2 comments about Courage Beyond Words.

1. This book makes claims about the World War II feats of Michel Thomas that are completely at odds with military records, newspaper articles from that era and other reliable sources.
   
   Some examples:
   
   1. Author Christopher Robbins claims Thomas was an officer in the U.S. Army. In fact, Thomas was a civilian employee, and the L.A. Times, which debunked much of this book, has National Archives military documents from 1946 bearing Thomas' signature alongside the words "civilian assistant."
   
   2. In the book, Thomas said he was born in Poland. However, for 38 years, he told journalists he was born in France -- and different parts of France at that.
   
   3. Robbins claims Thomas was with the first battalion of U.S. troops as it entered the Dachau concentration camp in April 1945. After the L.A. Times proved otherwise, Thomas later tried to backtrack, claiming he never said he was with the battalion, only that he arrived at Dachau sometime the first day. Unfortunately for Thomas, he had repeated the story from the book in a sworn court affidavit.
   
   4. The book says Thomas single-handedly discovered and rescued millions of Nazi Party ID cards from destruction at a paper mill near Munich in May 1945. But this version of events is flatly contradicted by October 1945 articles in the New York Times and London Express.
   
   5. Robbins also claims Thomas escaped Gestapo butcher Klaus Barbie. But in 1983, the U.S. Justice Department's chief Nazi hunter called a press conference to denounce Thomas' Klaus Barbie stories. And when Thomas testified at Barbie's 1987 trial, the prosecutor asked the jury to disregard Thomas' testimony, saying it wasn't made in good faith.



2. This new edition of Michel Thomas's biography contains a new final chapter, which describes Thomas's battle in the final years of his life to counter the false and misleading implications of a 2001 profile in the LA Times by its former humor columnist Roy Rivenburg.
   
   Rivenburg ignored a raft of evidence Thomas showed him, as well as extensive documentation in the book, and portrayed Thomas as a fraud who fabricated or exaggerated his WWII experiences.
   
   By cherry-picking minor contradictions, while ignoring overwhelming evidence that undercut his `angle', Rivenburg implied that Thomas did not serve as a CIC Agent, was not a Dachau liberator, played no role in the discovery of the Nazi Party's worldwide membership card files in May 1945, and lied about his encounter with Klaus Barbie.
   
   All of these implications are false.
   
   The investigation undertaken for Thomas's defamation suit against Rivenburg and the LA Times resulted in Thomas's WWII comrades coming forward, unanimously supporting his "claims" and providing documentation to the US Army which led to Thomas receiving the Silver Star for his bravery fighting with US troops in France in 1944. Senators Bob Dole and John Warner pinned the medal on Thomas at the new WWII Memorial in Washington during the week of its dedication in 2004. The Ambassador of France also attended, and saluted Thomas for his bravery fighting with the French Resistance.
   
   Here are some of the facts Rivenburg ignored, and continues to ignore more than six years after his profile was published:
   
   Michel Thomas served as a CIC Agent from 1945-47, as attested to by every surviving member of his CIC unit, all of whom gave sworn declarations in his defamation case against the LA Times. Agent Walter Wimer, for example, stated that Thomas "was sent out on missions by our commanding officers in the same capacity and with the same duties and powers as the other Agents of our unit." Agent Theodore "Ted" Kraus stated, "I worked closely with Thomas within the CIC for approximately 15 months from 1945 to 1947. Thomas operated as a full-fledged CIC Special Agent, not as a civilian employee, translator or investigator. " Kraus was interviewed by Rivenburg in 2001, but was never mentioned in the profile.
   
   Michel Thomas was at the liberation of Dachau on April 29, 1945. He took photos there - and kept the negatives -- that were verified by the curator of the Dachau Memorial museum. Thomas's presence at the liberation was later verified by the very sources Rivenburg quoted in his article to discredit Thomas. After reviewing this evidence and interviewing Thomas, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum honored Thomas before a large crowd at their "Salute to Liberators" event in May 2004.
   
   Thomas's role in the discovery of the Nazi Party's membership card files was confirmed by the leading expert on captured German war documents from the US National Archives, Robert Wolfe. In 2003, Wolfe wrote a monograph detailing this evidence and concluding that, just as he "claimed", Thomas discovered the files at a paper mill outside Munich in the final week of WWII. This was further bolstered by a 2006 article by a veteran prosecutor from the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) in the US Attorney's Bulletin.
   
   Thomas's 1983 criticism of then-OSI chief Allan Ryan's report regarding Barbie was later proven correct when additional documents were found that showed CIC knew of Barbie's past well before 1949 and CIC officials covered this up. The current head of the OSI, Eli Rosenbaum, attended the Silver Star ceremony at the WWII Memorial in 2004.
   
   Rivenburg tried to portray Barbie's prosecutor Pierre Truche as calling Thomas as a liar by quoting an inaccurate translation of a 1987 article in Parisian newspaper Le Monde. Rivenburg left out that Truche met with Thomas in his office after the trial and said he excluded his testimony not because he thought Thomas was lying, but because "The truth can sometimes not be likely" and he did not want to have to explain Thomas's complex testimony to the jury.
   
   As for the "Thomas told journalists he was born in France for 38 years" allegation, Rivenburg provides no evidence for this. It is likely is based on a twisted interpretation of multiple news articles. Thomas left Poland at age 7 after he and his family experienced vicious incidents of anti-Semitism there, and never identified himself as Polish as an adult. He spent his formative years in France, spoke fluent French, and fought in the French Resistance during WWII, as is well-documented by the French Bureau des Anciens Combattants. It is likely that when he was interviewed over the years and was identified as French by various journalists, Thomas did not object to this. Rivenburg has now twisted this to state that Thomas "told journalists he was born in France." As with his other insinuations about Mr. Thomas, this one must also be taken with more than just a grain of salt.

3 comments about First Loves.

1. If you worked as a waiter in the Catskills you are going to love
   this book. Even if you haven't you're still going to be intrigued
   by Ted Solotaroff's journey towards what I might call "certified
   smarts". How many of us come out of the big cities, public libraries and dysfunctional families? Somewhere there is a life of the mind that will pay the bills. Meanwhile we're stuck in a dining room wearing a funny outfit and serving food to the paying customers.
   Mr. Solotaroff tells us what his journey has been like, honestly, forthrightlightly and sometimes too graphically but
   always entertainingly.



2. If you know the South Side, Hyde Park and the University of Chicago, and yearn for the days of the high 1950s - beatniks, bongo drums, struggling writers, waitresses, starving grad students - this book will sate your appetite. It beautifully recreates a lost world - so lost that it has almost been forgotten. Alternately tough, lyrical, and mother-ridden, Solotaroff is a wonderful writer.



3. Ted Solotaroff loved deeply, otherwise he wouldn't have spent so many years married to the madwoman Lynn, whose portrait is etched at the heart of this unsentimental memoir of a decent man, married to a terrible, neurotic woman. She had some literary pretensios herself, but did little but kvetch at him while he labored hard to help create--not only create but define--what was in the 1950s a totally new literary field--important American writing was for the first time predominantly Jewish. His great friend, Philip Roth, continues to write great novels, while some of the other fellows of the period have been forgotten save in memoirs by their friends, like this one.
   
   But, it was a trenchant time in American writing, and one which will not soon be forgotten, even if some of the magic names seem to dwindle away even as he writes about them, all over, anew. Meanwhile Lynn goes from bad to worse, even as Solotaroff gives her at least the virtue of being extremely sexy and alluring. At times we can see why he stuck it out with her. His father, on the other hand, was a pig. There should be more books like this one, books in which we can see a literary movement being born 9and the machinery required to make one happen).

No comments about The Americanization of Edward Bok.

1 comments about Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood.

1. This is a very good book. Very very very good. That's a triple very. Very good.
   In this tale, "The Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood", George Macdonald recounts in very fine detail his first experience as Parson. After reading the book I almost wondered why it was titled "Quiet Neighborhood". Sounds boring doesn't it? Well, it's not. You'll discover some of the most remarkable and extraordinary people in the pages of this book, all with a story of their own. This is one of those books that offers the reader, however, more than a merely interesting story; though it is that as well. Some of George MacDonalds most core beliefs are revealed through the voices and actions of his characters, including the Parson himself (George Macdonald, or Mr. Walton in the book). How much of the book is fiction, and how much of it actually happened, I do not know and it doesn't really say. Nor do I think it matters a great deal.
   What I really love about MacDonald's fiction in general and this book in particular is how he manages to take the theology in his "Unspoken Sermons" (A great book too, in its own right), and translate it into every day situations. While "Unspoken Sermons" deals largely with the theory, Macdonald's fiction stories show practically how these truths can be lived and seen in every day life. Even so is this book. If you like anything else of Macdonald's you'll like this too. If you haven't ever read any Macdonald, well, your missing out. It's easy to see why this man had such a big influence on some of the leading thinkers of the 19th century such as C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton.

5 comments about In Search of Willie Morris: The Mercurial Life of a Legendary Writer and Editor.

1. This is a biography of a life that might have come off the pen of Eugene O'Neill. Willi Morris was a mississippi native who made it big as a writer of a couple books well known in the American literary community, and was head of Harper's magazine for a critical few years.
   
   From this peak of power he degenerated into a life of drinking and womanizing until finally settling down as nominally a college professor back at Ole Miss.
   
   Larry L. King (not the TV host) has written this biography to show Willie Morris as a friend, a genius, a writer and editor of some fame that is now largely forgotten. At the same time, it shows some of the weaknesses, the troubles that made his own life unpleasant.
   
   Willie Morris was one of those people that don't quite reach the highest rungs of the ladder, but come very close, only to fall back down. He was an assist, friend and mentor to many of the best writers of our time.



2. To readers in Mississippi and throughout the South, Willie like Elvis doesn't need a last name.
   
   I first learned of and became a fan of Willie Morris when in the 70's I read his mid life memoir of sorts, North Towards Home. It was one of those books I never forgot. I was less impressed with Morris'later works, especially New York Days.
   ( Boy talk about industrial strength name dropping. But I digress. )
   
   In this book, Morris' long time friend Larry King provides a lot of info about Morris, his carrer, his friends and enemies, his ups and downs, his affairs, etc. While it is an informative and enjoyable read, it is kind of streange in that the author in many instances seems to abandon his "search" for Willie to indulge in a search for himself since he was so close to Morris. That may be a not unacceptable price for the reader to pay to get the huge number of intimate insights into the life of someone who was nothing if not over the top interesting.
   
   As with any such book, there are places where detail gets out of control and scanning is in order, but they are minimal.
   
   Willie Morris, warts and all, will always be remembered fondly by Mississippians as someone who never lost his love for the state ( and its considerable number of "warts" ).
   
   You might have to be a Mississippian to really enjoy the book, but then again you never can tell. Definitely worth a spin.



3. I didn't discover Willie Morris until shortly after he died. After reading North Toward Home and New York Days, I gladly would have traveled across the continent to meet him. Few persons are born with as much charm, and fewer still are born with as much intellect.
   
   Now Larry L. King has brought Willie back to life in the pages of a generous and understanding biography. You won't find a better opportunity to revel in Willie's company one more time.



4. I would like to thank Larry King for introducing me to my former brother-in-law, Willie Morris. (If that sounds a little bizarre at first blush, it will seem less so to those who read Larry King's book.) I always liked Willie and respected him for his achievements, but I never had any illusions that I really knew him. While I was aware of most of the "facts" -- albeit after they had passed through some dubious filters -- that was clearly not enough to understand Willie Morris. Larry King supplies many of the missing pieces, and he does so with frequently lyrical prose, wit, and keen insight. Those who want to know about Willie Morris and his times should read this book and "North Toward Home," sparing themselves the subsequent "dueling autobigraphies" of Willie and Celia Morris.
   
   Larry King accurately captures the famous Willie Morris charm. I learned about it first hand in one of our rare private moments. Willie told me that he had never had a brother and was looking forward to the experience. Although I was aware at the time that this probably wouldn't really work out, I was quite taken by this gesture to the "kid brother." After all, I was certain that however our relationship evolved, it HAD to be an improvement over having an older sister. Meanwhile, I was already impressed that he had been a baseball player and that my parents clearly didn't really approve of their daughter's choice of husbands. Thus, his "charm offensive" certainly worked on me and apparently on many others as well.
   
   King also explores Willie's dark side at some length, but does so sympathetically. At the minor end of that scale, King notes Willie's propensity for isolating himself from the outside world, ignoring letters, messages, or other forms of contact. I understand better now why ne never responded to the occasional notes I sent him complimenting him on this or that piece that he had written. (My wife had somewhat better luck.) At least I learned from Larry King that I was in good company and, in retrospect, don't take it as personally as I did at the time. As Larry King makes clear, Willie had much more serious problems to worry about.
   
   As good as the book is, I have to wonder how broad an audience it will attract. (Of course, the question is somewhat academic at this point.) To be sure, Willie Morris achieved much, especially in the early part of his life, and he certainly rubbed elbows with the famous and powerful. Moreover, there has always been a Willie Morris "cult" -- or, more precisely, cult(s) -- that will dutifully read the book. Still, in the grand scheme of things, that is a relatively small and somewhat rarefied audience. While there's nothing inherently wrong with that, I think Mr. King may have missed an opportunity to introduce a broader audience to Willie Morris. That is too bad because Willie has indirectly affected many people who have probably never heard of him. In that vein, I think that Larry King's basic conclusion that Willie Morris should be remembered mainly for his literary contributions is wrong. Instead, I think Willie should be remembered primarily for those whose careers he helped nurture, including Larry King himself. For example, in martial arts, the measure of a master is the skill of his students. Without extending the metaphor too far, to the degree that Willie Morris helped make it possible for David Halberstam, Larry King, and others to create their magical works and reach wider audiences, we should all bow to his memory. The world owes him a debt. THAT should be Willie Morris' legacy.



5. I didn't discover Willie Morris until shortly after he died. After reading North Toward Home and New York Days, I gladly would have traveled across the continent to meet him. Few persons are born with as much charm, and fewer still are born with as much intellect. Now Larry L. King has brought Willie back to life in the pages of a generous and understanding biography. You won't find a better opportunity to revel in Willie's company one more time.

5 comments about Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair, with Music.

1. Really die-hard music aficionados can probably fill you in on the dynamics in the Beatles or Rolling Stones -- and Helene Stapinski shows that it's not just the big groups that are like that. Her musical memoir, "Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair, with Music" takes on the internal workings of a rising little band.

   Freelance writer Helene Stapinski wanted the play the drums since she was a little girl, so she jumped at the chance to join I Hate Jane with two other women (and briefly roped her new husband into helping out). The band becomes unbalanced when Elizabeth leaves in a huff, and a pair of men join the group. But then things smooth out, and things appear to be going well.

   Professionally, that is. One day Helene's husband comes to her and admits that "baby's been playing around" with some little tart at his newsroom. Unsurprisingly, Helene is enraged, and the searing fights and all-out brawls seem to show that their marriage is doomed. So Helene buries herself in Stephonic ("I Hate Jane"'s new name) and plays the drums like never before...

   Not everybody can say they have relationship advice from Elvis Costello. And that weirdly intimate chapter where Elvis saves Stapinski's foundering marriage is one of the best in the entire book. Overall, she does an excellent job of bringing the band life to the readers -- the good (musical highs), the bad (internal tension), and the ugly (Stapinski being fired for no good reason).

   Stapinski's writing is pleasant and descriptive, like a novel. A very you-are-there feel. And her humor is likably self-deprecating: when thinking about how she has no cool indie music in her CD collection, she thinks "Bless me Elizabeth, for I have sinned I just purchased the new Sting album." That is, until she remembers the wonderful band Yo La Tengo.

   That isn't to say that Stapinski's writing is all fun. Her relevelations about her disintegrating marriage are heartbreaking. And there's some understandable bitterness toward the vaguely stalker-like newsroom tart, and a lesser amount toward band frontwoman/singer Julie, who apparently considered herself queen of all she surveyed onstage.

   Helene Stapinski draws readers into a crazy quilt of glittering clubs, Inuit towns and the heart of New York City. "Baby Plays Around," and a what a tune she plays in here.




2. What is it about journalists that they think their lives are so interesting? I'm tired of reading books and articles like this. Stapinski is one of the worst of the lot; she seems to believe that the world is dying to hear everything about her life, her family, her career. Please, spare us.



3. One of the richest, and perhaps one of the most honest nonfiction books I've read, Helene Stapinksi mines her obsessions, both music and love, to create a riveting masterpiece. This story of a freelance writer who falls through the rabbit hole to end up living a childhood fantasy -- as a drummer in a band -- speaks to any of us who hold a dream in our hearts about 'what could have been' were we to follow our wilder creative spirits. But it comes with a price, with significant and painful fallout in many of her relationships, particularly with her husband, and Stapinski doesn't spare any of the uncomfortable, awkward, and many times hilarious experiences she encounters, taking the reader on a wild ride through the smoky downtown clubs in Alphabet City. The writing is so inviting and personal you feel as though you're helping her lug her cymbals as she chases the chimera of musical fame, and discovers the true meaning of unconditional love: a love that persists through our fleeting, nonsensical adventures.



4. "Baby Plays Around --A Love Affair with Music" really is the perfect title for this book. The author plays around town in a rock band; her husband just plain plays around. His isn't the only affair here though.
   
   At first glance you might think that this book is meant for a pretty select audience, being about a little band struggling to make it in the New York club scene, but Helene Stapinski is really writing about relationships. As a band member, she must deal with the interpersonal dynamics occuring amongst a group of people trying to be creative and successful, and to add to the complexity of the situation, the band (at least for a time) also includes her husband. Jealousy, competition, ambition, anger and fear all come into play, but each are in a way quelled by the experience of music --an experience that seems to be an awful lot like love.
   
   Though I'm a pretty slow reader, I finished Baby Plays Around in just a couple of days. It held me in both its details and the arc of the character's emotional growth --which I think should be the measure of any great story.



5. I am always on the lookout for authentic books that deal with the music scene -- and I'm not talking about the countless fan books, nor the ones that are simply out to attack one genre or another. Stapinski's entertaining book is written with insight, passion, and unassuming honesty. On the surface it's just another band getting into playing music, being creative, and trying to make it one way or another. It is refreshing that it's not about a famous band, but a chronicle of one of the millions of groups that form and dissolve almost daily. It's easy to forget that each band is made up of musicians -- i.e., people struggling with their individual destinies and myriad relationships (the essence of all good fiction or non fiction). Having played in many bands myself, I could relate to many of the archetypal scenes described. But more than that it took a critical look at the phenomenon of rock, as well as being informative -- especially in regard to the club scene of New York City. A true delight! -- and the last page came all too soon.

5 comments about Over There: From The Bronx to Baghdad.

1. This is nothing but poorly written drivel. A friend in publishing gave it to me. I am so glad I didn't pay for it. Amateur writing coupled with a huge ego. Bleah.



2. Due to the DOD's brilliant policy of "embedding" reporters, there have been very few books written by reporters discussing there view of the war in Iraq. (Where are you David Halberstam?)I was glad to see that Mr. Feuer was brave enough to write about his experience covering the war. Mr. Feuer's book is a classic fish out of water story. He writes an amusing, sarcastic and insightful book about his experience. His book does a great job capturing "T.R's" feelings as he unexpectedly finds himself in the action in Jordan and Iraq. If you are looking for a book that discusses the failures of journalists to adequately cover the war, this isn't the book for you. If you are looking for a great story about one man's journey into a confusing and awful situation, then buy this book.



3. "Three journalists have died in Baghdad. . . American troops are killing journalists in a profoundly foreign country, under cover of a war being fought for savage, greed-crazed reasons that most of them couldn't explain or even understand."
   
   This is a quote from the late "Gonzo Journalist" Hunter Thompson, and Alan Feuer's book captures the same sentiments. A reporter is nothing more than a voyeur, Thompson has said repeatedly, and in this New York Times reporter's case, he has peeped on the underworld of the Bronx Mafia by eavesdropping in Cafes on Arthur Avenue and peeped into the shanty tents of the homeless camped out under the Throgs Neck Bridge. Then he is sent to Bagdad - and thrust into the chaos and confusion of a war he barely understands himself. "Over There," is not a book about the ill-named "Operation Iraqi Freedom" because the author (TR) admittedly does not spend enough time in Iraq to label himself a war correspondent. It is instead a book about a journalist who is parachuted into a gritty warzone and finds himself confronting the same greedy motives he has found covering the mob, dirty CEOs, and hardscrabble, down-on-their luck thieves, back in NYC. It is also a look at the politics of the world's most respected paper and may prompt some high-brow readers who sniff they "only read the Times" to take the hardscrabble reporting of other newspapers just as seriously, if not more so.



4. This author is obviously enamored with Hemingwayesque prose, but unfortunately it comes off in a sophomoric and self-absorbed way. I wish that he had more to say about the war and less to say about himself.



5. I found it very interesting to read this book! I have to say, I was delighted in his writing style, it made me laugh and think, and if he writes another book, I will buy it because I liked his style. It was very interesting to read a reporter write about what he (as a reporter) thought and did, especially in mid-war. How often do we get first hand accounts of the ins and outs of being a reporter? I had no idea how much lag time they suffered, nor had I thought about how intrusive the media can be, with the goal of telling a story to the world.I liked it!

No comments about John L. O'Sullivan and His Times.

No comments about An Accidental Journalist: The Adventures of Edmund Stevens, 19341945.

5 comments about Blood of the Liberals.

1. I really enjoyed Packer's book. I'm roughly a contemporary of his, and experienced the same wrenching events that occurred in modern liberalism during the late 1960s and early 1970s.I'd just finished reading Roth's "American Pastoral", and it was great to follow it up by reading Packer's book.

   Like Packer, my father was an academic at an elite university, and as a traditional liberal who voted for Adlai, he was shocked by what he saw during the late 1960s. On a personal level, I liked reading a book by a writer who likes the same authors I like - Saul Bellow (Humboldt's Gift), Christopher Lasch, Irving Howe et al. There is a passage in which Packer perfectly summarizes the thesis of Lasch's "Revolt of the Elites" - gated communities like the ones that dot my hometown in Southern California.

   The only area where I would fault Packer's book is that he does not criticize the dogmatic, politically correct tone that liberalism took on during the late 1980s and early 1990s and which still haunts liberalism. What alarmed Packer's father was exactly that, and I'm afraid Packer only devotes one paragraph to it. Left liberalism has, I'm afraid, taken on a neo-Stalinist quality on some college campuses, viz, stealing copies of conservative campus newspapers which take politically incorrect stands on such issues as affirmative action. Liberals should decry that just as much as the depredations of the Right. David Horowitz shouldn't be the only one who claims the moral high ground on that issue. I don't know if Packer's father would be a neoconservative today, but he might have been, if he'd lived.

   Aside from all that, I commend Packer's book. It is a decent, humane and intelligent work that says that there's still a place at the political table for liberalism, even for disheartened liberals like me!




2. Words can simply not do justice to the rapturous "Eureka! I have found it" feeling I experienced when I found, read and re-read this timely, vivid and insanely insightful book. (Perhaps I should mention that I have been searching in vain for nearly two years to find material on George Huddleston Sr. written in the literary style of eminent historians Richard Hofstadter and Christopher Lasch which also serves as both a caustic critique and a dynamic defense of the very concept of American liberalism). Packer is a great writer! He surveys the modern history of the American reform movement from 1869 to 2000 in a penetrative yet highly readable style and the word pictures he creates both engage and enlighten the reader immediately and throughout. His highly personal depictions of his family lineage - including triumphs and more than a few tragedies - make the story so poignant and touching that your heart will simply melt even if you don't agree with all of his premises or conclusions. And his understanding of the broad sweep of history is astounding - anyone who reads this book will come away with a much more enlightened view of 20th century American reform efforts than they would ever get from a more traditional historical author. There are only a few flaws (which I will not detail here), but those should be arrived at only after thoroughly studying this absolutely amazing book. Blood of the Liberals is simply one of the very best books I have ever read and I recommend it highly!



3. How did such a basic, rational notion as liberalism turn into the favorite epithet of talk-show hosts? What happened to social justice? Where is the freewheeling spirit of the Sixties? These, and other questions, have haunted me for years. Not being well versed in American history, the seemingly abrupt annhiliation of everything "liberal" has caused me great puzzlement and distress.

   Packer, in a beautiful amalgam of memoir and history, has written a book that has almost singlehandedly restored my relationship with the past and pointed my way to the future. While as a historical account it is spotty, and as a memoir it is sometimes dry, the heartfelt combination of these two styles has a vitality and immediacy I've never seen anywhere else.

   His conclusions, while expansive, are also poignant, with a touch of desperation. In his consideration of the prospects of liberalism in this country, I am reminded of the Monty Python sketch about the parrot - "It's just resting!" - while at the same time I'm stirred by its undercurrent of optimism. His last few words ring in my ears: "We will have a more just society as soon as we want one."

   If you sense that, like myself, you are a lost liberal that is trying to find your way in the world, this book is for you.

   If you are a Rush Limbaugh dittohead who needs a clue as to what "liberal" really means, this book is for you as well.




4. Blood of the Liberals is a near-perfect blend of the personal and the political. Packer's grandfather was George Huddleston, a Congressman from Birmingham, Alabama who represents for Packer a lot of the contradictions in modern liberalism: desegregation versus states' rights, support for the common man against bigness (whether corporate, governmental, or otherwise), and at the same time a belief that government is sometimes necessary.
   
   Packer's father, by contrast, was a pointy-headed academic. He grew up as a shy Jewish boy and moved into the ivory-tower life after some time spent in World War II; Packer paints the war years as rather uneventful for the senior Packer -- indeed little more than a pause from his books. I felt a lot of empathy with the dad; I was the same way when I was a kid, and I'm sure that if I went off to fight a war I'd be mailing home to ask for books and magazines just as much as Packer Sr. was.
   
   I also drew a lot from Packer's portrait of his father, because in that portrait Packer seems to have discovered why liberals keep losing elections. Packer Sr. was an Adlai Stevenson man -- Stevenson, the charismatic, brilliant loser. In a better world, Stevenson would have been our president, but in this world he lost the race twice. The term egghead became popular because one of the Alsops tagged Stevenson with it.
   
   And ever since Stevenson, says Packer, liberalism has been dominated by rather bloodless intellectuals who can't argue persuasively against the bread-and-butter issues that let Republicans win. The common thread among these intellectuals, says Packer, is a love of abstract debate, and the belief that human problems can be solved by the judicious application of reason -- that we can all get along and solve our issues without yelling or fighting. That's fine and good, and as far as it goes it's no more modern than Jefferson. The Jeffersonian strain is one of the key strands that Packer identifies in liberal thought.
   
   Where it starts losing elections, he says, is when the intellectuals start to take it over. Discussions shift from individual people -- this man lost his land, this man's family is starving because of government policies -- to larger universal themes like freedom, equality, justice, and the rule of law.
   
   This adherence to principles loses us elections. It lost Stevenson the election against Eisenhower when he stood up for fairness and impartiality in the anti-Communist witchhunts; he himself was a strong anti-Communist, but he framed his beliefs in terms that Nixon could tear apart.
   
   This doesn't play with the public. The public is more concerned with outcomes than with processes. If the public doesn't feel safe, it will not vote for abstract principles that seem to help their enemies. We could argue for civil liberties all we want, but Republicans will always come back with the argument that they're helping protect us from terrorists. When it comes to a battle between safety and our Constitutional freedoms, safety will always win.
   
   This, at least, is the message that Packer seems to be sending so far. His diagnosis does seem spot on. And his delivery is just right: he cuts back and forth between an impersonal political tale -- how liberals have ended up in the mess we're in -- and a personal story about discovering his father's and grandfather's role in it all. It is at once autobiography and political cautionary tale. I'm amazed that he could pull it off.



5. I admire the liberalism of Franklin Roosevelt and company as much as the next person. I admire politicians who speak up for the common man. But am I the only one who notices how complacent and dishonest George Packer really is on the subject of race?
   
   While Packer seems sincere in his goodwill towards blacks, the southern history in this book is seriously distorted. In what appears to be a misguided effort to make liberalism more palatable to "ordinary" white Americans, George Packer tries to whitewash the racism of his own grandfather, a mediocre congressman from the depths of the Jim Crow era.
   
   Packer claims that his grandfather Huddleston spoke for the "common man." But he fails to examine the real ugliness of his grandfather's position. The vicious, lynching white men of Alabama sent him to Congress back in 1908. They allowed him to make his little chirping noises about "common men" and "Jeffersonian democracy." But all the old man was doing was providing long-winded camouflage for pure evil, for a reign of terror against black people. We don't need to revive the weak-willed cowardice of Packer's grandfather. We need to remember what his lying words really stood for, and who paid the real price for his success.
   
   While we're reviving dead American heroes, why can't we bring back all the black men who got lynched while Grandpa Huddleston was in Congress? Come to think about it, what about all the black American soldiers who were killed in combat in the Spanish American War? Georgie Packer doesn't care about their sacrifice. Like most modern liberals, he regards all military personnel with contempt. In fact, Packer tells us with evident pride that his sniveling Grandpa couldn't even make the grade in combat -- he played sick, and sat out the Cuban war, stateside. (At least Hitler won the Iron Cross.)
   
   George Packer, the modern liberal, doesn't bother to draw the comparison between his grandfather's shirking and the courage of black men. But there is a striking contrast between Grandpa Gutless Liar and the black heroes who served honorably under Pershing. That's General "Black Jack" Pershing, by the way. As in, he commanded black troops in Cuba. But you won't learn about that from lying little Georgie, who loves his Alabama grandpa but has no use for black men with guns.
   
   While Packer condemns the social policies of the conservatives, and blames them for black poverty and crime, it is nevertheless regrettable that the only blacks in this book are either helpless "victims" or rude, ill mannered nationalists. Packer claims to have hated the Sixties, and condemns black campus radicals who were "violent." Apparently any black who raises his voice to George Packer is a public menace. He doesn't mention the thousands of black men who served in Vietnam. And he never acknowledges the lynchings his Grandpa allowed to happen with his blessing.
   
   While he absolutely refuses to discuss the countless daily hate crimes his grandfather countenanced as a legislator, Packer makes a big thing out of Grandpa Huddleston "opposing" the war against Kaiser Bill. I can see why a lynching autocrat like Huddleston would identify with Prussian brutality and the rule of blood and iron! But I don't understand why George Packer has more respect for his yellow, gutless grandpa (who ended up voting for the war, by the way) then for the black heroes of the 369th Infantry, a.k.a. "Harlem Hellfighters." They weren't sullen, spoiled campus radicals, George. They were men. Soldiers. And I don't propose for our race to be cheated of its place of honor in this country because of fools like you -- or Grandpa Lynching Leghorn Huddleston.
   
   So many real American heroes are trivialized or ignored in this hateful, stupid book. What about me, George Packer? I graduated from Columbia in 1985, and I joined the Marines -- as an enlisted man -- in 1986. You're my age. But you say you would never have joined the military because it was "beneath" you. Don't you see that your hypocrisy and elitism is precisely what's poisoning the liberal movement?