Who is your favorite political writer? And Why?

[Wetzelbill]

Well, I don't think we'll be getting any "Ann Coulter" answers here.

I like Noam Chomsky tons. Greg Palast. Krugman and Ivins are great columnists. Bernie Weiner from Crisis Papers. Conason, Franken, Alterman etc. I'm a huge fan of Arundhati Roy. Definitely love Sy Hersch.

Not to mention I am a legend in my own mind and tend to read my stuff over and over and over.

But my two favorites would have to be Will Pitt and David Corn.

Now, on to the why:

First of all they are both very good. However, their ability to pump me up and piss me off and want to go out and do something about it. Now that takes skill. They write very personal work, which echoes my thoughts exactly.

[proud patriot]

1. Gore Vidal

:hi:

[terrya]

6. Gore Vidal is my choice also. n/t

[Wetzelbill]

12. Sadly I haven't gotten around to his books

read a few essay here and there. I have so many books to read it's crazy. I read tons, but it's tough to get to all the ones I would like to get to.

[terrya]

18. "Dreaming War, Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta"

Vidal's latest political book, is a very good book to start out, Wetzelbill. Very good take on this administration.

[Josh]

43. Mine, too

nt.

[grannylib]

2. Noam Chomsky and Molly Ivins

Noam is just about the smartest man on the planet.
Molly is smart, irreverant and damn funny.
No punches pulled, tell it like it is.
And Ann Coulter is NOT a political writer, she is a lying propagandist.

[DealsGapRider]

3. Kinsley.

[Saudade]

4. Jon Schell

Jonathan Schell (The Nation) is really good on disarmament/proliferation issues. On middle east issues, Amira Hass, Gideon Levy and Neve Gordon great. Grieder on economic issues is wonderful.

[tom_paine]

5. Krugman has rocketed to the top of my list!

I like his style, and he doesn't back down because he knows the facts.

[caledesi]

36. Definitely Krugaman. He rocks! nt

[La_Serpiente]

7. Greg Palast

He really does his homework when it comes to investigative journalism.

[mindfulNJ]

8. William Greider

"Who Will Tell the People" changed my life.

[Armstead]

26. Ditto

REading his columns in Rolling Stone for years changed mine.

[Aidoneus]

9. Tariq Ali & Bill Vann

cannot decide between them.. :shrug:

[Holly]

10. William Pitt

I read everything that he writes. His insight has encouraged me to become informed and active.

[blm]

11. Robert Parry.

Howard Zinn
Sy Hersh
Joe Conason
Michael Kinsley

[grasswire]

13. Lewis Lapham

Master of the shiv.

He's not always political, granted. But when he is political, no one can top him. He's an American treasure.

[blm]

15. good point. He cuts you so elegantly

you don't even realize you've been struck till it's too late to recover.

[Saudade]

16. Lapham

God, how could I forget Lapham!!!!

His monthly stuff in Harpers is really superb.

[Wetzelbill]

14. I'm goint to use this list to add on to my current group of people

Sneaky of me, huh?

I also like Ramzy Baroud and Uri Avnery.

Stan Goff is a big favorite as well.

John Cory from Truthout.

I could go on and on and on.

[WilliamPitt]

44. John Cory!!!

I'm glad you said that. He is incredible.

[Wetzelbill]

50. John Cory is damn insightful

very underrated, I wish he would write more.

[Guaranteed]

17. Mike Royko

and I miss him dearly.

[stanwyck]

31. So do I.

Very witty man. Loved his neighborhood stories. I still remember many of his columns. I grew up with The Daily News and The Tribune.

19. depends on year

William Pitt in recent months.

In the long haul, I've still got to go with Jean Jacques Rousseau, not that I always agree with him, but because of the beauty of his rhetoric, a lost art often.

honorable mention to Gore Vidal in current days & Ralph Waldo Emerson in the past.

[maggrwaggr]

20. John Dean's been hard to beat lately. n/t

nt

[foreigncorrespondent]

21. In all honesty...

my partner is.

While she might be accomplished in having book deals and the like, she is still very accomplished on the Internet.

She runs a political blog (http://blogs.salon.com/0002551/) which does get a fair amount of attention from both the left and right.

The right hates her, and basically will blog crap about her. The one that makes me laugh hard is when they call her a "he".

I know most of you would say I am biast because of who she is to me, but that simply isn't the case. If I felt her writing wasn't directed at fighting the good fight, then I would tell her so. But her articles are always directed at fighting the good fight. As a result she gets a lot of emails from people telling her basically that thanks to her they now pay more attention to what is happening in the world of politics.

I keep telling her to write a book, but like most writers, she has a lot of self doubt.

I don't like to read much (never have), but I do make an effort to read everything my partner writes, as well as everything I see pop up here at DU, and all the other great leftist Web sites.

[realFedUp]

22. Right now, David Corn

He seems front and center on politically what's going on.

[ElementaryPenguin]

23. Robert Scheer! Parry, and I rate Will Pitt right up there!

eom

[Wetzelbill]

52. I thought Pitt was kind of a hack .....

I mean, c'mon, "War On Iraq" is just soooooo last year. Psh. :)

[RetroLounge]

24. I would have to say Krugman.

But I also would add:

Franken
Alterman
Conason
Pitt

But boy, do I miss Royko from my hometown paper!

[toddzilla]

25. nobody mentioned howard zinn?

i love howard zinn's stuff, he's a little more acessible than chomsky to me.

there aren't enough hours in the day...

[JohnKleeb]

30. I agree

[RichardRay]

27. Molly Ivins

She knows the rural West. She writes well, has education and style, but doesn't play on it heavily. She understands politics, how it's played and who plays it, and why it's worth doing.

I can imagine going on a raft trip with her, drinking beer and shooting the shit late into the night.

Richard Ray - Jackson Hole, WY

[ComerPerro]

32. I recently got a signed copy of Bushwacked

But haven't gotten around to reading it.

[newyawker99]

49. Hi RichardRay!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Rooktoven]

28. Josh Marshall

w/ Joe Conason a close second.

[Crowdance]

29. Katha Pollit in The Nation

When Hitchens wrote for the magazine, her column directly followed his. Redeemed the piece of paper for me.

[Red_Storm]

33. mine..........

Gore Vidal - I read everything he writes, love his sarcasm......

Noam Chomsky - impossible not to be influenced by this great man

Arundati Roy - love reading her political essays

Robert Fisk - he covers the middle east for The Independent (UK)and I find his articles very informative and insightful

Eduardo Galeano - great writer, whether it's fiction or politics

Juan Gonzalez, Pete Hamill, Jimmy Breslin - from my hometown, they've been doing it for many years, enjoy all their work

Howard Zinn - enjoy reading his column in The Progressive every month and his book, A People's History Of The United States had a deep effect on me like few books ever have

[RichM]

34. Michael Parenti, Howard Zinn, Chomsky, Bill Vann...

& several others from the WSWS; Robert Parry, Krugman, Paul Sweezy...

[Aidoneus]

47. hey, another Vann fan

very fine work he puts out. Of course those others are fine writers as well, but he's not often given the credit that is due.

[Jeff002]

35. Josh Marshall

He's a real leftist. He hasn't sold out like Chomsky and the others to libertarianism, which is basically me, me, me, me, me, me, fuck the rest of you.

[mitchum]

37. Gore Vidal and William F Buckley...

because they both write so well (even though Buckley is wrong 99% of the time)

[slinkerwink]

38. Molly Ivins....

because she went to my college, Smith College :-)

[brainshrub]

39. Greg Palast, Howard Zinn, Joe Conason and William Rivers Pitt

I just like the style. They point out flaws in conservative philosophy without being whiny. (They also think fast on their feet when speaking in public.)

[pruner]

40. my 2 favorites

non-fiction: Joe Conason

fiction: Christopher Buckley

[qwertyMike]

41. Yogi Berra

:)
It gets late early here on the west coast

[jiacinto]

42. Michael Lind, Sideny Blumenthal, and Joe Conason

nt

[WilliamPitt]

45. I'm chilled that so many mentioned me

Thanks. Thanks and thanks and thanks.

[Fovea]

46. Hey man, you know I love ya, and you have days where you are

absolutely luminous, but you still haven't crowded Hannah A., or Barb T. off their favorite space. (What can I say, I dig brainy chicks) But I do put you ahead of Treadgold's big book of Soviet History, and not far from my old Prof. Bob Gamer's on the Politics of Emerging Nations.

And you are one shelf above all my old stuff on J2EE and UML.

[Wetzelbill]

51. Brainy Chicks....wow

I'd be Arundhati Roy's boy toy anyday.

[Room101]

48. 1# Gore Vidal

No one combines intellect, history, politics and humor in tandem better than Gore Vidal.
He is unique in that he is tied in with the power elite who have and continue to run the American Empire, yet he rebels against the Empire longing for the fading Republic.
Reading Vidal is a labor of love. I’m rapping up “The last Empire” as I Wright this.

“Perpetual war for Perpetual peace” is a short must read.

[Ficus]

53. Moore

For books I really enjoyed Michael Moore's books - he really can get a message to non-political people who like his humor. I know many people who don't follow politics closely, but love Moore. He can portray a what's right/wrong with this picture to those people in a simple yet smart way.

Its good to have someone like that on our side. And Moore doesn't f$!@ around, he goes at * every time I hear him speak.

I know he's supposedly such a terrible writer because he plays "fast and loose" with the facts, but that is totally just a RW smear. The RW just can't stand that a fat and funny loser-type guy pointing out how messed up and unfair they are, and becoming popular for doing it!

:dem: :dem: