KIRKUS REVIEW
New York Observer and Salon.com columnist Conason (co-author, The Hunting of the President, 2000) flushes the hypocrisy out of conservative rants and jibes at liberals.
Would Americans ever take the bluster of the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters seriously? No way: citizens of the Republic “believe in fairness, equality, opportunity and compassion; they reject social Darwinism and excessive privilege,” writes Conason, who would like to bury once and for all “the buzz of conservative cant [that] creates an illusion of consensus.” Here he takes on the most egregious examples of conservative demagoguery, playing their cards right back at them. Are conservatives more morally rectitudinous than their liberal colleagues? Ask Newt Gingrich, Helen Chenoweth, and the laughably hypocritical Coulter, who once remarked, “Let’s say I go out every night, I meet a guy and have sex with him. Good for me. I’m not married.” Are conservatives great patriots and defenders of the land, while liberals and Democrats cower like curs and dodge the draft? Ask Daniel Inouye, John Kerry, and Max Cleland, and then ask George W. Bush, John Ashcroft, Tom DeLay, and Saxby Chambliss. Who defends the common man? Bush wraps his arms around the nine rescued Quecreek miners while he proposes to slash the Mine Safety and Health Administration budget. Who champions the free market? Not conservatives, avers Conason, with their taste for crony capitalism and “the ethos of privilege, power and entitlement.” The author’s points are all well taken, though he regrettably apes without parody the kind of statistic-slinging that conservatives employ. A few real flinchers (“What conservatives really hate most is a fair fight, which brings out their inner wimp”) don’t mar his best point: conservatism’s “steep descent from the standard of literacy and wit once set by William F. Buckley Jr.” to the impoverished, squalid bleats of Dinesh D’Souza, Laura Ingraham, and Michael Savage.
It’s not too difficult to make the more preposterous spoutings of the way-out right look ridiculous, but Conason has fun hitting his easy targets.
