Rating: 
Summary: Nice try, but...
Review: Brock wouldn't last 5 minutes in a debate with someone like Bernard Goldberg, Brent Bozell, or surely not Rush Limbaugh. He turned over when he interviewed Hillary Clinton and she put on the "mother" act with him, turning him to a pile of confused and adoring mush... For one thing, Anita Hill's mental problems are documented, and she lost any credibility she ever had long ago. If anyone could get her hooked up to a polygraph for about 10 minutes this matter could finally be put to rest, but that's never going to happen. She may be crazy, but she's not stupid...
I'd love to see some enterprising psychoanalyst do a paper on Brock and Ariana Huffington. I'm guessing they have similar idiosyncracies when it comes to principle and self-delusion...
Rating: 
Summary: And the proceeds go to...?
Review: It's always nice to see (or in this case, read about) someone acknowledging their mistakes. In this volume, the author has done so. What David Brock has failed to do, as evidenced by the content of this book, is to right his wrongs. Simply admitting you did something wrong, or in this case, many, many horrible things that have impacted the lives of many, many people, is not enough. He should make every reasonable effort to fix things, which he has not.He still hasn't personally apologized to Anita Hill for assassinating her character, which was directly responsible for the Supreme Court confirmation of Clarence Thomas, who cast the deciding vote for Dubya to be installed as President of the United States, even though Al Gore won the election. That's only one example, but I feel that example is good enough. While the content of Mr. Brock's book is well written, informative and sometimes apologetic, it is also infuriating for this reader to sit through, as I would imagine it would be for many others. While Mr. Brock's mother may be proud of her son's rising to the level of influence that he had, she should be ashamed of the fact that he is - to this day - cashing in on his evil deeds. After all, who is profiting from the sale of this book: the villain or the victims?
Rating: 
Summary: At last... a look behind the curtain!
Review: As many reviewers have noted, Mr. Brock confesses to lies and fabrications throughout this book so his veracity might be put to question. But I'm tempted to believe this political confessional if for no other reason than his portrayal of many conservative pundits seems rational enough to understand many of their rantings. It's not the political theology that many of his former colleagues embrace that's dangerous. It's the motivations and personal agendas that drive many of them to utter rumor as fact while maintaining a holier-than-thou level of hypocracy that seems unprecedented in modern times. The Rush Limbaughs, David Horowitzs, Ann Coulters and Matt Drudges of the world can bray and shout, however Brock pulls aside the curtain to give rational people a peek at what they are really after. It's a shame that Mr. Brock can't fully dissect the motivations that create a level of disgust and hate far beyond that of polite dissent, but then I doubt that anyone truly understands them. Thank you David, for at least shining a light on those who would prefer to stay back in the dark and throw mud.
Rating: 
Summary: Eye-opening and mind-blowing.
Review: Reactionary movements, in order to thrive, must have an enemy - someone who can be demonized and dismissed as subhuman. When communism collapsed, the right choose as its new enemy - us, its fellow Americans. Suddenly, everyone who isn't on the extreme right-hand edge of the political spectrum is an evil, baby-eating "Liberal" - not a fellow citizen to be disagreed with but a treasonous enemy to be utterly destroyed. Political discourse has been replaced with increasingly hysterical ranting by extremists who sneer at traditional conservative values such as civility and public service, and are obsessed with annihilating "the enemy" at all costs. David Brock lays out the sordid history and chilling agenda of the extreme right in riveting detail. Page after page reveals the mind-blowing hypocrisy of the self-congratulating guardians of family values, their brazen lies, their open racism and anti-Semitism. I didn't think my opinion of the reactionary right could go any lower, until I read this book. This is a long overdue exposé of a movement that is politically, intellectually and most of all morally bankrupt. Anyone who wonders how so much poisonous rancor has been injected into the US political process must read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Inside the Cocoon
Review: Few books capture the unmistakable odor of decadence from our nation's capital as abjectly as this one. Brock may believe it is the political right he has unmasked in his 300 page confession -- and so he has. But more importantly, he has helped expose the power that big money has in setting the nation's issues and agenda quite apart from what ordinary people may think or feel. Aside from an insider's account of rightist shenanigans, interesting as these may be, the work's lasting value lies in Chapter 4 where we find out who bankrolls such efforts and why, and how many of these rightwing outfits suck on the teat of cash cows like Olin, Coors, Scaife, et. al. Not that I'm carrying a brief for the Democrats. Their particular version of sell out is amply recorded by Ralph Nader in Crashing the Party. What these books add up to is a glimpse into where power really lies in America, and how it gets promoted by well-paid idealists like Brock. And while an insider's account of the power struggles and Kultur Kampf at the top makes for juicy reading, it's scarcely the most important aspect of Brock's personal mea culpa.
Rating:
Summary: A better title would have been "The Stooge"
Review: More trash from David Brock. He keeps taking money from the right & the left. Save your money and avoid this.
Rating: 
Summary: Are you being swerved?
Review: David Brock spends most of his book describing his tremendous hand in bringing sleaze media into Republican politics. He acknowledges many behind-the-scenes conservatives as well as other vested interests in the Republican party, which is helpful in perpetuating the reality of conservatism being the party attempting to legislate social norms and behaviors, but wanting government to remain distant from economics. In this respect, it's moderately helpful. I still feel awful about this book. I can't fathom how a writer spends 300+ pages discussing how his bestsellers were assortments of eggagerations, misnomers, unverified facts, and selective truth telling, and then subsequently expects readers to accept and believe his contemporary perspective. Given that he never explained at what point he learned bipartisan journalism, I really can't believe everything he claims; in particular, his treatment of his attitudes towards conservatism during his lengthy run in Washington as a sort of posturing for approval, silencing of his 'true identity', and other methods approximating brainwshing are simply unbelievable. Overall, it's nice to see a title that attempts to apologise for one's actions as a conservative, one that additionally portrays the "vast right-wing conspiracy" for what it really is (an attempt to create an image of a "vast left-wing conspiracy," such that the populace remains distracted enough, leaving their guard down to swallow conservative theory without question). The message I received from the book could be considered "Hey, don't believe this, that stuff is a lie. Believe *this* instead!" David Brock did enough damage during his career already, and I consider myself to be one bleeding heart liberal type who thinks that he owes this nation more than an apology (especially given the self-serving nature of his self-cleansing text here).
Rating:
Summary: Self Defacing horror; from the lips of a willing victim
Review: I've read dozens of political books. This is, hands down, the best one ever written. It virtually exposes the complete state of politics through the 90s with a first hand perspective.
Everybody, Democrats (interested in seeing how it all came to be), Republicans (interested in working through the many factions of their own party), and Unsure, need to read this book NOW.
Rating:
Summary: Mea maxima culpa?
Review: It's always morbidly fascinating to watch someone flagellate themselves in public. When they're being paid money to do it, you have to take it with a grain of salt. When they're being paid money to do it after the statute of limitations on doing it has run out, well... Still, I've read enough independent corroboration of much of what Mr. Brock claims to feel fairly confident he's telling at least a form of the truth. As a mere reader, it will never be possible for me to know just how many axes he may have to grind personally, or how much redemption he's really seeking. But when it comes to the Clintons, the right-wing's sheer hatred of them just as human beings always mystified me. Disagree with someone's policies, ideology, sure. But when it came to the Clintons (even now)the right quickly and consistently got strangely personal. For this reason alone, I was curious to read this book and see if any of it seemed plausible. As much as I wish character counted in all ways at all times, the truth is human beings are excellent at compartmentalizing their talents, values and morals. That applies to Mr. Brock as much as anyone he writes about, whether it's desperate right-wingers pushing people like Newt Gingrich to Do Something or Bill Clinton himself. Read critically, as always. David Brock claims to have made up a great deal of the nineties' sleazier media headlines when it comes to certain prominent Democratic political figures. I'd doubt him more if the timing of these stories hadn't been so interesting, and their tone and predictability hadn't been so reliable. The cumulative evidence he offers feels like it's in his favor, as regrettable a person as I find him to be. He seems to know where at least some of the bodies are buried, and comes off with much less of a screed and far more detail and story in general than Ann Coulter, who's book I see some readers are recommending either in conjunction with this one or instead of this. I hope it won't escape readers' notice that both Ms. Coulter's book and Mr. Brock's are published within a few months of each other by the same publisher, Crown. Oh, to be a fly on the wall at *those* editorial meetings! Chain-yanking from the left and the right, conveniently published so as to land prominently on display together at a bookstore near you. These two authors are a publisher's dream, as far as stirring the waters goes. I'd dearly love to find out which of them started writing their book first, and when the other learned of it. And who's idea it was to write each. Do I sound too suspicious?
Rating:
Summary: There Really May Have Been a Conspiracy
Review: The problem with American politics in recent years is that hardly anyone (on either side) has a conscience like David Brock. He was a muckraker for the Conservative movement that overwhelmed the more moderate side of the Republican Party in the 80's and 90's. As he desperately toed the party's unyielding ideology in his need for acceptance and validation, Brock admits that he sold his soul. Here we see that the Conservatives (this does not correspond to all people with legitimate right-of-center views) really weren't for anything, but were obsessed with crushing what they were against - Bill and Hillary Clinton - by any means necessary. Through the entire Clinton administration the Far Right dealt in character assassination and rumor mongering as opposed to leadership through policy ideas, with a pathological personal hatred for the Clintons along within anyone who was socially different. We also learn of their incessant abuse of the media and legal processes to destroy the administration and overturn a fair majority election that they disagreed with, culminating in the impeachment based on flimsy evidence of Clinton's personal peccadilloes (as opposed to actual crimes, for which there was never any evidence). Brock was a key player in this process, writing "articles" in the Far Right press that he admits were just rehashing of groundless rumors and accusations. Brock provides plenty of evidence that there really was an organized effort by the Far Right (the word "conspiracy" is tricky) to crush the Clintons personally. But Brock's conscience eventually got to him, especially because he was a gay man enslaved to a political movement that was virulently anti-gay, and also because he saw through the hypocrisy in general. The problems with this book include Brock's tendency toward very long and unfocused run-on-sentences, while he can't keep his timelines in order. He tends to place too much importance on his own journalistic works for the Far Right, contending that his writings were more historically influential than they probably were (there were many muckrakers doing what he was doing). Meanwhile, some of his soul-searching rings hollow, as he continued his unethical ways for several more years after his conscience finally started to get to him. But in the end, here we have a courageous account from someone who was heavily involved in the most ridiculous and embarrassing (for the public) political era in recent memory, but decided to take the high road not just for his own sanity but also for America's.
|
