Book Review
"Guilty"
Ann Coulter
5/5 stars
"You're preaching to the choir, Ann; we know that the media are not honest brokers."

Of the book:
-7 chapters, 265 pages of prose
-Average of about 38 pages per chapter
-≈5 hours of reading time
-681 citations (x̄=97/chapter; x̄=2.56/page)

I thought I would read this quick 265-pager because I've been trying to get rid of my older books.

Almost all of Coulter's books are about political issues of moment; since this was written in 2008, it's about issues that are 15 years old. 

--Some of the people have (physically) died since the time of the publication of this book. (Rush Limbaugh [R]. John McCain [R?]. George H.W. Bush [R]. Osama Bin Laden [D]. Janet Reno[D]. Linda Tripp [D]. David Kuo [R]. Warren Mitofsky [D]).  

--Others have (politically) died since (Hilary/Bill Clinton [D])

This book was written around the time of Obama's candidacy, and he went on to serve two terms. And then get replaced by Donald Trump. Who was, in turn, replaced by Joe Biden.

I guess the takeaway lesson is to: either hurry up and read political books before they become irrelevant OR to just not read them at all. 

In reality, the specific examples contained in this book are just data points in the (abstract) game of Fabulous/Kooky White People making every issue about them are something so common, it's no more obvious/exciting than atmospheric nitrogen. 

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Big thoughts:

1. We've been here before, many times:  [A quote from a different book "Murder in the Synagogue," p 128] "Civilizations move in cycles of growth and decline; there appears to be no sociospiritual progress from civilization to civilization. The human condition must always remain the human condition..... When a civilization reaches a crisis it is because a theological point has been openly disputed; there's always a religious crisis first, followed by an institutional crisis and eventually the internal destruction of the civilization by its OWN MEMBERS."

2. Freedom of press is something that's really worth reconsidering. 

a. The Chinese press is highly censored, and the US press is supposedly free, but for all of our separate experience, our mutual conclusions are the same: massive amounts of misinformation and a generally uninformed/deliberately misinformed populace.

b. No-nonsense Chinese governments (on both the Mainland and Singapore) realize that newspapers (such as the New York Times) deliberately misinforming large numbers of people or in a hurry to give away national security secrets just might have some bearing on national security.

3. Having multiple parties is probably also worth reconsidering. Coalition governments in Israel these days last about as long as a bowel movement. Fabulously Wealthy Singapore's People's action Party has been in power for 63 years.

4. I think just in the United States, 1/4 of the country does not read a single book in the course of a year. Also, everybody seems to be taken their cues from celebrities. (QUOTE: "Foreign policy / home video porno star expert Pamela Anderson told Palin to 'suck it"/' while domestic advisor / aspiring lesbian Lindsay Lohan called Palin 'a narrow-minded, media obsessed homophobe.'") Is there any way that this could turn out well?
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Second order thoughts:

1. If you only looked at the news once every year or two, the number of "big" events would seem many fewer. 

2. It's hard to believe, but it is entirely possible to get through an entire life with NO television. (Orthodox Jews do not typically have TVs in the home, and it works out beautifully; I myself read 49 books last year with the saved time and am trying to do 61 this year.)

3. It's not news that empires have a natural lifetime. (Arbesman [2011], average is 220. J.B. Glubb [1978], 220 years.) 

Analogous to how human beings can (eventually) suffer as a result of a life that's too comfortable sitting on the couch and eating cakes, a nation that gets affluent in such a way that old problems disappear, will self-generate new problems. (People only have time to worry about exhaust engines contributing to global warming once they have forgotten about all of the problems that having transportation solves.)

4. The US is not a special case. 

a. Sometimes nations just fall into something stupid and never come out of it. Japan lived under a shogunate for 7 centuries. Confucianism hampered progress in China for 20 centuries. The caste system has been with us in India for just as long.

b. Sometimes nations make democratic decisions that, in hindsight, turned out to be a *really* bad idea. (The Weimar Republic leading into the Nazi Party and the Holocaust was 100% democratic. The European Union has democratically invited in its own Muslim infestation, is spite of fighting with them for 1300 years.)

5. Eric Hoffer has noted the desire of academics/intellectuals to turn the entire world into a gigantic classroom that is waiting for them to teach. So cultivating a sense of helplessness is quite expected. (Everybody "catches a case," but nobody can admit to being in court based on something that they actually did.)

Short Attention Span Summary: F.A. Hayek ("Why The Worst Get On Top.")

6. It may not be quite as bad as what Coulter is letting on: the circulation of the conservative Wall Street journal is a multiple of the circulation of the fraudulent New York Times--and ALL of WSJ is behind a paywall. Fox News is also the most popular news show, by far. Also, the media has dramatically lost credibility with the events surrounding the George Floyd riots ("mostly peaceful protests") and the covid hysteria. There may be no person over the age of 12 who does not know that the fastest way to get inaccurate information is to turn on CNN.


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Chapter synopses

1.  We all know that 150% of the news is fake. (That's why we don't have a TV in this house, and why I don't watch any news; if something is important enough it will make its way to my ears.)

2. The relationship between out of wedlock births is obvious to everyone except the American left. And Coulter has taken up this theme many times. Brief history of several of the legal / supreme Court decisions that have incentivized single motherhood.

3. Asking questions about a candidate's policy positions is thought to be rude if the candidate is a Democrat. Somehow, this gets reinterpreted as a "smeared by the Republican attack machine." It's not exactly news that reality gets stood on its head by the media.

4. More recapitulation of the fact that the press is not an honest broker, with specific examples and the focus on the fictitious person of JFK. Vicious (but comedic gold) takedown of Scott McClellan/Justice David Souter/ Ariana Huffington / Anita Hill / Keith Olbermann / Joe Wilson / David Kuo  in a single skit that only lasted three pages. Almost worth repeating in its entirety. Beatdowns of 13 books by Republican turncoats.

5. Recapitulation of: Whitewater, Troopergate, Travelgate, Filegate. More examples of Clintonian corruption (the Arsenic Levels Hoax). A reader would come away from this book thinking that Clinton= Mobutu.

6. Polls are often not accurate (Mitofsky!), as well as being, um, "man-made/ man-caused"; Politicians are the easiest and most frequently duped by them.

7. More verbal contortion in newspapers describing conservative candidates versus liberal ones. "Bubbly/colorful / a soccer mom / a party animal / (legacy) a book of First Lady photographs" when applied to a Conservative candidate becomes "bookish/doughty / a librarian / a hostess in the traditional mold / (legacy)a cookie named after her."

(p.232) If you were not aware that Michelle Obama looked *just like* Jackie Kennedy, you would find it out from reading certain publications.

Interesting factoids: 

a. Mr. and Mrs. B. Hussein Obama gave 5.8 and 6.1% of their income to charity in 2006-2007; Joe and Jill Biden gave 0.15% and 0.31%. John McCain gave 27.3% and 28.6%.

b. (p.238) George Soros is a nasty piece of work. He has been defiant multiple times about collaboration with Nazis and stealing Jewish property. ("...... Just like in markets - - if I weren't there, somebody else would be taking it away anyhow.")

c. All of our political assassins have actually been left wingers. John Wilkes Booth. Charles J. Guitar. Leon Czolgosz. John Schrank. Giuseppe Zangara. Lee Harvey Oswald. Sirhan Sirhan. Arthur Bremer. Lynette Fromme. (100% white.)
A lot of very good quotes here:

1. "Every time the Clinton administration made a joke it was a law and every time they made a law, it was a joke."

2. "For years, we've been told how unbelievably sexy Bill Clinton is. If a beer belly, bloated cheeks, tiny, close-set eyes, and a big head equals handsome, where the hell is Newt Gingrich's modeling contract?"

Verdict: I might recommend this at the price of $1. Maybe $2 The information is too dated, but the jokes are great. (I might have to remember a few of these and use them myself.)