Alan Colmes (1950–2017)

“Thank the Liberals” is an excellent book for liberals who want to pat themselves on the back for being on the right side of issues. As a liberal, I expected to get more fired up by this book, but there just wasn't much new here. Colmes makes good points as he makes his argument for why most people (in one sense or another) are liberals and how liberal the ideas were that our founding fathers based our country on...but there's nothing earth shattering here.

The idea that accepting and defending the rights of others to believe differently is a liberal one, true, but not one that many people would dispute. Though this part of a speech given by Mario Cuomo does sum it up beautifully. “We know that the price of seeking to force our belief on others is that they might someday force theirs on us.” (Now that I read that again...it does make me wonder yet again why conservatives are so hell-bent on forcing their views on everyone else. Everyone must believe what they believe...which kind of flies in the face of their screaming about “freedom”. Enough about that.

By the end, I was skimming a bit. Reading a book in which you agree with almost all of it yet are not inspired by much of it gets a little tedious.

I suppose the one thing that stood our for me most was the blurb on the back by Ann Coulter. And not by her words, but my snort of utter disbelief that she actually read this book.… (meer)

This book surprises me. I picked it up because I wanted to see what life was like on the other side. I opened it up on the airplane and had to keep from laughing just by reading the forward. Mr. Colmes had addressed to people just like me. I hate to admit this, but he makes some great arguments for the left. Not that I'm converting, it's just good to know that there are people on the left who are truly concerned about the issues that Americans are dealing with today like family values, education and crime and not just the talking points such as race, gender neutrality and abortion.… (meer)