Beyond the Echo Chamber: How a Networked Progressive Media Can Reshape American Politics Book

I've been reading a lot of books from the right, and wanted to read some stuff from the left, just to get a nice overall balanced view from all sides. I've always considered myself pretty moderate, but tend to lean to the right. I had assumed that Colmes was a raging liberal and that his book would piss me off, however I was pleasantly surprised. I felt that he was more of a moderate liberal, and he even stated that many liberals didn't like his book because it wasn't far enough to the left. I think leaning all the way to one side or another leaves you very closed minded, and I felt that Colmes was very open minded and intelligent. It isn't very intelligent to get all your information from one side.

Of course I didn't agree with a lot of his views, however I do feel like he is fair and I do tend to agree with him on some issues. One issue for example; he asked when patriotism got tied to war. I've been asking this very question for a long time. I don't agree with this current war we are in, and if anyone tried to tell me that that wasn't patriotic, they would get punched in the forehead. In fact, I feel that a good measure of whether or not a war is just, is if you would go fight it for free. Who would fight this war in Iraq for no pay? Not me. But I bet you would fight a war on American soil to fend off foreign invaders for no pay. I know I would.

When searching for a liberal book to read, I had a tough time finding anything popular. The books I did find didn't seem to have a lot of reviews, and the ratings were poor. Colmes addresses this in his book by using it as proof that we don't have a "liberal media" like the conservatives like to claim. Perhaps. My initial thought was that liberals didn't like to read very much, or that I hadn't found the "popular" liberal authors. It could be either one, but either way you can't argue that books by conservative authors are read by more people, and rated higher.

There was definitely a lot of Bush bashing, which bothered me at times, but if you only read books from the left, you won't ever read about all the negative things going on in a Republican White House. Basically, more than anything, this book showed me that there is lying and corruption all throughout Washington. This is the problem that needs to be addressed, and that my friend is one thing that is bi-partisan through and through.

I did enjoy the hate e-mails that he included in the book. Some made me laugh because they showed me how stupid some conservatives can be. People would write the most horrible e-mails to this guy just because they disagreed with his views. Some of them actually wished for him to be harmed or dead, which is just dumb. These people made themselves sound like idiots, and really took away credability from the conservative movement.

Anyway, I was surprised that I ended up respecting this guy more after reading his book. He likes to gather as much information as he can and decide for himself, instead of just walking the party line every time. Although he mostly leans to the left, he seemed to me to be more of a free thinker, which is what I tend to do. Anything else is just makes you robot.