Does anyone have the scoop on fake author John Avalon?

[EFerrari]

He's on BookTV talking about his book, "Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America".

Sounds good, right? The purpose of his book is to tar the left while pretending to objectively look at extremism on both sides. It's a book built on the Faux "both sides do it" premise.

Anyone know about him?

This is the BookTV promo and there is a link to the segment if you can stream video:

According to Mr. Avlon, both ends of the politics spectrum are up-ending American politics by maintaining a climate of hyper-partisanship. Taking each party back from its "wingnuts" is the first step to progress in America, he says. The event is at The Strand in New York City.

http://www.booktv.org/Program/11377/Wingnuts+How+the+Lunatic+Fringe+is+Hijacking+America.aspx

The publisher is Beast Books, if that's any help.

http://www.amazon.com/Wingnuts-Lunatic-Fringe-Hijacking-America/dp/0984295119/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1270410354&sr=8-1

His other book, which pushes what he called "centrism", is "Independent Nation", and he claims that independents are fiscally conservative and socially libertarian.

[NWHarkness]

1. He's one of Rudy Giuliani's lap dogs

I tried to listen to him on CSPAN, but I couldn't take his phony equivalencies for long. He seems to believe that if someone repeated stabbed you with a knife, and you pushed them away, you would both be equally guilty of resorting to violent behavior.

[EFerrari]

2. Exactly. I can't figure out if he's just coasting on the New Centrism

or if he's funded by someone like Heritage. I don't know much about The Daily Beast.

[blondeatlast]

15. C'est neaux moire. From what I've seen, it makes perfect sense. nt

[blogslut]

3. Beast Books is Tina Brown's offshoot from the Daily Beast

Mr. Avalon is currently experiencing charges of plagiarism:

Another Daily Beast columnist has been accused of uncredited borrowing. This time, it’s senior political columnist John Avalon, who, in his new Beast-published book Wingnuts, lifts quotes from Salon columnist Alexander Zaitchik’s reporting on Glenn Beck. Hamilton Nolan of Gawker lays out all the instances http://gawker.com/5507370/daily-beast-columnist-ripped-off-salon-story-on-glenn-beck-updated">here. Basically, Avalon didn’t swipe any of Zaitchik’s own prose, but he just happened to find the exact same obscure quotes on the Stormfront.org forums, edit them the same way, and use them in the same order.

Asked for comment, the Beast’s PR guy fired back a scathing e-mail, calling Hamilton’s post “highly defamatory” and demanding a retraction. “Nolan has nothing to retract,” counters Joan Walsh of Salon; Avalon obviously borrowed “beyond the bounds of fairness.” She reveals that Zaitchik himself noticed the swipes weeks ago, and privately contacted the Beast, but didn’t get any response. Taken together with the Gerald Posner case, “TDB has a problem that blaming Gawker isn't going to make go away.”

link: http://www.newser.com/story/84987/another-daily-beast-writer-accused-of-plagiarism.html

[EFerrari]

4. That's interesting. Gerald Posner, really?

Yick. He's a whole slime universe unto himself!

[Canuckistanian]

5. He was on Randi Rhode's show last week

He seemed fairly intelligent and well-read, but he did indeed push this "both sides do it" idea.

Randi was polite to him, but vehemently denied that "left-wing fringe groups" during Bush's time did anything vaguely like the Teabaggers are doing today.

[EFerrari]

8. This "both sides" cr@p is insidious, imo. Pretty soon they'll be saying both sides killed Lincoln

if they haven't already. This is how you create your own "reality" and plaster it all over the culture.

[DavidDvorkin]

6. If he wrote those books, then he's a real author.

[EFerrari]

7. Literally he is but as a propagandist (which I think he is)

his interest isn't in his topic but in something else, hence, he's a fake.

Heritage and AEI put out much of their poisons in this way. Books about Marines, values and national security that nearly always turn out not to be about Marines or values or security but about disseminating their agenda.

[DavidDvorkin]

9. No, whatever his sliminess, he's still a real author

His reasons for writing those books, or however false or misleading they may be, don't make him a fake author. They may show that he's a liar and a propagandist. But he's still a real author.

[EFerrari]

12. Here's another shocker: I don't think this is a real book either!

:)

[Gabi Hayes]

10. need to know any more after reading this, from the Daily Beast:

Previously, he served as chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.

[Cleita]

11. Thom Hartmann interviewed him last week on his radio show.

There might be a podcast or YouTube out there with it. I don't remember which date.

[EFerrari]

13. Do you remember what they talked about Cleita?

I think Thom's site is being troubly right now -- they just changed it out.

[Cleita]

14. They talked about the book and Thom argued with him about his

theory that Libertarianism is a solution. Other than that no, I don't remember a whole lot. I tune out a lot mentally when he has people like that on.

[EFerrari]

16. Thanks. I've only been watching the last hour that is on FSTV.

I think soon, the second and third hours will be televised.

[Berry Cool]

17. It's not "Avalon," it's "Avlon," and he's the king of false equivalency.

His book "Wingnuts" has pictures of three people on the cover: Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Keith Olbermann. He claims they're all wack jobs. He also claims Ed Schultz is a wingnut. Yet if you actually read the book, far more of it is about right wingers than about anyone else.

Even so, he claims to be an "independent" and says that MSNBC is a far-left news network just like Fox News is a far-right news network. He says this on CNN, which he claims is the only true "fair and balanced" network. CNN gives him airtime to make lists of people he thinks are wingnuts, on which he suggests that Ed Schultz is just as bad as Michele Bachmann.

[MajorChode]

18. He is an avowed conservative

The problem with his premise is that the extreme left in no way compares to the extreme right. Those on the extreme left are very few and far between and for the most part are civil about airing their grievances. Those on the extreme right have much more significant numbers and no intention of being civil about anything.

[EFerrari]

19. It's interesting that his book is titled to appeal to the left

and he turns out to be a wingnut himself. Somebody worked a while framing this POS.

[MajorChode]

20. I don't know that I'd call him a wingnut

He seems to have genuine disdain for the teabaggers and the rest of the nutbaggery on the extreme right. However, he tries to call out the extreme left as being in the same league, which is where he fucks up.