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Right Is Wrong
How The Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America,
Shredded The Constitution, And Made Us All Less Safe
(And What You Need To Know To End The Madness)
Well, I'm really tired of these 'I hate the right' books. I'm not sure why I even read this one. It was just on my bookshelf, I guess. Having said that, you really can't go wrong with Arianna Huffington if you want to know why you shouldn't vote Republican. As a former Republican herself, she has an insight that's hard to come by elsewhere. The fact that she has a witty style, full of obscure pop-culture references doesn't hurt.
Huffington mostly blames the media for allowing the Republican messes to go unchallenged. She points out the fallacy of the "equal time" approach the news media takes,
Historically, there was only one morally legitimate view on slavery, women's suffrage, and witch-burning. When you talk to experts -- independent health policy institutes, Middle East diplomats, climate scientists -- the facts are clear. There are not two valid sides to issues like global warming or health care.
We can argue about what to do, but unless you're crazy or a liar, you can't honestly claim that the drug and insurance companies aren't an obstacle to public health, that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a serious threat to U.S. security, or that global warming is a fraud and then demand equal time to spout some nonsense that gains an aura of legitimacy from the "let's hear from both sides" approach of the news media.
Damned straight! I'm pretty sick of of the he-said-she-said approach to news with no referee telling me who is right and who doesn't have their facts together.
Huffington covers all the sins of the Republicans, from Iraq to Afghanistan to empowering Iran. And continues with their approach to the economy and health care -- which is to say, they stick their heads in the sand on these issues. She describes the Republican obstructionist response to health care reform this way: "If [Clinton's] health care succeeded, then who knows what the government might successfully fix next: public education, the environment, our crumbling infrastructure? The mind reels."
Lastly, she takes on the Republican's delusions of moral superiority,
With 36 million people living in poverty, and 47 million with no health insurance, what we need is the resolute conviction to transform data into narratives and economic issues into moral ones. From real moral values spring clear political priorities that can counter the Right's divisive religiosity -- and win back America's values voters.
Now that's something I've always believed -- the left is inherently morally superior to the right. After all, it's from the left that the fight against poverty comes, and from the left that the fight for a living wage comes, and from the left that the fight for decent health care comes. Pretty much all that is good comes from the left. The right brings nothing but obstruction and destruction.
Anyhow, it's too late to read this book before the election -- and the way the GOP is going to have to reinvent itself, it may be moot for the next election. Oh well, Right Is Wrong is good for some nostalgia, anyhow. I recommend it for anyone who can't get enough of either Arianna Huffington or Republican misdeeds.