Customer Reviews

Two Steps ahead of the Thought Police

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I had enjoyed Mr. Leo's remarkably clear-eyed, rational, and "enough already" columns in U.S. News for years when I ran across this gem that collected several years worth of his sterling efforts.

Yes, Leo does skewer some people but I found that he was always right on the mark when he did so. Basically, John Leo puts almost any other columnist to shame. What I really want to know is this: Mr. Leo, where, oh where is Volume II?

This rates as one of the best books I've read all year! John Leo looks at subjects and takes them apart in an intelligent (yet humorous) way. I've recommended this book to all my friends who are even slightly interested in politics or contemporary culture

Every social commentator has their opinion on the justice system, welfare, gender feminism, affirmative action, etc. However, John Leo truly towers over most of his competitors (& dwarfs his opposition) with his humor, sense of balance, and simple common sense. The book still holds up in '98, though many of the essays deal with the events of 1991-1994. A wonderful read, and a compass for searching minds.

John Leo is the best commentator on the culture wars and the best critic of political correctness, and I have read them all. I buy US News & World Report solely for his column. If you loath political correctness, like I do, you will love this book.

In reading this book, I found myself saying again and again, "Boy, is that ever true!" Mr. Leo writes in a clear, straightforward style. I assume that the sections in the book are columns taken from his weekly appearance in U.S. News magazine. His entries in this book makes one want to go to the local library and dig up all the other columns not included in the book. It is THAT good. Politically correct, victim-mentality individuals need not read--this book will poke too many holes in that fragile worldview. Heartily recommended for those with the ability to think on their own.

This was an x-mas present from a friend who is a bit to the right of center.

John Leo's great strength as a writer is that he knows how to quickly cut to the bone of an issue. Can't say I agree with 100% of his veiwpoints, but I like the way he writes. His ability to capture in a few words the thrust of his argument or obnservation makes for very powerful reading.

The parts that made me laugh out loud are any of his pieces describing campus politics. Although I certainly sympathize with certain minority groups on my campus, Leo does a nice job of explaining how campus liberals have become vapid shells clining onto some radical past.

A good book to spend the afternoon with.

While many things irk John Leo, the academic left's tendency to radically expand the meaning of words like "racism", "rape" and "rights" inspires columns of outrage and humor. Racism, not so long ago, meant denying people the right to vote, eat in a restaurant, or even a trial prior to lynching. Now the word, observes Leo, has morphed into anything that makes people feel uncomfortable. Leo, being a traditionalist, wants words to mean to have precise meaning. Who can blame him?

This wide-ranging collection of his favorite essays captures Leo's brilliant wit, brual logic, and safely narrow range of subjects. Attacking the 1990's as the "golden age of censorship," Leo rebukes the right for wanting to censor everything: "pornography, rap, rock singers, military news, J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, photors of Robert Mapplethorpe's idea of a good time, and the burning of the American flag." Yet the left, Leo's primary target, "wants to censor tobacco ads, girlie calendars and sex jokes in the workplace, Saturday morning TV, overly Eurocentric schoolbooks, Andy Rooney, many college newspapers, all sorts of speech, and the waving of the American flag."

Leo, it seems to me, reflects the views of his mostly moderate, upper-income readers. He dissects the loonier edges of leftist political activists far more than vapid euphemisms that fill commercials and deflect attention from the misdeeds of the Enrons of our society.

Perhaps Leo will find a way, in his sequel, to make all professional liars equally uncomfortable.

Two Steps Ahead of the Thought Police is a compilation of 5 years of John Leo's US News & World Report columns.

While it would be fair to describe Mr. Leo as a curmudgeonly columnist it must be pointed out he is one with a sense of perspective almost as developed as his sense of humor. Basically conservative in outlook, he nonetheless is quite capable of skewering conservative viewpoints and policy right along with liberal viewpoints and policy. And so Mr. Leo can criticize the left's propensity to foster "the victimization of America" propensity while also criticize the rights propensity to want to censor everything under the sun.

While this is in a way a wide ranging collection in terms of presentation and writing style, it is fairly narrowly focus in terms of subject matter, allowing for a fairly thorough look at the topics at hand from a variety of aspects. This also gives the work more coherence and a better, more novelistic pacing than is usual for works of this sort.

I don't always agree with Leo, but he seldom fails to raise good, thoughtful points in his commentary and he never fails to entertain. Who says you can't have it all?

This book represents a really refreshing breath of very fresh air in a genre that seems to have devolved into a morass of invective, hostility and bile as substitutes for commentary and debate.

A great read!

... This guy has kept an eye on the media and educational thought police for years and knows as much about its abuses as anyone. In a sense, John is the most politically incorrect writer in America, not because he uses vulgarity or slanders people, but because he holds PC lunacy up to the light of reason where it is exposed for the empty, racist, sexist grab for power that it is. He is probably the best social commentator in America. He should be on television.

While I don't always agree with John Leo's decidedly conservative slant and even think his humor is a little overrated, I still consider this work important because it documents the 1990s "politically correct" movement. And did so when political-correctness was at the height of its counter-logical hysteria! Yes, grandkids, it was all true, there really was an era where nouns were more important than what they stood for. This book made an impression on me when it first came out, so I sought out a copy now on Amazon for reference.

In all, he's kind of a milder, gentler P.J. O'Rourke. But also a reminder that conservatives can match liberals for hand-wringing any day.