Killing the Messenger: The Right-Wing Plot to Derail Hillary and Hijack Your Government

by David Brock

Overview

David Brock is the ultimate happy warrior. Once a leading right-wing hit man, Brock is now the Left's pre-eminent defender and truth-teller.

In this incisive, personal account, Brock disarms the major tentacles of the Republican Leviathan: the Koch Brothers, the Clinton haters, and the Fox Noise Machine. With the acumen of a seasoned political player, Brock takes readers inside his Democratic war rooms and their 24/7 battles with right-wing forces for control of the story lines and messages that will decide the 2016 election. And he chronicles his own evolution from lead Clinton attack-dog to one of Hillary Clinton's fiercest defenders as he knocks down the conservative case against her.

Finally, Killing the Messenger provides the no holds barred playbook for what the new right-wing conspirators will do in this election cycle to tear apart the electorate-and what good, engaged, and informed citizens can do to stop them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781455533749
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	09/15/2015
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

David Brock is a widely published author and Democratic activist. In 2004, Brock founded Media Matters, the nation's premier media watchdog. Following the 2010 elections, Brock founded the Democratic SuperPAC American Bridge, which is one of the largest modern campaign war rooms ever assembled using research, tracking, and rapid response to defeat Republicans. He is the author of five books, including his 2002 best-selling memoir, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. His writing appears in USA Today, CNN.com, the Huffington Post, the Daily Beast, and Salon.

Editorial Reviews

09/21/2015
The "vast right-wing conspiracy" to destroy Hillary Clinton is back, according to this trenchant j’accuse by an apostate who used to belong to it. Brock gained fame as a conservative journalist with the book The Real Anita Hill, a hatchet job (which he disowns) on the woman who accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment; he’s now head of the liberal watchdog outfit Media Matters—parts of the book read like a fund-raising prospectus for the group—and a fervent Clinton-for-president booster. His unabashed mission is to defend Clinton from right-wing detractors such as Rush Limbaugh, the Koch brothers, Fox News, and even some liberal outlets such as the New York Times, which he tars with a longtime anti-Clinton bias. With a media insider’s expert eye, Brock details how talking points and innuendos originating from GOP strategists filter down through conservative websites, books, and talk shows and into the mainstream media. He presents lucid, entertaining debunkings of anti-Clinton memes, arguing that she did nothing wrong during the Benghazi attack, broke no e-mail rules as secretary of state, and is neither an out-of-touch elitist nor the man-hating "feminazi" of sexist jibes. Brock’s rhetorical venom and naked partisanship will alienate some readers, but his sharp-eyed reporting makes for a spirited challenge to business-as-usual political discourse. (Sept. 15)

Publishers Weekly

"Lucid, persuasive, and passionate where it needs to be."—President Bill Clinton, Politico

"KILLING THE MESSENGER exposes the art of scandal-mongering by one of the guys who invented it. It's a must read for the chin scratchers of the Washington Beltway and grassroots activists alike. If you want to know the Republican playbook for smearing Democrats by making stuff up, read this and then use it as a guide on how to fight back."—James Carville

"In this remarkable book, David Brock shows how a determined group of progressives can fight back against a right-wing effort to discredit progressive politics and destroy Hillary Clinton. Drawing on knowledge only a former right-wing insider could have, Brock exposes the right's relentless politics of personal destruction, and even (gasp!) defends Hillary Clinton. KILLING THE MESSENGER will empower you to take back our politics and make it something more decent and noble."—Paul Begala, Democratic strategist and former counselor to President Bill Clinton

"Brock...was there from the beginning and is intimately familiar with the mind-set and tactics of the right....He really hasn't missed a moment."—New York Times Book Review

"Lucid, persuasive, and passionate where it needs to be."—President Bill Clinton

From the Publisher

2015-09-15
That "vast right-wing conspiracy" Hillary Clinton warned about all those years ago? It's real. And then some. So writes Brock (The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy, 2004, etc.), who was notoriously part of it, the author of the "bit nutty and a bit slutty" slur campaign against Anita Hill. Since then, as he recounted in his 2002 memoir Blinded by the Right, he had a road-to-Damascus (or D.C.) moment and founded the Democratic PAC American Bridge, which has a favorite daughter in Clinton. In his role as activist and media critic and watchdog—he also founded Media Matters—Brock here charts the evolution of a well-funded (courtesy of the Koch brothers and their ilk) right-wing information/misinformation/disinformation machine that saw its first real coup in the swift boating of John Kerry. He argues that the Dems did it all wrong by refusing to dignify that whisper-and-shout campaign with a response; just so, without naming too many names, he wishes that they'd smack some of the Benghazi/Hillary hater crowd down with a few well-pointed barbs: "Hillary's email practices didn't break any rules—but Jeb Bush's did." Granted that Brock's is a thoroughly partisan approach, a student of the modern media could do worse than read along with him and wonder whether the New York Times really doesn't have it in for Clinton, who, as first lady, senator, secretary of state, and now presidential candidate, can't seem to catch a break with the Gray Lady. Blame some of it on Howell Raines and some on Bill Safire—though it has to be said that the Clintons have a habit of drawing negative attention in any event, a matter that Brock shrugs off. Closing with suitable fire and brimstone, the author hints that he's got something really juicy in the wings to shake up the race, so stay tuned. There's not much hard news in Brock's account of "the last battle of the Clinton Wars," but it's a useful casebook on how big-money politics and political operators work.

Kirkus Reviews