For more than forty years, Jack Germond has been covering politics
for Gannett newspapers, the "Washington Star," and the Baltimore
"Sun, " and talking politics on the "Today" show, "The McLaughlin
Group, " and "Inside Washington." Now, in Fat Man Fed Up," "
Germond confronts the most critical issues raised by our election
process and offers a scathing but wry polemic about what's wrong
with American politics.
Is there any connection between what happens in campaigns and what
happens in government? And if not, where does the blame for the
discontent lie? Was Tocqueville right? Do we get the leaders we
deserve? Indeed, according to Germond, the politicians aren't the
only ones to blame, or even the chief culprits. He describes how he
and his colleagues in the news media have been guilty of
dumbing-down the political process-and how the voters are too
apathetic to demand better coverage and better results. Instead,
they simply turn away and too often end up enduring third-rate
presidents.
This no-sacred-cows manifesto faces the problems many are reluctant
to address:
- Polls and how they are used and abused by politicians and press
to mislead gullible voters.
- The critical failure of the press to accurately portray figures
in the political realm, from Eugene McCarthy to Barbara Bush to Al
Sharpton.
- How the complaints about liberal bias in the press miss the real
point: whether that bias, if it exists, colors the way editors and
reporters work.
- The staggering influence of television, and the networks'
inability to provide anything but the most simplistic coverage of
politics.
- The "big lie" school of campaigning. From "Where's the beef?" to
"compassionate conservatism," the politics of empty slogans has
always placed noise above nuance: Say anything loudly enough and
long enough, and voters are bound to mistake it for the truth.
Along the way, Germond illustrates his arguments by drawing from
his war chest of priceless anecdotes from decades in the business.
With his inimitable combination of incisive journalism and sardonic
and witty straight talk, Germond guides us through the fog created
by candidates and the media. In this timely, outrageous, and
compulsively readable book, no one is let off the hook. Fat Man Fed
Up is a bracing look at how we never seem to get the truth about
the people we're electing.
"From the Hardcover edition."
General
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