Misstating the State of the Union: Right-Wing Media Distortions About the Clinton and Bush Presidencies Review
I'm a big fan of Media Matters.org as an indispensable resource for fighting back against right wing disinformation. The mission of the website is to highlight the lies and hypocrisy of Republican pundits and politicians. Personally I can only handle so much Conservative tripe before I feel sickened so I tend to be an infrequent visitor but when I do stop by I'm always amazed at how comprehensive, scrupulously researched and well crafted the site is. It's clearly a partisan site but as long as the researchers stay honest I don't have a problem with partisanship.
`Misstating the State of the Union' is sort of an extension of Media Matters in that the author uses quotes from pundits and politicians in order to shed a spotlight on the disingenuous nature of people like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Shawn Hannity, and Michael Savage. Misstating is a rather brief book at 146 pages that tackles a lot of different topics. It talks about economics but `Neoconomy' did it better. It talks about the culture war but `What's the Matter with Kansas' did it better. It talks about science but `The Republican War on Science' did it better. What the book does well is offer quick point by point refutations of Republican claims on just about every major issue of the last five years from global warming to gay marriage. The two sections I found most informative were the chapters on Health care and Education. The author also did a good job of disproving the theory that Republican's are tough on crime while Democrats are soft.
Perhaps the biggest strength of the Right is a complete lack of shame. Shame causes you to avoid lying and when you're caught in a lie shame causes you to recant the lie or at least stop repeating it. The final chapter of the book is titled `No Sense of Shame' and this is perhaps the defining feature of this generations GOP. Republican's have become so consistent in their mendacity that it's no longer shocking or even mildly surprising to hear a Bill O'Reilly quoting studies that don't exist or Limbaugh giving out numbers on the cost of education that are plucked out of thin air. When caught in a lie they simply repeat it believing they can literally reshape reality by altering perceptions. Luckily Media Matters is there to collect and catalog the garbage. If you're a progressive who needs a quick guide for composing arguments to defend liberal values `Misstating the State of the Union' is a great place to start.
Misstating the State of the Union: Right-Wing Media Distortions About the Clinton and Bush Presidencies Overview
Misstating the State of the Union reveals a simple truth that the media too often obscures: By every objective measure, the Clinton presidency was immeasurably better for America than the Bush presidency. Yet an army of conservative pundits have conspired to lie to the public about both the Clinton and Bush records, denying the proven success of progressive policies and leadership while shamelessly covering up abject conservative failures. This book dissects the conservative misinformation campaign to distort and discredit the progressive agenda point by point, while unmasking the dark ideological agenda and rank dishonesty behind all the cable TV and radio hot air.
From Rush Limbaugh's claim that the federal government spends three times as much on education as defense (the truth: the government spends five times as much on defense as on education) to Sean Hannity's dismissal of air-quality concerns ("This is silly") to Ann Coulter's attacks on the elderly ("39 million greedy geezers collecting Social Security"), Misstating the State of the Union concisely refutes many of the most dangerous right-wing lies in circulation in this political year, using sound logic, incontrovertible fact, and illustrative charts and graphs.
Misstating the State of the Union is the first book produced by Media Matters Action Network, the advocacy organization associated with Media Matters for America, a new not-for-profit web-based research and information center in Washington, D.C. that monitors, analyzes, and corrects conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. In just a few short months, Media Matters for America, founded by David Brock, author of Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative and The Republican Noise Machine : Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy, has established itself as a key resource on conservative misinformation for both producers and consumers of news. Visit mediamatters.org and get involved in holding the news media accountable.
Available at Amazon Check Low Price !
Related Products
Stephen Hawking Books Review Chocolate Tempering Machine Emma Donoghue Books Store Us
No comments:
Post a Comment