Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants: The Looting of the News in a Time of Terror

It shouldn't be such a surprise to anyone: news organizations play nice with the powers that be or they lose access. While this isn't new to the Bush administration it's gotten a lot worse since 2000. Actually there are two and only two sources of liberal news right now: Air America Radio and Pacifica Radio. Everyone else is in a big hurry to appease and cajole the GOP. The result: we get skewed news and are encouraged to stick our heads in the proverbial political sand. And while we do that terrorists with eyes wide open plot to attack us. So long as Bush and his attack poodles come out looking good, it's all right by them.

Can you imagine researching this book? How many viewing hours must it have taken James Wolcott to listen to the dozens of "Attack Poodles" about which he writes? I, for one, am glad he did as he has written a first-rate, alarmingly funny book about those right-wing pundits that fan out across our airwaves. With the ongoing speed of a locomotive, Wolcott chops up people like Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Peggy Noonan, Dennis Miller and a "host" of others. His comments on Coulter would make the blonde bimbo's hair curl more than it would on a hot, humid day. And he allows us to see through these hapless purveyors of nonsense like a clear pane of Zell-ophane. While the subect matter is one that should concern us all, the best part about "Attack Poodles" is that it is so deftly written. It leaves the reader trying to decide which poodle is the dumbest, (my vote goes to Joe Scarborough), the smarmiest (aren't they all), the biggest bag of wind (how about Robert Novak?) and so on. It's like being a kid in a candy shop with so many options from which to choose. I found myself nodding in agreement with his final conclusions, which are pointed and welcome. It's a serious ending to a book which sticks the knife in, pulls it out cleanly and has fun along the way. When you have finished the book, just for added kicks, re-read the paragraph about Reagan's foot!

Wolcott has a way with a phrase and the only thing he shares with his right wing brethren is an instinct for the jugular. His riffs on Ann Coulter alone are worth the price. A furious, funny, and (sadly) accurate account of our prostrate media culture.

James Wolcott has written an amazing book. Be warned, when reading in public you will attract stares because the book is laugh-out-loud funny. While deconstructing the attack poodles (a breed of pundits who never met a fact that they cared to acknowledge), Wolcott's direct and informative while using humor to nail the hypocrisy of the inbred breed. His use of rhetorical questioning is almost as amazing as his devastating one liners. Attack Poodles is a wonderful book from a Vanity Fair writer whose intelligence and wit lives up to the tradition fellow Van Fair writer Dorothy Parker long ago set. I hope future reviewers don't use pull quotes to demonstrate the humor. It's tempting but it will destroy the element of discovery for the reader. The Peggy Noonan chapter has been cited by a previous reviewer and it is an amazingly strong and funny chapter. All who've suffered under the "commentary" of Peggy Noones would be wise to sample a page or two of that chapter. If you don't find your nods turning into bursts of laughter, this isn't the book for you. Should you find yourself laughing, purchase the book and delight in the style and humor of Wolcott's strong writing.

This book was worth the wait. Although about 300 pages, Attack Poodles more than makes up in quality than quantity. What makes James Wolcott's analysis of the rampant media whoredom so compelling is that he's so damned funny. Although the subject is depressing as hell, I laughed out loud as he turned the tables on the American Fourth Reich starting with NYT's Medusa Judith Miller up to and including the loathsome not a comic in standing Dennis Miller. His chapter on Peggy Noonan finally deflates that gasbag for good. Another reason to read this book is his snappy writing style, his cultural digs and his dead-on observations of the squawking, amoral toads who stench up OUR airwaves with rightist malevolence. Wolcott's premise is not that they're ideologues, they'd have to have principles for that, they just want to "win." Even if it means selling this country down the river. This book is the perfect complement to other such media criticisms in "the Left Strikes Back" series including the first shot across the SS Bush's bow, Eric Alterman's "What Liberal Media?," Joe Conason's "Big Lies," and David Brock's "Republican Noise Machine." Bushies and Dittoheads won't like this book (not that they'd ever read it), but knowing it exists will cause more distemper. I can hear the "tinny arfs" beginning to stir in the background. The poodles will not be amused now that Wolcott has given voice to who they are and what they're doing.