Greenwald's got a self-promotional post up, which links to a number of left-wing reviews already available. One of these is Digby's, where she notes:
I've been thinking about torture all week-end which naturally led me to think about Glenn Greenwald's new book, Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics which is being released today.Frankly, I suspect that Greenwald's audience consists entirely of those on the far-left of the spectrum. I mean these are his people, assorted antiwar whackos, anti-FISA-fanatics, and irretrievable BDS sufferers.
It's not that the book is about torture, but it is about the Republican psyche, in particular about their weird cult of masculinity, which is what leads to over-the-top notions of violent necessity in dealing with national security.
As Megan McArdle noted last week, Greenwald's pretty much unhinged, always railing against anything and everything, which McArdle identifies as the "non-Glenn-Greenwald power structure."
If you check the Amazon link, most of the reviews are posted by these same hangers-on lefties, a fact which doesn't impart much objectivity to the recommendations. Markos Moulitsas notes, for example, "One of the smartest and most important new voices to emerge in politics in years." Well, that just makes my day!
But check out the Publisher's Weekly blurb-review at Barnes and Noble:
With this provocative book, Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer and author of A Tragic Legacyand How Would a Patriot Act, purports to expose the "rank myth-making and exploitation of cultural, gender and psychological themes" by the Republican Party. The author begins his attack by targeting John Wayne, whom he sees as a template for right-wing notions of "American courage and conservative manliness." Wayne's avoidance of military service and his string of divorces, both at odds with his public image, are emblematic in this account of a fundamental hypocrisy implicit in conservative mythologies. Greenwald goes on to argue that prominent Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney display the same hypocrisy in their public ideologies and personal lives. Shouldering much of the blame are the press and the media, including Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter, Chris Matthews and even Maureen Dowd, all of whom propagate popular attitudes about virile Republicans and effeminate Democrats. Despite the antipathy the author feels for Coulter, his writing is much like hers. More a partisan screed than a reasoned argument meant to persuade undecided readers, this repetitive text frequently devolves into personal attacks and vast generalizations.Not surprisingly, Greenwald doesn't link to Barnes and Noble.
I can tell you right now, though, from getting the gist of Greenwald's thesis from his blog posts, "personal attacks" and vast generalizations" pretty much sum up his writing.
Mind you, I'm planning on reading the book, so I can't claim authority beyond the snippets of Greenwald's thesis I've reluctantly absorbed from his online screeds.
But to refer back to Digby's review, where she praises this notion of the GOP's "weird cult of masculinity" .... well, this so-clalled "weird cult" might be the biggest myth going, something to which only the crazed BDS-types might attach significance
The same aggressive "warmongering" that Greenwald denounces (again and again) is more likely described as America's historical reverence for traditional values of discipline and sacrifice, support of nation, the willingness to see threats for what they are, and a culture of pro-military conservativism holding the armed forces as an essential element in the preservation of democratic society.
These are hard notions to grasp for those who see every GOP national-security talking point as the latest communique from a reincarnated Joseph Goebbels totalitarian propaganda machine.
I'll have more on Greenwald's fantasies in upcoming posts.
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