Then I looked up the Prospect review. It was written by Jamelle Bouie, who criticizes Markos’s combative approach and argues, among other things, that conservatives “haven’t actually gained from their willingness to bend and misrepresent the truth.”

First question: Really? That would come as big news to Lee Atwater, the political operative whose bosses appointed several right-wing justices to the Supreme Court, which then gave the 2000 election to George W. Bush, who then appointed more conservative justices, whose decisions we will probably have to endure for decades. I would say that conservatives gained from Atwater’s dirty tricks.

Second question: Who is Jamelle Bouie? When I checked out his LinkedIn page, I discovered that he received his B.A. last year and started at the American Prospect two months ago. This is the only professional experience he lists. He adds, “I am a professional blogger and writer, more or less.” None of this modesty appears in his article, his second for the Prospect‘s website. To the contrary, he claims the high ground of the fourth estate: “Unlike myself (sic), Moulitsas isn’t a journalist …” Ah, OK.

The gist of the review is that liberals shouldn’t “succumb to temptation and emulate the right’s disregard for truth and context.” I don’t agree that Markos did that at all. But even if I did, I wonder about Mr. Bouie’s (youthful?) idealism here.

His position reminds me of the scene in Recount, the HBO feature film about the 2000 presidential election in Florida. Heading the Democratic push for a recount, Warren Christopher takes the high road with his team: “We want to proceed as if this were a proper legal process, not a political street fight.” Cut to James Baker, head of the Republican effort, who instructs his troops, “Now listen, people, this is a street fight for the presidency of the United States.”

“There’s a lot more in this pithy and readable book, such as how to encourage providers to report errors and how to expand the VA health care system. I’ll let you get the book for yourself to enjoy the details.”

http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/08/the-software-behind-the-va-tra.html

Check out the full review here:

http://bit.ly/a7gOCw

Veteran journalist Reese Erlich, author of The Iran Agenda, Dateline Havana, and the forthcoming Conversations with Terrorists, has a new piece up over at CommonDreams.org today about recently-deceased Lebanese ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Fadlallah.

Fadlallah’s name, unfamiliar to the general public in the United States, is now making the rounds in the U.S. media in connection with the story of CNN firing its senior Middle Eastern editor, Octavia Nasr, over a Twitter post expressing sympathy for his passing.

Erlich interviewed Fadlallah personally for a chapter in Conversations with Terrorists, and sheds some light on the man for the rest of us:

Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Fadlallah, often characterized in western media as the “spiritual adviser to Hezbollah,” died of natural causes in Beirut this week at the age of 75. Many western leaders considered him a terrorist.

I’ve met Ayatollah Fadlallah, and he was no terrorist.

The CIA and other intelligence agencies tried to murder Fadlallah several times in the 1980s because they mistakenly thought he was responsible for the bombings of the US Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. But Fadlallah’s survival only enhanced his reputation.

Apparently his aura continues to haunt the West. On July 7 Octavia Nasr, CNN Senior Editor for Middle East Affairs, sent out a tweet that she had “respect” for him and was “sad” about his passing. That was enough to get her fired.

Fadlallah held views with which I strongly disagreed. But dismissing him and other Middle East leaders as terrorists only makes solving problems more difficult. So far President Obama continues the same wrong-headed policies as his predecessors.

I interviewed Ayatollah Fadlallah in Beirut at the end of 2008. I had traveled to the region with actor/writer Peter Coyote to research an article that appeared in Vanity Fair. Fadlallah welcomed us to his compound in west Beirut.

The entire article is well worth a read for its valuable clarifications of the complexities surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the numerous actors involved.

Over the Cliff co-author John Amato will be speaking in L.A. on July 16 at a fundraiser for the L.A. Media Reform Group, which “focuses on holding news accountable to the public interest and encouraging citizens to create their own media, and to be critical consumers of the mass media.”

The event is free, although the suggested donation of $35 will not only go to help a great cause, but will also snag you a signed copy of Over the Cliff!

We’ve copied the full invitation text below.

John Amato Speaking at LA Media Reform Fundraiser in Beverly Hills on July 16

In Over the Cliff: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane, John Amato and coauthor David Neiwert show that the Tea Party “movement” was not the organic uprising it was made to appear, but rather was kick-started by FOX News and follows in a long tradition of movement conservative activism that harkens back to the street theater days of Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, and Grover Norquist.

John Amato will speak and sign his groudbreaking book at a fundraiser to support the LA Media Reform Group’s annual media summit (to be held February 26, 2011):

John Amato Reading
Friday, July 16, 7:30 p.m., in Beverly Hills
(Address available after RSVP)
RSVP to lamrg@commoncause.org
Suggested donation of $35 includes signed copy of “Over the Cliff”

Amato is the founder of Crooks and Liars, one of the nation’s most influential progressive weblogs. A pioneer of video blogging, he was part of CNN’s election-night coverage in 2006 and has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and Forbes.

“If you want to understand the forces behind the extreme demonization of President Obama and the assault on progressive America, look no further than Over the Cliff. With witty analysis and thorough investigative reporting, Amato and Neiwert provide a definitive chronicle of the far-right’s rapid movement from paranoia to outright violence. —Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party.

The LA Media Reform group is sponsoring this event in collaboration with the LA Progressive and Alliance Hollywood.

The Los Angeles Media Reform Group focuses on holding news accountable to the public interest and encouraging citizens to create their own media, and to be critical consumers of the mass media. Its next annual workshop will be Saturday, February 26th, 2011, at Occidental College. Compete the survey to help select speakers, workshops, and topics.

The LA Progressive is a two-year-old electronic magazine that comments daily on issues of political, social, and cultural consequence to progressives in Los Angeles and everywhere.

Alliance Hollywood is a social advocacy group that utilizes the voice, media and financial power of the entertainment industry to fight corporate interest groups on Capitol Hill.  For more information, go to:www.AllianceHollywood.org

Questions? Contact us at lamrg@commoncause.org

That’s the title of a nice little bit Publishers Weekly wrote about our most recent successes, including sending Over the Cliff back to the press for a second run just two weeks after its release. We’re grateful for the mention!

All through the course of Over the Cliff this crashing observation keeps hitting home, how utterly stupid Fox News thinks its human being audience is, the absolutely stunning contempt of any intelligence they have for any person they broadcast to.

[...] you [Fox] are extremely dangerous propagandists who think every American has no ability to think, in any form, or to perform the most elemental acts of reason. How incredibly stupid you think little people Americans are, how totally, completely wrong you are. Loyal tribal Republicans cover for you for other reasons, but everyone sees it and knows it.

How we, as Democrats of every persuasion and loyalty, react and deploy policy in the face of this sick opposition is of course the great blogtopia debate of our present time. Leaving that aside, it’s imperative for everyone to know the correct mental foundation for whatever one’s stance ultimately is cannot be reached without the complete comprehension of the truth in this book.

I’m an internet political junkie, I thought I knew what we were truly up against and I did not. The truth of this work must spread, buy it, read it, and finally act. The Gulf spill is but one of many calamities upon us, we must change. Quickly.

Meanwhile, Steve Levingston at the Washington Post includes Over the Cliff in his list of “flame-throwing political books” for the summer. While we (and, we believe, the authors) would respectfully disagree with this characterization, we appreciate the notice nonetheless. As a bonus, Levingston also mentions one of our forthcoming titles, Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas’ American Taliban, due out in September.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“John Amato and David Neiwert have produced a book that should stay on shelves for 50 years…As a record of what is happening to American conservatism in the year 2010, Over the Cliff is unmatched.” –Rick Perlstein

SALES OF POLIPOINT’S NEWEST RELEASE TRACK RISE IN EXTREME RIGHT-WING RHETORIC

Blog Pioneers’ Reporting of Right-Wing Kookery and Violence Lives Up to High Praise

Sausalito, CA—In the first two weeks of Obama’s presidency, more than 200 hate crimes, including assault, arson, and even murder, were committed in the U.S. This rabid reaction continues today, fueled by popular conservative media pundits, politicians, and a seemingly new right wing populist faction, the Tea Party Movement.

Now, in its first two weeks on the market, Over the Cliff: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane by Crooks and Liars founder John Amato and award-winning investigative journalist David Neiwert, is steadily selling 350 copies in print and 100 in digital form, and has reached as high as #128 on Amazon’s bestseller list.

A hard-hitting documentary of how right-wing politicians and media figures like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh inflame public sentiment by repeating provably false information and spinning the day’s events in outlandish and hyperbolic fashion, Over the Cliff illustrates the hypocrisy of these prominent right-wingers in attaching great importance to extreme rhetoric while simultaneously disavowing any violent actions taken by members of their audience who hang on their every word.

Even the most cursory examination of Over the Cliff provides enough evidence to explain why the American people’s perception of the Republican Party is at a historic low. Little wonder, then, that the Daily Kos’ Susan Gardner called Over the Cliff “persuasive,” “methodically documented,” and “a wake-up call for those in denial.” Given the sales of this early summer release, Over the Cliff is providing many Americans with a startling account of the rise in right-wing extremism.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

John Amato is the founder of Crooks and Liars, one of the nation’s most influential progressive weblogs. A pioneer of video blogging, he was part of CNN’s election-night coverage in 2006 and has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and Forbes.

David Neiwert is a journalist and author. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Salon, Seattle Magazine, and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report. His online reportage on domestic violence for MSNBC won a National Press Club Award in 2000. He is the author of The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right (2009) and editor of Ornicus, the award-winning weblog.

# # #

OVER THE CLIFF: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane

By John Amato and David Neiwert

$16.95, PoliPointPress, June 1, 2010, Trade Paper

ISBN: 978-0-9824171-7-1, 296 pages, 5.5” x 8.5”

$9.99 eBook, PDF, ePub, Mobi
ISBN: 978-1-9362273-8-9

For more information, go to www.p3books.com/overthecliff/

For press inquiries, please contact Darcy Cohan: 415-339-4111 or darcycohan@p3books.com