If ever there was book destined to get negative customer reviews, it's Red, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrong by Fox News host Alan Colmes. That's not to say this broad defense of liberal beliefs is a bad book, but conservatives who watch Colmes on TV will get upset about his opinions and liberals won't be available to rush to his defense because, not really being a target demographic of Fox News, they probably haven't heard of him. But Red, White, & Liberal has its merits. Whereas many liberal books of its era take on Fox News, the community of conservative pundits, and the Bush administration for being liars or worse, Colmes leaves the mudslinging out. The result is a bit toothless, but the idea of a book that's mostly a case for what's good about liberalism instead of what's terrible about the right is a bit refreshing. There are some problems. Many of Colmes' assertions--Bill Clinton was the best President ever, O.J. Simpson was innocent--seem more planted to provoke Republican ire than part of a constructive argument. Colmes' extensive use of passages from his own show, "Hannity & Colmes," is edited to make him sound as pithy as possible, and quoting one's self as an expert is kind of lazy, really. Key passages from listener e-mails are also included, and while they're often hilarious, Colmes is still cherry picking; the complaints are from violent nutballs and the compliments are from charming folks who use complete sentences. It's also curious how little mention there is here of Sean Hannity, Colmes conservative co-host, who so dominates their shared talk show that a Colmes book feels a bit like a John Oates solo album. In the liberal pantheon, Alan Colmes is no Howard Zinn (heck, he’s no Michael Moore or Al Franken either), but he makes a simple and entertaining defense of the liberal perspective. Now go read those customer reviews. --John Moe

The liberal half of Hannity & Colmes breaks free of his cohost to deliver a blandly pious "can't we all just get along?" homily without interruption. Racism is bad, conservatives should stop being such bullies and antiwar protestors are Americans, too. Oh, and Fox News isn't really that conservative. But who'll buy it? As numerous excerpts from viewer e-mails reveal, Colmes's TV audience is largely hostile to him, while potential liberal readers are probably still chuckling over Al Franken's portrayal of him in Lies as a milquetoast. That he's nowhere near as funny (or energetic) as Franken or Michael Moore doesn't help.
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