What keeps this book short of perfection is Brock's oblivousness to the past--his discovery of conservative hypocrisy is far from original--the 1960's brought us Robert Stone's "Hall of Mirrors," the 1860's the writings of one Samuel Clemmens, and Brock's inability to explain why seemingly normal human beings would choose to fill their hearts and minds with hate rather than love. (I'd like to offer the Stockholm Syndrome as explanation for the latter. One feels powerless to complain about the rich who can buy and sell us, so we save our epithets for those who would show us up by behaving decently. How else explain your own hatred of the inheritance tax--my apologies to those with estates in excess of a million who are affected by it.)
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic.
Review: I recently read this book. First, I enjoyed it. Many political books are dry reads. This one is not. D. Brock's comments about how the extreme right captured the GOP seem right on point. Given his history, I would not take every factual comment he makes as gospel; but, anyone who blindly relies on the statements of a political writer is trapped in a grade-school mentality. The book is a great insight into the back room workings of extremists. True, he really picks only on the GOP's extreme right, but, I think even he admits that the extreme left would do the same. They, however, are not as organized. In case anyone thinks it is relevant to the review, I am a moderate. I have voted for both Dems and GOPers. I enjoy reading both liberal and conservative writers.
Rating:
Summary: Brock is still not a reporter
Review: David Brock, ex-hatchet man for the far right, turns his hatchet on his erstwhile comrades in Blinded by the Right, a bridge-burning memoir of his time with the movers and shakers of the conservative movement. In it, he exposes the shaky journalism with which he produced the famous (or infamous) book The Real Anita Hill to legitimize Clarence Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court and trumped up the Troopergate scandal to vex the Clintons. However, he commits the same sins in this book that he deplores in his earlier work. He derides himself for throwing in irrelevant asides, yet cannot name a conservative figure without slamming that figure somehow (noting, for instance, that conservative journalist Robert Novak's enemies call him "No Facts," without connecting the observation to any point he's trying to make). Brock writes with great passion, and his book is a convincing portrait of a man whose commitment to the conservative cause gradually loses its original focus and becomes a simple feud with the liberal "other team," and in which his own political views become subsumed into a view that he must stick with his side, right or wrong. But it is so convincing that, although there is no question in my mind that he believes what he writes, I have to remain skeptical that his conversion from conservatism is not a product of similar transient psychological factors. Brock is so good at disinformation, and so good at admitting it, that even now that he is telling me what I always suspected about the right wing, I cannot bring myself to fully credit it -- particularly when the style he admits to using in past work appears so similar to the style he is using now. Taking Blinded by the Right with a grain of salt, I found it a quick and engrossing read, but it's not reliable, and I was distracted by the recurring thought that the reason I was enjoying it was because Brock was using the same powers he used to pander to the conservative movement to pander to me.
Rating: 
Summary: Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative
Review: In Blinded by the Right, Brock, who came out of the closet at the height of his conservative renown, tells his story from the beginning, giving us the first insider's view of what Hillary Rodham Clinton called "the vast right-wing conspiracy." Whether describing his dealings with the right-wing press, the richly endowed think tanks, Republican political operatives, or the Paula Jones case, Brock names names from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on down, uncovers hidden links, and demonstrates how the Republican right's zeal for power created the poisonous political climate that culminated in George W. Bush's disputed election
Rating:
Summary: Thank god, I'm not crazy
Review: During the entire Clinton presidency it seemed obvious to some of us that the lunatic right wing was waging an unholy war where truth was not even a consideration. Brock's account holds no surprises, but chronicals the details of the conspiracy -- which surely it was. The involvement of major players -- congressmen, senators, judges, and so-called journalists -- is frightening and should put us all on notice regarding the pap we are being fed now that this same bunch of crazies have taken over the palace. It is easy to understand Brock's seduction into the conspiracy, being drawn into seat of power and gaining wealth and repsect far beyond what he had a right to expect as his age. That he found his way out of the moral morass is somewhat a miracle. But David should be confident that the future will be far more rewarding than the past. He has proven himself to be, in the end, a real journalist and a powerful writer. His voice needs to be heard. For anyone seeking the truth in a field where truth is a scarce commodity, this is a must read.
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