Sign-In
Cart
Fat Man Fed Up: How American Politics Went Bad
Paperback
General Political ScienceGeneral SociologyUnited States Politics
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 0812970926
ISBN13: 9780812970920
Publisher: Random House Trade
Published: Jul 12 2005
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.42
Height: 0.58 Width: 5.30 Depth: 8.02
Language: English
ISBN13: 9780812970920
Publisher: Random House Trade
Published: Jul 12 2005
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.42
Height: 0.58 Width: 5.30 Depth: 8.02
Language: English
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.
- 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.
Also in
General Political Science
Capitalism and the Camera: Essays on Photography and Extraction
James, Daniel
Coleman, Kevin
Paperback
$28.45
Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games
Jakobsson, Mikael
Flanagan, Mary
Hardcover
$52.50
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
Anderson, Benedict Richard O'Gorman
Paperback
$12.99
The Craftivist Collective Handbook: Projects, Stories and Methods for Your Gentle Protests
Corbett, Sarah P.
Hardcover
$19.99
Guerrilleros and Neighbours in Arms: Identities & Cultures of Anti-Fascist Resistance in Spain
Marco
Paperback
From $24.99
Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook, and the Maga Media Are Destroying America
Pfeiffer, Dan
Hardcover
$10.99
Urban Revolutions: Urbanisation and (Neo-)Colonialism in Transatlantic Context
Kipfer, Stefan
Paperback
$43.50
Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords, and Militias
Biddle, Stephen
Hardcover
$67.50
By the Light of Burning Dreams: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution
Talbot, David
Talbot, Margaret
Hardcover
$27.54
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
From $12.99
Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
Wolin, Sheldon S.
Paperback
$11.99
Everyday Life and Politics in Nineteenth Century Mexico: Men, Women, and War
Wasserman, Mark
Paperback
$44.93
With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful
Greenwald, Glenn
Hardcover
$35.14
Doing History from the Bottom Up: On E.P. Thompson, Howard Zinn, and Rebuilding the Labor Movement from Below
Lynd, Staughton
Paperback
$18.95
Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back
Stirewalt, Chris
Paperback
From $9.99
China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power
Kristof, Nicholas D.
Wudunn, Sheryl
Paperback
From $8.99
The Clash of Globalizations: Neo-Liberalism, the Third Way and Anti-Globalization
Kiely, Ray
Paperback
$30.00
Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump
Haberman, Maggie
Swan, Jonathan
Hardcover
$30.60
American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn's Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump
Bird, Kai
Goldmark, Susan
Hardcover
$28.80
The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader
Murray, Melissa
Hardcover
$27.00
Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made
Kobes Du Mez, Kristin
Hardcover
$28.79
Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds
Fugelsang, John
Hardcover
From $17.99
Wtf America?!: The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy
Meiselas, Brett
Meiselas, Jordy
Meiselas, Ben
Hardcover
$30.88
Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times: How to Reclaim Your Power, Fight for Freedom, and Reimagine Democracy
Perryman, Skye
Paperback
$16.14
The Counterrevolution: The Fall and Rise of Donald Trump and the Maga Movement
Hanson, Victor Davis
Hardcover
$32.30
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017
Khalidi, Rashid
Paperback
$17.99
The Elijah Mandate: A Call to Courageous Faith in a Hostile World
Tsarfati, Amir
Piflaks, Tolik
Paperback
$18.04
American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union: An Anthology
Meacham, Jon
Hardcover
$34.20
Not Today, Fascists: The Lies That Got Us Here, and the Truths That Will Reunite Us
Welch, Jennifer
Hardcover
$26.09
The Steal: Four Right-Wing Hard-Liners, One Republican Presidency, and the Raid on America's Courts
Wagner, Alex
Hardcover
$26.99
The Crooked Places Made Straight: Reflections on the Moral Meaning of America
Warnock, Raphael G.
Hardcover
$27.00
Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded Usaid
Enrich, Nicholas
Hardcover
$26.10
Pay Attention: How the Algorithms and Media Wars Are Suppressing Truth and Rewiring Your Brain
Pakman, David
Hardcover
$28.50
The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution
Wegman, Jesse
Hardcover
$27.00
So Ordered: An Originalist's View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country
Alito, Samuel A., Jr.
Hardcover
$30.40
There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
Goldstone, Brian
Paperback
$18.00
The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World
Bevins, Vincent
Paperback
From $12.99
If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All
Soares, Nate
Yudkowsky, Eliezer
Hardcover
From $19.99
The New Dark Ages: The Death of Reading and the Dawn of the Post-Literate Society
Marriott, James
Hardcover
$23.40
Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed Bin Zayed's Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East
Cole, Matthew
Hardcover
$28.50
Country of Lords: Neo-Aristocrats, Social Darwinists, Tech Utopians, and the Long Fight Against Equality in America
Phillips-Fein, Kim
Hardcover
$31.50
Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today's Supreme Court
Isgur, Sarah
Hardcover
$28.80
The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon
Schweizer, Peter
Hardcover
$30.88
The Last Free Women: A Daring Escape from Afghanistan and Coming of Age in America
Blumenstein, Rebecca
Kapp, Diana
Hardcover
$28.50
All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump
Scaramucci, Anthony
Hardcover
$26.99
Anti-Fascist Economics: In Defense of Affordability, Dignity, and Democracy
Weber, Isabella
Hardcover
$28.80
The College Scam: How America's Universities Are Bankrupting and Brainwashing Away the Future of America's Youth
Kirk, Charlie
Hardcover
$35.99
The Origins of Totalitarianism: With a New Introduction by Anne Applebaum
Applebaum, Anne
Arendt, Hannah
Paperback
$19.79