Idiot Proof: Deluded Celebrities, Irrational Power Brokers, Media Morons, and the Erosion of Common Sense

Rating:
Summary: EGO TRIP
Review: This book has no original ideas, says nothing positive about any subject, has no theme except "I am so smart and all others in the world are so stupid."

I kept looking for another message, or some indication about what might take us in a better direction but could find nothing. It was discouraging to be required to select between one and five stars.... as without that requirement my rating would be "Less than Zero!"

Rating:
Summary: A Failure of Nerve?
Review: Yes, there are worthwhile portions of this book, such as the author's dissection of some of the idiocies of "free market capitalism" and the "children of Abraham." Nevertheless, the book could have been so much better.

First, I must heartily agree with those who have criticized the book's poor organization. Where was/were the editor(s)?

Second, the book does go on at unnecessary length about Princess Diana. Furthermore, although Wheen is certainly aware of "Mother Teresa," who died days after Princess Diana, he gives Ma T (who is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the most over-rated public figures of the 20th century) no more than a passing mention. Now Ma T is a subject ripe for the sort of treatment the author gives to Princess Diana. However, not a word about Ma T's grotesque warehouses of the sick and dying, not a word about the vast sums of money and other contributions collected by her organizations that were obviously not actually used, and not a word about her perverse ideas on suffering, for example: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."

Third, although Wheen does deal to some extent with the anti-scientific fraud of Creationism (he doesn't give it enough attention, in my opinion), he does not deal with the "Shroud of Turin".

Fourth, the relatively few pages on "right-wing conspiracy theories" seem like lip service. There is so much more that he could have mentioned. He could have mentioned that the Birchers still would have us believe that President Ike was a "conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy." He could have mentioned the persistent efforts to (ahem) whitewash slavery (part of the heinous liberal plot to defame the white, Christian South). Recently, one of those efforts, the booklet "Southern Slavery as it Was" found itself into classes at Cary Christian School in Cary, NC. He could have mentioned the ongoing attempts to promote the obvious lie that large numbers of Americans were being held prisoner by Vietnam for years after the return of the POWs, and that there was an elaborate government coverup to hide the existence of these prisoners. You can still find assertions that there are still US prisoners in Vietnam. He could have mentioned those things and many others, but he did not.

Finally, he seems afflicted with the "Must Have BALANCE!" disease that crops up in so many pundits. Hence the section devoted to the crimes of various (gasp) heinous leftoids. Much of this section verges on being outright ridiculous. For example, he goes into high dudgeon over the dastardly anti-Americanism of Noam Chomsky, who, among other crimes, was insufficiently critical of the Khmer Rouge. Wheen conveniently fails to mention that the US government, for no discernible reason than to spite the government of Vietnam, *who were the ones who overthrew the Khmer Rouge*, "...became tacit supporters, for nearly a decade, of the Khmer Rouge, despite their murderous regime. The United States government continued to recognize the ousted regime as the legitimate occupants of Cambodia's seat in the United Nations" (Arnold R. Isaacs in _Vietnam Shadows_). Most of that period occurred during *Republican* governments in the US, but it wouldn't be convenient to acknowledge that. Wheen also gets self-righteous about something Michael Moore (a favorite whipping boy of American Fascists and their useful idiots) wrote that is obviously a comment on the savagely murderous absence of any sort of selectivity in (...)choice of targets. Wheen conveniently neglects to mention that Ann Coulter openly expressed the wish that the planes had hit the New York Times. Coulter has also openly advocated the persecution of "liberals". In fact, *far* more prevalent and dangerous than any heinous leftoids are the legions of poison-pen and poison-tongue right-wing propagandists, backed by vast amounts of right-wing money, who constantly dump their raw sewage into American society. No, it wouldn't do at all to acknowledge that particular unpleasant truth about "life in these United States." This books's glaring faults significantly outweigh its small virtues, in my opinion.