Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative

by David Brock

Book Overview

In a powerful and deeply personal memoir David Brock, the original right-wing scandal reporter, chronicles his rise to the pinnacle of the conservative movement and his painful break with it. David... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812930991
• ISBN13: 9780812930993
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Shocking and disturbing

This is a fascinating book about how the far right neoconservative wing of the Republican Party has used the media and the judiciary to promote their radical agenda. The fact that many neocons, such as Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney, etc. are currently running the country makes this an important read for anyone who cares about America. Republicans, as well as Democrats, should be concerned about what Brock has to say. Many people watch the neocon Fox News channel or read the neocon editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal without realizing that they exist to indoctrinate and promote a certain agenda rather than inform. The fact that we were all deceived about the imminent threat Iraq posed, by the right wing media is alarming.Neoconservatives were originally liberals who abandoned the left largely because of their hatred of communism and their belief that Democrats minimized the communist threat. Republicans normally were isolationist and promoted small government. Neoconservatism is an ideology that supports using American power (military and otherwise) and wealth to mould the rest of the world into what they feel protects American interests. Their agenda requires larger government, increased military spending, unilateralism (i.e. no UN) and nation building. As recent events in Iraq have shown the neocons live in something of a fantasy world. It is not easy to overthrow bad governments and install something better. Brock was a member of the third generation of neocons. He started out a liberal at Berkeley but felt that the left was too radicalized, which was largely true in the 1970s. However, he became swallowed up in a completely radicalized right wing movement. As he became more successful in his writing career he tried to justify his behavior. He wrote a character assassination of Anita Hill even though he believed she was telling the truth, simply to assure the nomination of Clarence Thomas (whose policies he disagreed with). He was part of a conspiracy to destroy the Clinton presidency and actually started the ball rolling on Clinton's impeachment with his article on Troopergate even though he doubted the credibility of the troopers involved. He ignored homophobia among his friends and colleagues. He ignored unethical behavior from a trusted advisor, a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals judge. Some question if Brock is actually telling the truth in this book because he lied in the past or because he did not use footnotes. The fact that no one mentioned in this book has filed a libel or slander suit against Brock is evidence enough that he is telling the truth. Many neocons have attacked Brock's character but have not challenged anything his book has to say. Regardless of your political beliefs you should want to know about the sleazy, dishonest world of right wing movements. You should want to know that some in the Christian right want to implement Biblical law such as the death penalty for adultery. You should want to know about the mis

read it and be frightened

If one is to believe one half of what the author says then Hillary Clinton's accusation of a right wing conspiracy to topple President Clinton was right. Brock details the financing and tactics of a the modern right wing which so hated and loathed the idea of a Clinton presidency that they wished to destroy him at every turn. When Reagan was president, the Democrats complained but did so within the framework of democratic dissent. The GOP right wing as led by Gingrich, the Christian right, Richard Mellon Scaife, the American Spectator magazine, Rush Limbaugh and so many others coordinated their efforts for maximum effect. Their initial concerns were of moderate Democratic policies. They also believed in revenge for both simply beating incumbent Bush 41, of defeating Bork for Supreme Court and of being liberal minded. One wonders from reading this book if our notion of fair play and honest debate was hijacked by the right wing which so believed in its own mantra that they would do anything to demonize those who disagreed with them. And, the sex scandals that Clinton brought on himself were only additional fodder for the cause; this group was out to destroy Clinton and his 'liberal' friends well before Lewinsky. This book makes for a good read and needs to be considered as a wake up call. The isolationists of the 30s, McCarthyites of the 50s, radicals of the 60s and White House criminals of the Watergate era have all returned to the Republican party of the 1990s. Brock details it; we read it and decide for ourselves.

An inside look at beltway isolation from reality

For me, the most telling fact in this book is David Brock's confession that in researching and writing his best seller about Anita Hill and the Thomas confirmation hearings, he did not speak to ONE source from the other side. Not one. This book's greatest revelation is this: That a best selling author of books and articles that could so profoundly affect our politics, and, in turn, profoundly impact the lives of the nation's citizens, spent years completely isolated within a very tiny beltway community -- that was equally isolated from much of the rest of Washington, as well as from the greater interests of the nation.Nowhere in this book is there any indication that the denizens of that little world gave any real thought to what was going on in the larger life of the nation. The desires and interests of the larger population of American voters is not part of the equation in their strategies and scheming. As for the "other side" -- they were simply perceived as the hated enemy, with no consideration ever given to the fact that they represented the political will of large numbers of Americans.In Brock's tiny world, not only was Clinton "illegitimate," but so, by implication, were the millions of voters who put him, and kept him, in office. Mr. Brock's experience is on the Right, of course, and there is no way to know, from this book, if the obvious detachment from the greater American experience and interests is as rampant on the Democratic side as it apparently is within the conservative "3rd Generation" movement that Brock writes about and once epitomized. But, considering how completely the "mainstream" beltway reporters and pundits abandoned the issues that American voters had made apparent as their major concerns in the '92 election -- health care, economic strategies for dealing with the displacements of a globalized economy, deficit reduction, among others -- in order to embrace the questionable "character" themes and false scandals propagated by these conservative strategists and polemicists, one can only conclude that, at least in what is often called the "liberal" beltway media, an equally profound detachment prevailed.Brock is a good writer, and this book moves along briskly. His gradual awakening to the lack of integrity and honesty in his own work is logical and believable. This is not the usual tale of political conversion from one "side" to its opposite. Instead, it is the story of one man's journey away from self-delusion. In the process, much is revealed about how political opinion is manipulated and controversy contrived. In the long run, this book left me with disturbing questions about what is going on in Washington -- most especially about the apparent lack of commitment to, respect for, and understanding of, the principles and institutions of democracy among our nation's "chattering" class. Anyone who cares about democracy -- at every point on the political spectrum -- should read this book. It provides a clear view of a dist

A disturbing portrayal of the moral life of the Right

In one way, this book does not break much new ground. Much of what Brock has to share has been presented to the public before by a number of investigative reporters, though it should be added that for many of them, Brock was an important source of information. Indeed, I learned many of the details in this book from reading Conason and Lyon's THE BETRAYAL OF THE PRESIDENT, which mentioned Brock's experiences on several occasions. What is new is the insider's perspective the book offers. The many books on the Clinton years and the shenanigans of the Right in trying to destroy Clinton are mainly written from the viewpoint of the Left. Although a convert, Brock gives some insight from within his old position.In many ways this book is much better than I had anticipated, though in a couple of ways the book bothers much like his book on Anita Hill did. The book does seem more honest and truthful than I had expected. He seems to have matured a lot over the past few years. The genre to which the book belongs is largely that of conversion narrative, which he rightly acknowledges in the Preface. Conversion narratives-both in books and films-were extremely common in the 1940s and 1950s, during the days of the Red Menace, and in the 1970s and 1980s, as former radicals moved to the mainstream. The book is unique in chronicling one person moving from the Right to the Left, instead of the opposite, more common direction in such narratives. But the book is also in part personal confession, as well as an indictment of his former friends.It is the indictment aspect of the book by which I am most bothered. Brock rightly is disturbed by much that he discovered on the Right: cultural and social intolerance; the unconcern for the truth and obsession with harming their enemies, even if it meant telling lies or half lies; the lack of ideas apart from attacking their opponents; their demonization of those on the Left; and the enormous hypocrisy on the part of many of those who were morally intolerant of Clinton. The problem is that in proving their hypocrisy, he deals a bit more than I like with the adulteries and other sins of those on the Right. The book is already getting some press because near the end he suggests that Matt Drudge, of The Drudge Report, pretty transparently made explicit homosexual overtures to him. I am always uncomfortable when anyone "outs" someone who is not already "out." Also, Brock also uses a lot of negative physical imagery in discussing his former colleagues. He has a genius for describing people in profoundly unflattering ways. I can understand pointing out someone committing adultery while at the same time condemning Clinton. But what is the point of talking of how unattractive someone is? The crucial event in Brock's beginning to move from the Right to the Left was, he recounts, the publication of STRANGE JUSTICE: THE SELLING OF CLARENCE THOMAS by Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson. The book was in many ways a refutation of Brock's own book on