Joe Conason

Apolitical all my life, the current US election has me riveted by its amazing nastiness. The public ignorance of their own political system and how it works and is being used is astounding. This book showed even more how dirty US politics has been for a long time. Everyone has an ax to grind. Women wanting money and fame. Men wanting money and revenge. Political rivals hiring spies to dig up dirt and taking a molehill and with twists and embellishments and paid liars turning it into a mountain. Then it takes more investigation and public money to dig through the lies to find the nugget of truth that turns out to be meaningless. People lying under oath and getting away with it unless you are the target of the lies and you lie to protect yourself or your family...you end up the loser. The journalists on radio, television, news magazines, and trash tabloids all printing lies all over the country for ratings. Media corporations making profits out of destroying their own country's image. Huge amounts of tax payer money used to investigate the life of a politician, looking for anything that would pull him down, not for truth but for political gain of one party over another. All this with absolutely no regard for the constitution or for the democracy of the country. All this with absolutely no regard for the honor of the office of the Presidency. Misinformation is still being spread because the truth is lodged in piles of documents never seen by the public and unread by journalists who should be mining them for truth. The lies printed, and since disproved legally, are what is remembered and constantly reiterated. It is nauseating reading no matter what side of the political fence you are standing on...if you have any interest at all in honest government. I read all of Linda Tripp's machinations and illegal taping and lies in this book and looked her up on the internet to find out what ever happened to her, only to read a new interview in January of 2016 filled with more vituperative lies about Clinton. New scurrilous information mixed in with repetition of old lies that have been exposed a long time ago. The media has given this woman, already proved to be a liar and tainted, a voice to add her muck to an already mucky campaign. This book ends with the Lewinsky scandal and here so many years later she is embellishing her story and given a platform to do it. How can it not be suspicious and manipulative? Soul destroying information on how our trusted public officials are corrupted.… (mais)

First of all, I'd never heard of Joe Conason before I picked up this book,
but I think he is one of those political columnists. Apparently one that
isn't carried by any newspaper I ever read. LOL The title of the book is
what attracted me to it.

Since I tend to be more liberal than conservative, I figured I'd enjoy this
book and I did. I wish he'd have included his sources for the statements he makes. This book doesn't include footnotes or sources so it
would not be very useful as a reference, but I liked the way this guy
writes. I lived through most of what he was talking about anyway, and know
he's right for the most part. It made for interesting reading for me. I'll
give it a 4.… (mais)

A lot of the arguments aren’t so much here’s why the Democrats are better as throwing more dirt up about the Republicans’ many inadequacies. For instance, on the lie that Republicans are the party of family values, Conason trots out a litany of failed Republican marriages, Republican affairs, and Republican closeted gays. Rather than examine their policies and effect on families and compare it to the Democrats’ and how the latter is better. The defense of the Democrats is limited to noting that the Clintons’ marriage has lasted decades despite problems, and that they offer pro-family policies. But Conason never explains and compares those policies.

Disappointing.

(Full review at my blog)… (mais)