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9/1/13, "Why are major media outlets ignoring bestselling writer Mark R. Levin?" NY Post, opinion, by Kyle Smith
"To read the book reviews in The New York Times, the Los
Angeles Times, The Washington Post or The Boston Globe, you might be
unaware of the existence of the work of Mark Levin.
Unless you skip to the page with the bestseller lists.
Levin’s
new book “The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic,”
last week hit No. 1 on all three New York Times bestseller lists for
which it qualified — hardcover nonfiction, e-book nonfiction and the
combination of the two. Yet the paper, like the others mentioned and
their counterparts on the magazine rack, continues to ignore Levin,
whose book signing at Book Revue in Huntington, Long Island led to huge
lines on Aug. 17.
So, who is this man of mystery considered unfit for mention despite selling millions of books?
Levin is one of the most successful nonfiction writers working and the
host of a popular Tea Party-friendly conservative talk radio program
that airs nationwide, weekdays at 6 p.m. on WABC here in New York. It
claims 5 million listeners.
Levin is a polemicist. On the radio show, he comes across as Rush
Limbaugh with a law degree. He calls for the impeachment of “Barack
Milhous Nobama,” denouncing “French Republicans” (they give up too
easily, and possibly eat fancy cheeses) and declares, in response to a
threat to shut him down that, he said, came from a Republican
congressman he wouldn’t identify, “I’m not going to put up with fascism
on my watch.”
In a typical broadcast, he’ll start with the mellow
tone of voice of a soporific late-night jazz deejay, then build into a
full-on shout about, say, the perfidy of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
for accepting an expansion of Medicaid in his state: “Screw Chris
Christie!” he screamed last March.
Actually, there’s a bipartisan
aspect to ”The Mark Levin Show.” If you like the sound of Republicans
being provided with new bodily apertures without anesthesia, you can
expect plenty to delight you.
Levin once said, “Who the hell died
and made Karl Rove queen for the day?” Of John Boehner, “Get the hell
off the stage, Boehner, you’re a screwup!” Of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
program, co-hosted by Republican Joe Scarborough, he said, “This is a
program that has as its mission the destruction of conservatism.” He called John McCain “John McLame,”
slammed Ann Coulter for being too nice to Mitt Romney and thwocked Glenn
Beck for “acting like a clown” and “dividing us.”
His books carry a different tone: Here Levin is a bit more the professor than the bomb-thrower.
Levin’s
new one, which is informed by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the
Federalist papers — a favorite phrase, “soft tyranny,” comes straight
from Alexis de Tocqueville — isn’t just a collection of radio-ready
zingers.
It’s thoroughly reasoned and ably backed up with
quotations such as this one (from Jefferson): “It was by the sober sense
of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from
monarchy to republicanism, and is by the same agency alone we can be
kept from falling back.”
“The Liberty Amendments” are 11 theoretical new constitutional
amendments designed to re-emphasize a healthy suspicion of centralized
authority. Levin suggests term limits of 12 years for senators and
members of Congress, a balanced-budget amendment, term limits for
Supreme Court justices, a voter-ID amendment and a sunset provision for
federal agencies to automatically expire after three years unless
renewed.
Some of his ideas might command bipartisan support (now
might be a particularly good time to renew the term-limits fight, with
Congress polling at about the same approval rating as Lyme disease), but
given that effectively two-thirds of Congress and three-quarters of
states would have to approve any constitutional updates, most of the
Levin amendments stand almost no chance of being passed. Especially the
wittiest one: moving tax day to the day before Election Day.
That doesn’t mean the proposals are unworthy of discussion.
The
likes of the Times may prefer to ignore Levin as a fringe figure, but
that isn’t likely if he’s at the top of the bestseller list. His liberal
equivalent, Michael Moore, enjoys saturation coverage in every paper and magazine every time he has a new product to promote.
Levin
is speaking for millions when he says that DC is guilty of overreach,
of stretching the Constitution’s boundaries until it becomes
meaningless, and of sending us the bill.
Levin taps into the
disgust with a system that isn’t able to pass budgets on time,
consistently spends far more than it takes in and is beholden to
lobbyists gaming the system who Obama falsely said would be unwelcome in
his administration.
It isn’t just tinfoil-hat birthers who
mistrust ObamaCare, which recently hit a disapproval rating of 54% and
was seemingly designed to embody the Levin view of the government as
capricious, unfair and whiplashed by unintended (but predictable)
consequences such as companies cutting back workers to 29-hour weeks.
Levin
reader-listeners feel left out of the national debate, and mostly the
national media has responded by...trying to pretend he doesn’t
exist."
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