FROM THE PUBLISHER
Jane Fonda, Dan Rather, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson,
and all the other liberals who were -- and are -- always willing to blame
America first and defend its enemies as simply "misunderstood." These are
the liberals who flocked to Castro's Cuba and called it paradise, just as a
previous generation of liberals visited the Soviet Union and proclaimed its
glorious future. They are the liberals who saw Communist Vietnam and
Cambodia -- in fact, Communism everywhere -- as generally a beneficial
force, and blamed America as a gross, blind, and blundering giant. Now that
the Cold War has been won, these liberals, amazingly, are proud to claim
credit for the victory -- conveniently forgetting their apologies for the
Communists and their vicious attacks on Cold Warriors such as Ronald Reagan.
But nationally syndicated columnist Mona Charen isn't about to let them
rewrite history.
In her shocking new book, Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First, she exposes: Prominent liberals who served in the Clinton administration -- such as Madeleine Albright, Sidney Blumenthal, and Strobe Talbott -- all of whom turned a blind eye to the Soviet "Evil Empire," but now want to be counted as Cold Warriors; Media figures who clucked with praise for Communists and smirked with snide disdain for America -- including Bill Moyers, Phil Donahue, Bryant Gumbel, and Katie Couric; Professors who poisoned the campuses with anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism at top universities such as Princeton, Brown, Columbia, and Georgetown; Entertainers -- such as Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger, Meryl Streep, Martin Sheen, and Ed Asner -- who used the megaphones of their fame to blame America first. In Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First, Mona Charen holds liberals accountable -- and reveals the horrifying crimes that these liberals helped defend and cover up for the Communists.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction to the Perennial Edition
Introduction: None Dare Call It Victory 1
Ch. 1 The Brief Interlude of Unanimity on Communism 11
Ch. 2 The Consensus Unravels 23
Ch. 3 The Bloodbath 55
Ch. 4 The Mother of All Communists: American Liberals and Soviet Russia 77
Ch. 5 Fear and Trembling 119
Ch. 6 Each New Communist Is Different 171
Ch. 7 Post-Communist Blues 231
Epilogue 259
Notes 265
Acknowledgments 287
Index