Ed Klein's anti-Obama propaganda screed The Amateur got pretty much the worst New York Times review a book can get, when it oozed onto bookshelves back in May. So it was a bit of a surprise when Rupert Murdoch tweeted this past Sunday:
Long, long flight to LA read The Amateur (Bill Clinton's word) by Ed Klein. Every voter should read.
The book makes myriad unsupported claims about President Obama's first term, among them, that President Clinton once called him an "amateur". Ooh, burn. It also alleges that the POTUS is anti-Israel, and bows to Arab monarchs, etc.
So it was even stranger when yesterday, the lord of all things heinous, Dick Cheney, said during an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity:
"One of the things that's been most enlightening for me is to read this new book that's out that deals with this whole question of competence, written by Ed Klein, who used to be with The New York Times. It's called The Amateur. And it goes into great detail in a whole number of different areas in terms of his philosophy, and why he believes what he did, and how he got there, and how he's managed or failed to manage in the White House...He thinks everything that happens that's good in the country comes from the government. And he's just dead wrong.”
http://www.newsmax.com/...
From the New York Times Review of The Amateur by Ed Klein:
“The Amateur” by Edward Klein is a book about an inept, arrogant ideologue who maintains an absurdly high opinion of his own talents even as he blatantly fails to achieve his goals. Oh, and President Obama is in this book too.
Of course Mr. Klein does not see himself as the amateur of his title...
...
Beyond resurrecting the influence of Mr. Wright, “The Amateur” adds little to the record about Mr. Obama’s past. And although the book repeatedly calls him a failure and a disappointment with regard to domestic affairs, Mr. Klein has no capacity for explaining specifics. He has little to say about Obamacare beyond disapproving of it and labeling it “an enormously complex Rube Goldberg machine” that was poorly presented to the public.
...
The personal accusations — that Mr. Obama is aloof, that he has not learned from experience, that he has snubbed former supporters — are nasty but vague. Some are even contradictory. Michelle Obama is presented as both overbearing and lazy. Caroline Kennedy, Oprah Winfrey, Valerie Jarrett and Samantha Power are all presented as aggrieved and, in Ms. Power’s case, demonic. And the photos that accompany “The Amateur” are bizarre enough to include Desirée Rogers, whose track record as the White House’s social secretary is barely mentioned; Al Capone, because he and Mr. Obama both count as Chicagoans; and the famous Situation Room shot of administration members watching the Navy SEAL team’s raid on Osama bin Laden.
(bolding by diarist)
http://www.nytimes.com/...
It's almost sad when the two most self-aggrandizing, power-mad Goposaurs on the planet have nothing left but a wildly dishonest smear attempt. They got nuthin'.
(Note: This diary was retitled approx. 20 min. after initial posting.)