Fighting Words; A Tale of How Liberals Created Neo-Conservatism

New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, July, 2008. First Edition [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xx, [2], 362 pages. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. Inscribed and signed by the author. Inscription reads: For Brenda Krieger, with many thanks for your help over the years---and with the highest regard. Ben J. Wattenberg, 02/10. Exam in one week! --B. Benjamin Joseph Wattenberg (born Joseph Ben Zion Wattenberg; August 26, 1933 - June 28, 2015) was an American author, commentator and demographer. Associated with leading Democratic politicians in the 1960s and 1970s, he leaned increasingly conservative in his latter years. Wattenberg came to national attention as co-author with Richard M. Scammon of The Real Majority, the 1970 analysis believed to have provided the basis for the campaign strategies of the Richard Nixon administration in the 1970 congressional elections and 1972 presidential election. He was the host of a number of PBS television specials, including Values Matter Most, America's Number One, What Next?, The Stockholder Society, A Third Choice, Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism, The Democrats, and The First Measured Century. He hosted the weekly PBS television program, Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg, from 1994 to 2010, and previously hosted PBS series In Search of the Real America and Ben Wattenberg At Large. In a New Yorker article from 1996, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., refers to Wattenberg's book "Values Matter Most" as "the book that prompted Bill Clinton's infamous midnight-of-the-soul telephone call to the author". Wattenberg was a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. Ben J. Wattenberg has been at the center of American ideas and events since 1966, when he became a speechwriter for and aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson. When key players in the Democratic Party moved to the far left, Wattenberg was not happy with that situation, and helped to establish the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, where he became one of the most outspoken voices in the neo-con movement. Ben J. Wattenberg has been at the center of American ideas and events since 1966, when he became a speechwriter for and aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Recruited out of the blue, Wattenberg worked closely with press secretary Bill Moyers and immersed himself in the world of high-powered Democratic strategy making. Eventually he served as an adviser to two Democratic presidential candidates and in the 1970s helped write the Democratic National Platform. But something funny happened on the way to the Great Society: Key players in the Democratic Party moved to the far left. Wattenberg was not happy with this situation, so he helped establish the Coalition for a Democratic Majority (CDM) and became one of the most outspoken voices in the so-called neo-con movement. Neo-conservatism, with its signature cause of promoting liberty around the world, is a philosophy often misunderstood, and the phrase neo-con is used frequently as an insult by those who fail to understand the concept. Wattenberg traces the emergence of the movement from its earliest roots among Cold War thinkers such as Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz and from among the ashes of pre-radical liberalism of the early 1960s, to ideological giants Scoop Jackson and Pat Moynihan, to Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Ronald Reagan. The author also discusses the proliferation of neo-con "think tanks," such as the American Enterprise Institute, as well as the surprising appearance of a neo-conservative platform in George W. Bush's administration, in which a number of Wattenberg's protégés have played key roles. With his characteristic wit and on-target observations, the author recounts personal anecdotes featuring a rich cast of characters from Johnson to Reverend Jesse Jackson to Rudolph Giulani, as well as many others. Never lacking for opinions---he calls himself the "immoderator" of PBS's Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg---the author is here to set the record straight, and as the New York Times has said, "Wattenberg has the annoying habit of being right." Replete with stories never told before, Fighting Words is Wattenberg's firsthand account of the remarkable transformation of American politics over the last four decades.