Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} American Taliban How War Sex Sin and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right by Markos Moulitsas American Taliban: How War Sex Sin and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right by Markos Moulitsas. Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. What can I do to prevent this in the future? If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. Cloudflare Ray ID: 658c2dd19d01c3e8 • Your IP : 188.246.226.140 • Performance & security by Cloudflare. Answer This: Moulitsas. Over the past five years, perhaps no one has more prominently personified the left-wing blogosphere than Markos Moulitsas, who founded the liberal online community Daily Kos in 2002. Among its hundreds of thousands of registered users, the site can boast such notable posters as Sens. John Kerry and Harry Reid, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. The annual Netroots Nation convention, an offshoot of the site, has become a must-attend for liberals in just four years of existence. Moulitsas' new book, "American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right,” continues his penchant for blunt political talk, especially against the right. As the title suggests, Moulitsas divines links between the Republican Party and the Wahhabi Islamist political movement in Afghanistan. "America’s primary international enemy—Islamic radicalism—insists on government by theocracy, curtails civil liberties, embraces torture, represses women, wants to eradicate homosexuals from society, and insists on the use of force over diplomacy. Remind you of a certain American political party?" reads the book's Amazon.com blurb. Somewhere, Bill O'Reilly's head is steaming (he's a frequent critic of Markos). Perhaps our latest "Answer This. " will reveal Moulitsas’s softer side. At the least, it includes the debut of our first Spanish-language haiku (Moulitsas's mother is Salvadoran). Tell us your favorite joke. I've got three: Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, and Ken Buck. It's hilarious that Democrats are competitive in these races that should've been easy Republican pickups. When's the last time you used profanity? Daily. Heck, minutely. I learned to curse like a motherf'r when I was in the Army, and I've never let up. How many hours of sleep do you get (on average)? Six hours before the kids make enough of a ruckus to wake me up, though I'll usually linger in a half-wake, half-asleep daze for another hour before getting up for good. Describe your level of ambition. I'm content with my lot in life. I've got a great family, my hobby is my job, I get to hang out with the Daily Kos community every day — I can't think of anything else I'd want. In fact, my greatest ambition these days is to finish an Ironman Triathlon. One of these days, I might even start training for one. You're president of the United States for enough time to only make one executive decision. What is it? Full and complete withdrawals from both Iraq and Afghanistan. What's a common and accepted practice for Americans nowadays that you think we'll look back on with regret? Hating on gays. In a generation or two, opposition to gay marriage will seem barbaric, much like opposition to interracial marriage. What is your favorite body part (on yourself) and why? Legs. They are the only place on my body I've ever been able to grow a muscle. What would you attempt to do if you knew that you could not fail? If it's worth doing and I want to do it, then I'll try it. I've never been afraid to fail. In fact, some of my best lessons were learned via failure. In fact, I can't think of anything more boring than doing something with guaranteed success. I need a little uncertainty and drama in my life to make it worth living. On what type of products do you never go cheap on, for the sake of quality? Everything. I buy for the long-haul. Every time I've gone cheap I've ended up upgrading, costing me extra money in the end. Describe a few pet peeves of yours. The Beltway punditry, and its obsession of process over policy. Any politician or pundit who claims to speak for "the American people." Democrats who think they need to act like Republicans to get elected. Email. How often do you Google yourself? Never. Half the links are people who like me. The other half are people who hate me. And then there's the crank who thinks I'm an undercover CIA agent sent to destroy the progressive movement. I've seen more than enough praise and criticism to last a lifetime. What do you know now that you wished someone had told you ten years ago? Buy early into Google. Oh, and wait a couple of years before you buy your house. What childhood event shaped or scarred you the most? I was nine when my family came to the United States from El Salvador, in 1980. I've seen war up front and way too personal. Would you rather:… …live without music or live without TV? I'm a trained classical pianist, and it remains among my most cherished hobbies. I'd give up my TV before I gave up my piano. But good thing you didn't ask about the internet. …be gossiped about or never talked about at all? Your relevance is directly proportional to the amount of chatter you generate about yourself. Given that I'm trying to have an impact on the American political system, I'm more than happy to tolerate crazy CIA conspiracy theories about me. Think of one of your least favorite people in Washington and, without naming them, describe what makes that person so unappealing. Heck, anyone who thinks process — like "bipartisanship" — is more important than the actual end policy. People's lives are at stake. No one cares how a piece of legislation was passed, they only care if it makes their lives better. Let your mother know how much she means to you, in the form of a haiku. Roger Ebert, Hypocrisy, and 'the Big Lie' advertisements GA_googleFillSlot("left1"); GA_googleFillSlot("left2"); GA_googleFillSlot("left3"); GA_googleFillSlot("left4"); GA_googleFillSlot("left5"); Print|Email Roger Ebert, Hypocrisy, and "the Big Lie" Michael C. Moynihan | August 26, 2010. As I observed on Twitter last night (which you would have known if you were following me), the strangest thing about Markos Moulitsas's stupid new book American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right is that it is blurbed by David Coverdale, the leather-faced former Whitesnake front man. Quoth Mr. Tawney Kitaen, "American Taliban shines a blinding light on the conservative right's dark agenda. Anyone who genuinely cares about America should read this book."� The title of Moulitsas' book is pretty self-explanatory, but according to the promotional materials provided by the publisher, the DailyKos founder "pulls no punches as he compares how the Republican Party and Islamic radicals maintain similar worldviews and tactics."� To my comrades on the left, congratulations on the acquisition of your very own Dinesh D'Souza. But today I noticed a few other effusive blurb writers praising the Republican-Taliban connection: MSNBC host Rachel Maddow is, I am often told, a paragon of reason on cable news. Indeed, she opined to Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.): "Do you feel like it's possible to have a constructive debate, even about hot-button issues like abortion, like some of the other things that have attracted some of the most extreme rhetoric? Or do you feel like things have now been so heated, for so long, and there's been so many exaggerations that the prospects for civil discussion are dim?"� Yes, purge the extreme, over-heated rhetoric from the debate. by providing a blurb for a book comparing the Republican Party to the Taliban! Because, as Maddow says, "It isn't possible to understand American politics now without understanding the worldview and arguments of Markos Moulitsas."� In a recent blog post upbraiding Glenn Beck for his reckless invocations of Nazism and Communism, Roger Ebert, the boring movie critic turned heavy-breathing political blogger, laments the "increasing tendency of the extreme right to automatically describe its opponents in negative buzz words."� Couldn't agree more, Roger. But wait! Here he is, offering a warm encomium to American Taliban and Moulitsas, who "alerts us to a clear and present danger in America: radical zealots who disregard our Constitution and our freedoms and who disguise themselves as patriots."� In Ebert's post on Beck, he rightly bemoans the lazy use of Nazi references, "This whole argument is described by a term widely familiar on the internet (sic), the (sic) reductio ad Hitlerum. It is also known, Wikipedia explains, as playing the Nazi card."� But that's only when the other side calls people fascists; when Ebert does it, it's with a certain measure of precision and élan. So in a more recent post, Ebert writes that, in her silly effusions on the so-called Ground Zero mosque, Sarah Palin "employs the methodology of the Big Lie, defined in Mein Kampf as an untruth so colossal that "�no one would believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.'"� No need to explain the implication. A few things about the frequent invocation of the "big lie"� theory, which Ebert, like many others, imply was a Nazi tactic outline by Hitler in Mein Kampf. When dumping on those when deserve to be dumped on for historical illiteracy, it is probably worth knowing that the "big lie"� was an accusation against political enemies, not a tactic to be employed by National Socialists. It is a bipartisan mistake, but one that needs to be corrected. So here is Rush Limbaugh, back in February: In his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf, the expression was coined by Hitler "to describe a lie so 'colossal' that no one would believe that someone 'could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.'" The Big Lie had to be so big that nobody would believe that anybody would have the audacity to lie that way. If you're going to lie, go big, put your lie on an Atlas rocket and launch and fire that sucker. That was Hitler's theory, because "For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying." Or this story in the San Jose Mercury News, explaining that former California Governor Jerry Brown described Meg Whitman's campaign as using "the tactics devised by Nazi Josef Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's propaganda minister and the inventor of the Big Lie principle in politics."� Note that this time it's Goebbels who "invented"� the "Big Lie principle."� NPR host Neal Conant cites "the big lie theory, practiced by Nazi propagandists in the 1930s,"� also attributing it to Josef Goebbels. Naomi Wolf, who knows less about fascism than your average 14-year-old Call of Duty obsessive, also invokes the "big lie"� as coming from the fascist playbook. And so on. But the "big lie"� theory, mentioned only once in Hitler's rambling manifesto, is part of a larger argument about the supposed Jewish betrayal of Germany in the First World War. It isn't the blueprint for a Nazi media strategy, but a mad exposition on what is considered a "Jewish"� way of media deception; i.e. the Jews, via socialist newspapers like Vorwärts, have spread a "big lie"� that the First World War was lost militarily when, in fact, said those on the radical right, it was lost in the salons of Berlin and Munich. So here is the important context of the "big lie,"� from Mein Kampf: By branding [General] Ludendorff as guilty for the loss of the World War, [the Jews] took the weapon of moral right from the one dangerous accuser who could have risen against the traitors to the Fatherland. In this they proceeded on the sound principle that the magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitives implicity of their minds they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big. So while it might seem a nitpicking detail, it is a rather important distinction, especially when lampooning the historical illiteracy of others. Help Reason celebrate its next 40 years. Donate Now! StumbleUpon| Digg| Reddit| Twitter| Facebook. Try Reason's award-winning print edition today! Your first issue is FREE if you are not completely satisfied. So. who are the Jews in this psycho-drama? The American people who, because of Obama, will soon be lead to the ovens. Yes I did write that. Fuck you Moynihan! Hyperbole is teh sh*t!! reply to this The Thinking Man's NASCAR|8.26.10 @ 11:54PM|# Are you implying that Jewish people are made out of heavy metals? Are there a lot of Jewish rockers? reply to this KISS & Anthrax|8.27.10 @ 8:34AM|# reply to this Ramones & Anvil|8.27.10 @ 10:18AM|# Oy! What are we, chopped liver? That sounds nice. Editorial & Production Offices: 3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Suite 400 Los Angeles, CA 90034 (310) 391-2245. advertisements GA_googleFillSlot("left1"); GA_googleFillSlot("left2"); GA_googleFillSlot("left3"); GA_googleFillSlot("left4"); GA_googleFillSlot("left5"); Print|Email Roger Ebert, Hypocrisy, and "the Big Lie" Michael C. Moynihan | August 26, 2010. As I observed on Twitter last night (which you would have known if you were following me), the strangest thing about Markos Moulitsas's stupid new book American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right is that it is blurbed by David Coverdale, the leather-faced former Whitesnake front man. Quoth Mr. Tawney Kitaen, "American Taliban shines a blinding light on the conservative right's dark agenda. Anyone who genuinely cares about America should read this book."� The title of Moulitsas' book is pretty self-explanatory, but according to the promotional materials provided by the publisher, the DailyKos founder "pulls no punches as he compares how the Republican Party and Islamic radicals maintain similar worldviews and tactics."� To my comrades on the left, congratulations on the acquisition of your very own Dinesh D'Souza. But today I noticed a few other effusive blurb writers praising the Republican-Taliban connection: MSNBC host Rachel Maddow is, I am often told, a paragon of reason on cable news. Indeed, she opined to Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.): "Do you feel like it's possible to have a constructive debate, even about hot-button issues like abortion, like some of the other things that have attracted some of the most extreme rhetoric? Or do you feel like things have now been so heated, for so long, and there's been so many exaggerations that the prospects for civil discussion are dim?"� Yes, purge the extreme, over-heated rhetoric from the debate. by providing a blurb for a book comparing the Republican Party to the Taliban! Because, as Maddow says, "It isn't possible to understand American politics now without understanding the worldview and arguments of Markos Moulitsas."� In a recent blog post upbraiding Glenn Beck for his reckless invocations of Nazism and Communism, Roger Ebert, the boring movie critic turned heavy-breathing political blogger, laments the "increasing tendency of the extreme right to automatically describe its opponents in negative buzz words."� Couldn't agree more, Roger. But wait! Here he is, offering a warm encomium to American Taliban and Moulitsas, who "alerts us to a clear and present danger in America: radical zealots who disregard our Constitution and our freedoms and who disguise themselves as patriots."� In Ebert's post on Beck, he rightly bemoans the lazy use of Nazi references, "This whole argument is described by a term widely familiar on the internet (sic), the (sic) reductio ad Hitlerum. It is also known, Wikipedia explains, as playing the Nazi card."� But that's only when the other side calls people fascists; when Ebert does it, it's with a certain measure of precision and élan. So in a more recent post, Ebert writes that, in her silly effusions on the so-called Ground Zero mosque, Sarah Palin "employs the methodology of the Big Lie, defined in Mein Kampf as an untruth so colossal that "�no one would believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.'"� No need to explain the implication. A few things about the frequent invocation of the "big lie"� theory, which Ebert, like many others, imply was a Nazi tactic outline by Hitler in Mein Kampf. When dumping on those when deserve to be dumped on for historical illiteracy, it is probably worth knowing that the "big lie"� was an accusation against political enemies, not a tactic to be employed by National Socialists. It is a bipartisan mistake, but one that needs to be corrected. So here is Rush Limbaugh, back in February: In his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf, the expression was coined by Hitler "to describe a lie so 'colossal' that no one would believe that someone 'could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.'" The Big Lie had to be so big that nobody would believe that anybody would have the audacity to lie that way. If you're going to lie, go big, put your lie on an Atlas rocket and launch and fire that sucker. That was Hitler's theory, because "For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying." Or this story in the San Jose Mercury News, explaining that former California Governor Jerry Brown described Meg Whitman's campaign as using "the tactics devised by Nazi Josef Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's propaganda minister and the inventor of the Big Lie principle in politics."� Note that this time it's Goebbels who "invented"� the "Big Lie principle."� NPR host Neal Conant cites "the big lie theory, practiced by Nazi propagandists in the 1930s,"� also attributing it to Josef Goebbels. Naomi Wolf, who knows less about fascism than your average 14-year-old Call of Duty obsessive, also invokes the "big lie"� as coming from the fascist playbook. And so on. But the "big lie"� theory, mentioned only once in Hitler's rambling manifesto, is part of a larger argument about the supposed Jewish betrayal of Germany in the First World War. It isn't the blueprint for a Nazi media strategy, but a mad exposition on what is considered a "Jewish"� way of media deception; i.e. the Jews, via socialist newspapers like Vorwärts, have spread a "big lie"� that the First World War was lost militarily when, in fact, said those on the radical right, it was lost in the salons of Berlin and Munich. So here is the important context of the "big lie,"� from Mein Kampf: By branding [General] Ludendorff as guilty for the loss of the World War, [the Jews] took the weapon of moral right from the one dangerous accuser who could have risen against the traitors to the Fatherland. In this they proceeded on the sound principle that the magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitives implicity of their minds they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big. So while it might seem a nitpicking detail, it is a rather important distinction, especially when lampooning the historical illiteracy of others. Help Reason celebrate its next 40 years. Donate Now! StumbleUpon| Digg| Reddit| Twitter| Facebook. Try Reason's award-winning print edition today! Your first issue is FREE if you are not completely satisfied. So. who are the Jews in this psycho-drama? The American people who, because of Obama, will soon be lead to the ovens. Yes I did write that. Fuck you Moynihan! Hyperbole is teh sh*t!! reply to this The Thinking Man's NASCAR|8.26.10 @ 11:54PM|# Are you implying that Jewish people are made out of heavy metals? Are there a lot of Jewish rockers? reply to this KISS & Anthrax|8.27.10 @ 8:34AM|# reply to this Ramones & Anvil|8.27.10 @ 10:18AM|# Oy! What are we, chopped liver? That sounds nice. reply to this Steven Smith|8.26.10 @ 7:15PM|# Yes, that was a nitpicking detail. What was the point? reply to this Joshua|8.26.10 @ 7:35PM|# I was hoping you knew. I can capture lighting in a jar, but I can't figure out what the fuck Moynihan just said. STEVE SMITH PICK NITS FROM HIS FUR! NOT UNDERSTAND WHY HAIRLESS HUMAN LIKE MOYNIHAN ATTEMPT TO PICK NITS IF HAVE NO FUR! THIS ENRAGES STEVE! STEVE RAPE NITS NOW! reply to this Warty|8.26.10 @ 10:18PM|# I like how he changed his name to Steven. ME CHANGE NAME! ME FOOL THEM! THEN RAPE! ISBN 13: 9781936227020. American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right. Moulitsas, Markos. This specific ISBN edition is currently not available. “We all agree with the Taliban.”—Rush Limbaugh, October 9, 2009. America’s primary international enemy—Islamic radicalism—insists on government by theocracy, curtails civil liberties, embraces torture, represses women, wants to eradicate homosexuals from society, and insists on the use of force over diplomacy. Remind you of a certain American political party? In American Taliban, Markos Moulitsas pulls no punches as he compares how the Republican Party and Islamic radicals maintain similar worldviews and tactics. Moutlitsas also challenges the media, fellow progressives, and our elected officials to call the radical right on their jihadist tactics more forcefully for the good of our nation and safety of all citizens. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Markos Moulitsas is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos, which gets 2.5 million unique visitors every month. He is a two-time book author, a former Newsweek columnist, a regular guest on national tv and radio news shows, and a weekly columnist at The Hill newspaper. He is also the founder of SportsBlogs, Inc. (SBNation.com), a fellow at the New Policy Institute, and a member of the boards of several progressive organizations. “It isn’t possible to understand American politics now without understanding the worldview and arguments of Markos Moulitsas. If you still believe the beltway caricature of the squishy, compromising, conciliatory American left, American Taliban should disabuse you of that notion.” — Rachel Maddow , The Rachel Maddow Show. “Moulitsas alerts us to a clear and present danger in America: radical zealots who disregard our Constitution and our freedoms and who disguise themselves as patriots.” — Roger Ebert , film critic. “I can’t remember a time in my life when anti-intellectualism and intolerance—from America’s prejudice against evolutionary science to its reactionary condemnation of a scholarly African American president—has been more pervasive. The time has never been more ripe for a book such as this. American Taliban reminds us that fanaticism isn’t always an import.” — Brett Gurewitz , Bad Religion. “A thorough compendium of right-wing hypocrisy and selective memory that is either hilarious or tragic, depending on your mood. And it’s all lovingly couched in outrage and profanity.” — David Cross , I Drink for a Reason. “While not afraid to laugh at the American Taliban , Markos Moulitsas sees the culture warriors for the insidious, dangerous force they present to a free and democratic society.” — Amanda Marcotte , Executive Editor, Pandagon.net. “Markos writes with a conscience and armed with facts to let you know: no, you’re not crazy. What you suspected all along was true—America’s right wing lives on a myth of self-constructed lies about the Other, with a juvenile disregard for reality, and Obama’s presidency has further radicalized an already radical conservative movement.” — Janeane Garofalo , comic and actor. “Markos Moulitsas vividly exposes how the radical right and many leaders in the Republican Party , contrary to their incessant claims, actually hate the cherished American values of freedom, justice, tolerance and diversity of thought and expression. With sparkling clarity, American Taliban sounds the alarm on the well-funded, highly-placed authoritarians in this country who work daily to strip away civil liberties and viciously malign gays, women and other groups, and shows why they are treacherous to American democracy. We better listen.” — Michelangelo Signorile , The Michelangelo Signorile Show, Sirius XM Radio. “American Taliban makes it clear that in a blind taste test the only way you’d be able to tell the difference between the GOP and Taliban philosophies would be beard hair.” — Sam Seder , author, F.U.B.A.R: America’s Right Wing Nightmare. “Markos Moulitsas exposes Limbaugh, Palin, Beck, O’Reilly, Boehner, Gingrich, the Teabaggers, and the Birthers as mullahs of a modern American Taliban hell-bent on imposing their narrow-minded political jihad on us all.” — John Aravosis , editor, AMERICAblog.com. “American Taliban shines a blinding light on the conservative right’s dark agenda. Anyone who genuinely cares about America should read this book.” — David Coverdale , Whitesnake. Daily Kos Founder on the American Right's Radicalism. As Tea Partyers continue to dominate the headlines, Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos, a popular left-wing blog, is rising to the challenge. His new book, American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right , takes aim at what Moulitsas thinks is animating this right-wing revival. He spoke with TIME about his strong stand against the Christian far right, the significance of its resurgence and what Ronald Reagan would have thought of it all. You refer to a whole swath of U.S. conservatives as American Taliban. Is that really helpful? Since 9/11, I've been hearing accusations over and over again that liberals like me want the terrorists to win. I have no love for fundamentalist Muslims — I think they're basically hard-right Christians. There's a shared intolerance. Liberals like me don't want the terrorists to win just like we don't want the American Taliban to win. I don't think there's any reason to say it nicer. It's a two-word way to bring home just how dangerous these people are. (See pictures of Muslims in America.) But we don't see these Americans blowing up statues of the Buddha or riding around in pickup trucks with AK-47s. The fact is that their movement is predicated on the notion that violence is a viable alternative. Abortion doctors have been killed; there's an ammunition shortage across the country because some of these people are hoarding stores for the coming apocalypse. Sharron Angle [a Republican running for the Senate in Nevada] has warned that if voters don't elect the right candidates, they may have to resort to "Second Amendment remedies." The American Taliban may be more constrained by American society and laws than their Middle Eastern counterparts, but that's not a function of tactics, more just the society they live in. Their goals are the same. What are these goals? They want to impose their rigid ideology on us. There is a hostility to gays, to women having equal roles in society, to immigrants, to science and education, to free inquiry. There is a hostility to a culture that won't conform to their rigid worldview. (See pictures of the Tea Party movement.) America has a long history of right-wing populist movements. Is this latest iteration that different from those that preceded it? There's an embrace of the fringe that I don't think has happened in the past. There's a populist uprising against an African-American President whose middle name is Hussein that has brought out a lot of hatred and bigotry. Anti-Muslim sentiment is at an all-time high, perhaps more so than after 9/11, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it comes on the heels of Obama being elected. It's brought out fears of the other, of change, and it's made them into a very cohesive movement. Much of the anger that gets articulated by Tea Partyers has to do with a sense of loss of freedoms. That's not a racial thing. It's all rhetoric. If they were consistent with their rhetoric, I would respect them a bit more. They say spending is bad, but tax cuts for the rich are good. Make up your mind: Are deficits good or bad? They talk about the health care bill as a violation of freedom — a public option would have increased freedom and choice. It's funny when they're fighting a mosque near Ground Zero. They clearly don't respect the Constitution. Anything having to do with habeas corpus is under assault. They're going after the 14th Amendment. The notion that they're freedom-loving is laughable. I also think it's laughable that they keep on talking about Ronald Reagan as the patron saint of modern conservatism. I have sections of the book where I discuss how he would now be drummed out of the Republican Party because he was pro-amnesty, he met with our enemies, he wasn't rabidly anti-gay, he raised taxes. He was a downright left-wing radical compared to the current bunch. You're a blogger familiar with the whole world of politicized or partisan media that has come to the fore in recent years. How crucial has that been to the success of this right-wing movement? It's critical. They have created an entire media noise machine that has allowed them to create an alternate reality, where they have decided institutions like NPR and CNN — or anything that does not validate their ideology — are left-wing. And that's basically the entire media world outside of conservative talk radio and Fox News. And so they can live in these bubbles and convince themselves that Barack Obama is born in Kenya and other such conspiracies. Any sunlight or reality check on this craziness would clean it up quickly. The problem is that people live on this media climate. Studies have shown conservatives get their news from a narrower range of outlets, whereas liberals have a wider mix. Part of the reason they've been so successful in creating this anti-Obama hysteria is that there's nothing like it on the left. Nobody can reach significant proportions of the liberal base the way Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck can reach the conservative one. It gives them a huge advantage in partisan battles. Aren't conservatives just simply better at waging these battles? Yes. The perfect example has been the reaction among other liberals to my book. They don't dispute the underlying premise that there are similarities between right-wing fundamentalists; they just wonder, you know, that we shouldn't be using such harsh language. My side is afraid of doing the hard-fought partisan battling that is necessary in this climate. Democrats are so desperate for fairness and approbation, while the Republicans are always up for the fight and project strength. It's an electoral loser to project weakness, time and time again.