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Fanatics and Fools: The Game Plan for Winning Back America (Hardcover)
by Arianna Huffington (Author) "Remember how the Bush administration ambled unassumingly into office, downing Texas-sized helpings of humble pie at every meal?..." (more)
Key Phrases: recall race, car tax, White House, George Bush, President Bush (more...)
		
	
 
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Editorial Reviews
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Arianna Huffington is a rare breed of political celebrity: an articulate pundit who left the intellectually safe world of criticizing elected officials to try her hand at actually becoming one. While her campaign for Governor of California in the highly unusual 2003 recall election was unsuccessful, the experience has brought valuable insight and perspective to Fanatics and Fools. Huffington, a former supporter of Newt Gingrich, has recently occupied a unique place in the political landscape as she moved away from the right, never quite arrived at the left and dwelled somewhere askew from what is thought of as the center. In this book, she grudgingly endorses the idea of voting with the Democrats in the 2004 presidential election despite grave misgivings about the Democratic Party, which she accuses of too often trying to be a watered-down of the Republicans. But even those Democrats, she feels, are infinitely preferable to the George W. Bush administration with its record of corporate favoritism and patterns of deception leading up to the invasion of Iraq. A section chronicling her experience in campaigning may not seem particularly relevant to people living outside California, but it's a pretty interesting passage. Few skilled opinion makers ever get out and run themselves (imagine George Will or David Broder giving stump speeches), and Huffington brings humor and humility to her account. Her characterization of Arnold Schwarzenegger includes stinging criticisms of his policies but conveys grudging admiration for the actor turned Governor. Her criticisms of Bush and the Republicans are impassioned; well supported, their sheer volume impedes her effort to create a unified message. Still, Huffington's wit and candor, coupled with her recently gained battleground experience, make Fanatics and Fools a terrific read. --John Moe

From Publishers Weekly
Huffington's latest (after the bestselling Pigs at the Trough) gets off to a rocky start with a scattershot attack on the GOP that reads more like a disjointed assemblage of her syndicated columns than a sustained argument. Though she is capable of biting humor, this material all too often emphasizes weak attempts at humor over facts (most of which have already been covered in myriad other anti-Bush books). She takes several cheap shots, at Rush Limbaugh's drug addiction, for instance, and makes a tasteless crack about inducing premature births so the infants can count as campaign donors. As she shifts into discussing her short-lived candidacy in California's gubernatorial recall, however, Huffington gradually acquires gravitas and cohesiveness to such a degree that the second half of the book feels like a different work. Her detailed analysis of a Democratic leadership "in complete denial" is strong, and this is surely one of the few potentially bestselling political critiques this season to grapple with political philosophers like John Rawls and Leo Strauss. With an impassioned call for all Americans to give more than lip service to charitable impulses, and invoking the spirit of Robert Kennedy, Huffington assembles a multi-issue platform on which she hopes liberals and progressives can unite to unseat Bush in November. Capping a decade-long transformation from classic conservative to social progressive, Huffington effectively mounts an assault on both ruling parties and firmly rebukes any who would still challenge the seriousness of her political ambitions.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

    * Hardcover: 256 pages
    * Publisher: Miramax; 1 edition (April 14, 2004)
    * Language: English
    * ISBN-10: 1401352138
    * ISBN-13: 978-1401352134
    * Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.5 inches
    * Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
    * Average Customer Review: based on 26 reviews. (Write a review.)
    * Amazon.com Sales Rank: #568,641 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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HuffPost and iVillage Are Celebrating Mothers and Daughters
11:31 AM PDT, April 26, 2007, updated at 11:28 AM PDT, April 26, 2007
The Huffington Post is joining forces with iVillage and iVillage Cares on a new campaign celebrating the special relationship between Mothers and Daughters -- and not just biological mothers and daughters, but the special bond between women of different ages, including mentors, and aunts, and grandmothers, and godmothers, and older friends. We'll be posting their stories, reflections, blogs, letters, photos, videos, and works of art on the Huffington Post Fearless Voices section starting April 11th and continuing through Mother's Day.

And we'd love for you to take part. All you have to do is send us your take on a special woman in your life -- older or younger. Email your "Mother-Daughter" contributions to arianna@huffingtonpost.com (and please include a picture of yourself and a short bio).

The motivation behind this campaign is our belief that there is no better gift we can give our daughters to help inoculate them from all the negative and soul-sapping messages our culture is bombarding them with than giving them something to care about besides themselves. Imbuing our daughters with a sense of social responsibility is important not just for the obvious reason that caring for others is a good thing, but because making a difference in the world -- however tiny -- is the antidote to the pervasive narcissism of our consumption-crazed culture. By planting these seeds early on, we'll help our daughters make changing the world at least one item on their to-do list as they grow into FEARLESS women.

I invite you to visit our campaign page here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/becoming-fearless/

You can see photos from our launch event here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/h uffpics-motherdaughter_b_45830.html

Send us your contributions!!
Comment   	 

FDR and Fearlessness: How the Personal Became the Political
7:08 PM PDT, October 9, 2006
As I've been traveling around the country talking about fear and fearlessness, I'm frequently asked my opinion of one of the high-points of fearlessness in our country's history: Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous message to a Depression-plagued America that "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
 
It's been quoted so many times since it was first uttered during FDR's first inaugural address in March 1933, it's become almost too familiar -- we hear it without really hearing it. It's become a political cliche, but, like a lot of cliches, it's a cliche because it rings so true. And if ever there were a time in which we need to heed those words, it's now -- when fear is being used to justify torture and the destruction of habeas corpus.
 
In order to be able to consider FDR's exhortation with fresh ears, I decided to reread some books on FDR, including Jonathan Alter's The Defining Moment and Robert Jackson's That Man: An Insider's Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt. These recountings helped put some flesh-and-bones on the famous phrase.
 
Exploring FDR's life, I was struck by how much his "only thing we have to fear" brio was a product of his own personal fearlessness. It reinforced my belief that we're able to act fearlessly in our public lives to the extent that we have become fearless in our personal lives. By this I mean being able to act despite our fears, and not be stopped by whatever stumbling blocks we hit -- including, in FDR's case, a debilitating bout with polio that paralyzed his body, but only strengthened his spirit.
 
As FDR said: "If you had spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your big toe, after that anything else would seem easy!"
 
In an essay on Churchill, Isaiah Berlin captured FDR's unflappable character: "Roosevelt stands out principally for his astonishing appetite for life and by his apparently complete freedom from fear of the future; as a man who welcomed the future eagerly as such, and conveyed the feeling that whatever the times might bring, all would be grist for his mill, nothing would be too formidable or crushing to be subdued and used and molded into the building of which he, Roosevelt, and his allies and devoted subordinates would throw themselves into with unheard-of energy and gusto."
 
FDR's wife Eleanor was similarly struck:  "In all the years of my husband's public life, I never once heard him make a remark which indicated than any crisis could not be solved."

And because fearlessness, like fear itself, is contagious, FDR's conviction that he and his fellow Americans could handle whatever challenges came their way ended up infecting -- and buoying -- the entire country. The Great Depression and WW II were certainly legitimate causes of fear, but Roosevelt's mastery of his fear helped inspire millions to do the same. Just imagine how differently the current occupant of the White House would have dealt with these monumental crises -- using them to stifle dissent, gain political and partisan advantage, smear critics, and browbeat a nation into compliance.
 
Instead of assuring us "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," W would have told us the only way out of the Depression is to waterboard the Constitution, put Lady Liberty in a "stress position," and attach electrodes to the private parts of the Bill of Rights.

The paraphrase FDR, the only things we have to fear are fear itself -- and those who use it for their own shameful purposes.
Comments (2)   	 

Fearless in Vegas: the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit
7:41 PM PDT, October 5, 2006
Here I am in Las Vegas at Fortune magazine's Most Powerful Women Summit (okay, it's actually Henderson, Nevada about 20 minutes outside Vegas).

This morning began (at least for me, there were heartier souls doing Pilates at 6 am) with "The Big Get-To-Know-You."  We spent an hour going around the room, with everyone introducing themselves.  As woman after woman, from MTV CEO Judy McGrath to actress Sarah Jones, stood up and said what they did, I found myself imagining these confident, fearless women as little girls -- and wondering at what point they decided they were not going to be held back by the fears and the stereotypes and the self-limiting beliefs that plague so many women.

This morning's session ended with a video tribute to Ann Richards, who had participated in all the previous Summits -- this is the 8th year Fortune has held the annual confab.  In the video clips that were shown, Richards was, as always, touching and powerfully honest about her life, her battle with the bottle, and losing the Texas governorship to George W. Bush.  After her defeat, people would regularly come up to her and, somewhat gingerly, ask her what she was doing now.  Richards joked that she often felt like telling people she'd become a televangelist or a dental hygienist.  Of course, she just went on being herself and impacting the world in hundreds of different ways -- just without holding elected office.

Her message to women who are reluctant to step out, to speak up, and to make their mark: Embrace failure.  Take a risk.  Make the tough choice.  You only have one life.

Talking to a number of the women before and after the morning session, I was struck by how many of them had faced serious professional setbacks -- only to bounce back, undaunted.  Indeed, usually even stronger and more fearless than before.

Exhibit A was Susan Lyne, who joked abut how she had come to this conference one year as the president of ABC's entertainment division, the next year as someone without a job, and the year after that as the president and CEO of Martha Stewart's multibillion-dollar company.

Exhibit B was Nina Jacobson.  "Exactly ten weeks ago," she told me, "on the day my partner was in labor with our third child, I was fired as head of production at Disney.  Now I have the time to do all the things with my kids I didn't have time to do before." And who knows what she'll be doing by the time next year's conference rolls around?  She certainly won't be licking her wounds -- and that's the distinguishing characteristic of so many of the women I've met here.  They work, they succeed, they fail, they fall down (or are tripped!), and get up again.  And they take career ups-and-downs as one of life's givens -- not a black mark of shame.

I also had a funny encounter with Catherine Kelly, the publisher of the Michigan Citizen, a family-run black newspaper that offers hard-hitting coverage of the local political scene in Detroit.  She reminded me that we had met a few years ago when she was selling handbags at Barney's in Los Angeles, and had helped my daughters and me pick one out.  Her L.A. interregnum had been a time for finding herself, she told me, of working on her fearlessness muscle before heading back to Michigan to take over the paper her parents had founded.  A paper that is bucking the downward trend of larger mainstream papers and is in fact increasing its circulation.  "I think people like the fact that we are doing nitty-gritty journalism," Kelly said.

The conference continues through Friday with panels, conversations, screenings, salons, and special events -- including a poker night where you can get pointers from poker champs Jennifer Harman and Esther Rossi.   Tomorrow morning, I'm moderating a discussion on the Internet's future with Marissa Mayer from Google, Mary Meeker from Morgan Stanley, and Padmasree Warrior from Motorola.

The tone for the event was set at the opening dinner last night, where Nora Ephron read the hilarious chapter about "maintenance" from her best-seller I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, and brought the house down when she got to the part about how, after looking at a bag lady, she realized: "I am only about eight hours a week away from looking exactly like that woman on the street -- with frizzled flyaway gray hair I would probably have if I stopped dyeing mine; with a potbelly I would definitely develop if I ate just half of what I think about eating every day; with the dirty nails and chapped lips and mustache and bushy eyebrows that would be my destiny if I ever spent two weeks on a desert island.  Eight hours a week and counting."

And for soul maintenance we were treated to four mentors and the young women they are mentoring as part of a program run by Vital Voices and the State Department -- including Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore and Eva Wanjiku Muraya, her mentee from Kenya; Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy and Farah Agha, her mentee from Pakistan, Avon CEO Andrea Jung and Marina Malykhina from Russia, and power lawyer Linda Addison and Hauwa Evelyn Shekarau from Nigeria.

The common theme that emerged from all the mentors was that they had gotten more out of the experience than the mentees.  It is, after all, a hallmark of fearlessness and fulfillment to live a life that moves beyond a singular focus on ourselves and expands to include others -- and causes we are passionate about.

Now, off to learn whether a full house beats a royal flush (Isn't a full House what Denny Hastert was looking to keep until the Foley flap royally flushed the GOP's prospects?  I really do need those poker pointers!)
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Remember how the Bush administration ambled unassumingly into office, downing Texas-sized helpings of humble pie at every meal? Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
recall race, car tax
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
White House, George Bush, President Bush, Bush Republicans, Los Angeles, Dick Cheney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Don Rumsfeld, Howard Dean, Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, United States, Gray Davis, John Kerry, Saddam Hussein, Wall Street, Republican Party, New York Times, Healthy Families, San Francisco, Cruz Bustamante, Defense Policy Board, Middle East, New Deal, Supreme Court
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This book cites 16 books:

    * New Hampshire (Wiener, Roberta, 13 Colonies.) by Roberta Wiener on page 186
    * Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans by Lewis Gould on page 150
    * Merchant of Venice by W. Shakespeare on page 211
    * The Merchant of Venice (Folger Shakespeare Library) by William Shakespeare on page 211
    * The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Great Books in Philosophy) by Adam Smith on page 361

See all 16 books this book cites
 
4 books cite this book:

    * The F-Word: Feminism In Jeopardy - Women, Politics and the Future by Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner in Front Matter
    * On Becoming Fearless.... in Love, Work, and Life by Arianna Huffington in Front Matter
    * The Heart of America: Ten Core Values That Make Our Country Great by Bill Halamandaris in Front Matter
    * Fat, Stupid, Ugly: One Woman's Courage to Survive by Debrah Constance in Front Matter

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60 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
A Surprisingly Strong Argument for the Defeat of George Bush, April 11, 2004
By 	Uncle Elmer "tod3" (USA) - See all my reviews
Arianna Huffington has written a well thought out book that profoundly indicts the current Bush Administration but does so in a way that the most respected political philosophers of today like Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. would be proud.

Basically, Ms. Huffington warns of an America that is so wildly off course due to the detached leadership of George W. Bush that we are getting to a dangerous point in our country's history. She offers the thought that asks how long can the downtrodden be tossed aside before the entire social fabric that hold our society collapses?

Ms. Huffington adds that the amount of people looking for emergency rooms as their health care is increasing at alarming rates. She cites headlines from around the country that note the plight of the working poor and wonders why they are being ignored by our political system.

More importantly, Ms. Huffington calls into question that lack of leadership by the media who've abandoned the task of reporting on how Bush has broken promises to help the poor and children but had rewarded the rich time and again with excessive tax cuts.

Ms. Huffington then calls into question the political rise of Arnold Schwarzenegger and sadly notes that he is nothing but a warmed over George W. Bush who upon taking office made his first action to strip away a cost of living increase for California's poor. She then says that the media has fallen in love with Arnold and is giving him a pass time and again all to the determent of the poor of California as he cuts their social net.

This is a well written book on so many levels that is better than the Franken book as it is less angry and more intellectual. Her book is more of a strategic argument for a new course of action for the Democratic Presidential Candidate of 2004 and the party itself.

In short, this is an excellent political treatise that should be read by all who are looking for a new course for our country.

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66 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
A Populist With A Timely Message, April 23, 2004
By 	William Hare (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
Arianna Huffington's superbly witty book is particularly significant in view of the fact that she falls into the category of independents that the Democratic Party needs to win back the White House in November. Huffington reveals her epiphany, when Harris Wofford, a former civil rights leader with close ties to Martin Luther King, convinced her in the wake of her criticism that the Americorps program he headed in the Clinton administration deserved her support. Arianna not only reversed course on Americorps, she became an articulate populist who is now one of the most trenchant critics of George W. Bush.

The rationale for Huffington's book is stated in her title, bracketing competing political forces into fanatics and fools. She sharply attacks the Bush administration and the current Republican Party, attaching the label of fanaticism based on what she perceives as destructive policies, 1) in the realm of supporting tax cuts which disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of the rest of America, 2) a jingoistic foreign policy responsible for not only launching a war in Iraq that was unnecessary, but alienating world opinion through a go it alone attitude, 3) shortchanging America's schools, 4) despoiling the environment, 5) leaving America vulnerable to foreign terrorist attack while making bogus claims of making the citizenry safer.

The Republicans are defined as fanatics and the Democrats labeled as fools for failing to mount a cohesive opposition. Huffington delivers a necessary slap in exhorting the troops to shape up after the disastrous 2002 mid-term elections, in which the opposition party failed to provide a clear message and appeared intimidated by boisterous Republican propaganda efforts directed by Karl Rove equating opposition with an absence of patriotism. Speaking as someone with authentic independent credentials of her own, Arianna bluntly tells the Democratic Party leadership that the only way Bush can be defeated is to stir the increasing number of Americans dropping out of the process with a clear and effective message, a concise and sharply articulated alternative to Bush Republicanism. Bush Lite, she argues, will do no more than provide Bush More.

Huffington, who was a candidate in the recent California recall race for governor before dropping out late in the race, provides an intelligent analysis of Arnold Schwarzenegger from the up close perspective of someone who has known him for a long time, becoming acquainted with him initially when the actor supported her ex-husband in his attempt to defeat Senator Dianne Feinstein in a hotly contested 1994 race. She notes that he uses his charm to shield himself from criticism, dodging the tough issues. Despite his "moderate" tag stemming from issues such as abortion and gay adoption, she notes that on the important money issues that really matter to the Republican Party, Schwarzenegger's positions are in lock step with those of Bush, someone for whom he has expressed deep admiration. She notes that in honoring his pledge to repeal the controversial car tax, Schwarzenegger reeked economic wreckage in which the blind, students from middle class families hoping to attend college, and welfare single mothers seeking to bring up families were all deprived of needed funds.

Huffington writes with a penetrating wit, honed as a debater in her college days at Cambridge University. It is understandable why right wing Republicans prefer to keep their distance from her.

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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
Much valid criticism but not enough game plan!, September 12, 2004
By 	Tracy Marks (Arlington, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Arianna Huffington as always is informative and accurate in her scathing criticism of the Bush regime and the damage Bush and cronies are doing to the people of America and the world.... and anyone who does not yet intellectually and emotionally grasp the reality (indeed the horrors) existing under the rhetoric of our current government will benefit from reading this book. But having just previously read Senator Byrd's excellent LOSING AMERICA - which focused on the facts and Byrd's deeply felt and profound observations (in his case, of the power tactics, lack of conscience and integrity, and vicious partisanship he has witnessed among many of our Congresspersons) without ranting and name-calling, I found myself frustrated with Huntington.

Clearly the left needs its Huntington's and Franken's and Moore's - and I value all three of them. But Huntington is more likely to provide confirmation and an outlet for anger for those already strongly anti-Bush, while turning off the undecided with inflammatory language. Not all of us are empowered to political action by nonstop ranting. The realities speak for themselves. Let the reader learn of them, feel his or her own anger rather than react to the authors, and feel mobilized as a result to take action for new political alternatives. Too much ranting can leave one emotionally exhausted and depressed rather than empowered to help bring in a new government.

The Left also needs more specific clarification of its vision and agenda, and this book does not provide that in more than a few pages. After reading many anti-Bush books, I bought Huntington's latest because of the subtitle, "The Game Plan for Winning Back America". But the "Game Plan", in the simplest form, was really a brief addendum to a book which focused almost entirely on what is wrong, rather than what we need to make right and how to do it.

I do not however want to dissuade readers from buying and reading this book. The more you learn about what's really going on in this country and its effect on the world and future of this planet, the more appalled you may be... and the more committed to helping bring about a new Democratic regime. If you are wanting to learn more about what's wrong, read this book (and Hightower's Thieves in High Places, Hartmann's We the People, Derber's Regime Change Begins at Home and People Before Profit, and Byrd's Losing Ground - all which I preferred). But once you know what's wrong and are well-informed enough to share it with others, and once you have lived in your outrage long enough to want to channel your anger into commitment and vision, you may then be ready for a Game Plan for America which goes beyond Huntington. You might then wish to read John Kerry's Call to Service and Plan for America. They at least provide the seeds which can eventually blossom into a new kind of government, one which serves the needs of its people, in action as well as words.

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Arianna is simply brilliant.
This is a book everyone from both political parties should read. She lays out exactly what is currently wrong with the state of American politics. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Buddy James Fazzio

Good Points, but Too Much "Humor"
Huffington sees three key issues facing the U.S.: 1)We've become two nations, separated by an ever-widening economic, health care, and education gulf, 2)the way money is... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Pragmatist

Throws haymakers to both the left and the right
Of all her books, this is ranked the highest. I love the fact that she pulls no punches to expose both political parties who've done nothing but to swindle the American people... Read more
Published 21 months ago by LA-Radio Ken

Argumentum ad Hominum
I find it interesting that in the pages I scanned through that I couldn't find a single fact. All I found was the fallacy of "Argumentum ad Hominum" (Argument against the Man i. Read more
Published on January 24, 2005 by Nony Bizniz

A Good Companion for Today's Political Landscape
Huffington's "Fanatics and Fools" is an excellent companion for the 2004 election year, and beyond. Read more
Published on July 31, 2004 by C. Matthew Hawkins

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Yes, this is another book of political complaints and recommendations that has been written specifically for the election year market. Read more
Published on July 13, 2004 by doomsdayer520

Fun Facts
I don't care if you are an extreme liberal or a very conservative Republican, you should read this book and here's a few reasons why:
1) Ms. Read more
Published on June 30, 2004 by Danielle Turchiano

Proof Anyone Can Get Into London School of Economics
I've met the type before: pompous blowhards who let it slip that they've attended the LSE. Well, (setting aside the intellectual sins of the Webbs and other silly fabians) it... Read more
Published on June 8, 2004 by Mark Nuckols

Less Than Stellar
The format of this book is too busy: a lot of wasted pages with single-sentence quotes pulled out and printed as stand-alone blurbs; too many hypothetical speeches inserted into... Read more
Published on May 30, 2004 by Jeremy Raymondjack

Brilliant Analysis, Poignant Satire, A Great Read
To clarify a few assertions from the Publishers Weekly Review, and other readers' reviews that "Fanatics and Fools" only rehashes other so called "anti-Bush" books, this is true... Read more
Published on April 22, 2004 by boscocjs

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