Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics

by Glenn Greenwald

Overview

A takedown of the GOP’s deceitful propaganda machine from the blogger of Salon’s Unclaimed Territory and the author of the New York Times bestsellers How Would a Patriot Act? and A Tragic Legacy.

Ever since the cowboy image of Ronald Reagan was sold to Americans, the Republican Party has used the same John Wayne imagery to support its candidates and take elections. We all know how they govern, but the right-wing propaganda machine is very adept at hijacking debate and marketing their candidates as effectively as the Marlboro Man. For example:

Myth: The Republican nominee is an upstanding, regular guy who shares the values of the common man.
Reality: He divorced his first wife in order to marry a young multimillionaire heiress whose family then funded his political career.

Myth: Republicans are strong on defense and will keep us safe.
Reality: They prey on fears, and their endless wars make America far less secure.

Myth: Republicans are the party of fiscal restraint and small, limited government.
Reality: Soaring deficits, unchecked presidential power, and an increasingly invasive surveillance state are par for their course.

The first book to dissect the Republican Cult of Personality and leave it openly exposed in its unabashed, shameful depravity, Great American Hypocrites is a deeply necessary call-out to Democrats to attack the GOP with their competitor’s very own weapons.

Praise for Great American Hypocrites

“Intelligent, insightful.” —Daily Kos

“Glenn Greenwald has done it again.” —Alan Colmes

“Glenn Greenwald is a treasure.” —BuzzFlash

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307410313
Publisher:	Crown Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/15/2008
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	555 KB

About the Author

GLENN GREENWALD is a former constitutional law attorney and now a contributing writer at Salon. His political reporting and analysis have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the American Conservative, numerous congressional reports, and various other publications.

Table of Contents

Preface     1
The John Wayne Syndrome     13
How Great American Hypocrites Feed Off One Another     36
Tough Guise     96
Wholesome Family Men     172
Small-Government Tyrants     206
John McCain     247
Acknowledgments     277
Index     279

Editorial Reviews

"The best book I've read on how the media works since Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. . . .If you want to understand how politics and the media work today, how the Republican party has betrayed the principles it purports to defend, and how opinion is manipulated by appeals to fear, prejudice, and other irrational emotions, Great American Hypocrites is indispensable.
"You won't be able to put it down, and you'll never read the paper or watch the news the same way after."
—Barry Eisler

“Those who ignore what Greenwald has to say act at our collective peril.”
—John W. Dean, former Nixon White House counsel and author of Conservatives Without Conscience

“There are few patriots on Capitol Hill. You can count them on your hand. . . . Glenn Greenwald, constitutional lawyer, is one such patriot.”
—BuzzFlash.com

“One of the smartest and most important new voices to emerge in politics in years.”
—Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of Daily Kos and coauthor of Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics

"Glenn Greenwald has done it again.  He’s about to release another great book. . . . From the myth that John Wayne was a great American hero (he was a WWII draft dodger), to how the media perpetuates false images of right-wingers (so much for the “liberal media”) . . . to the falsehood that Republicans bring us smaller government, Glenn lays it out beautifully."
—Alan Colmes

"I rely on Glenn Greenwald, above all, for understanding the assaults by this administration on the Constitution, and for pointing the way toward regaining a republic.  There's no one whose work has impressed me more."
—Daniel Ellsberg

"This book is written with such vicious joy that it is just really fun to read....I'm always amazed by the clarity of [Greenwald's] writing and his ability to indict the conservative mindset with well-articulated factual patterns."
—Matt Stoller, Open Left

"The peerless Glenn Greenwald."
—Josh Marshall

"One of the best political commentators out there . . .Unlike most other bloggers, Greenwald practices journalism . . . Few others are better than Greenwald at sussing out the accidental propaganda inflicted on us by the mainstream press"
—The Village Voice

"Perhaps the most influential civil-liberties writer on the Web"
—The American Prospect

"Blogosphere superstar"
—Mother Jones

"Among the most intelligent and widely read practitioners of blogging"
—GQ

From the Publisher