Overview
At last, those on the left have a fast-talking champion with fresh ideas to counter the outrageous barbs of conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, who have cowed Capitol Hill and dominated talk radio. Smiley is particularly harsh on Black conservatives like Ken Hamblin and Armstrong Williams, who he feels have betrayed the Black community. But Smiley isn't afraid to take on traditional politics-as-usual liberals as well. Smiley says it was the liberals' determined refusal to acknowledge the flaws of social programs and policies, from affirmative action to welfare, that gave conservatives the opening they needed to rechart the nation's course. Now, Smiley warns, that course has taken America dangerously close to the rocky shoals of the extreme right. Hard Left is a clarion call for liberal politicians and leaders to pick themselves up off the ground, tear a page out of the conservative playbook, and counter the conservative offensive by tackling the political and racial issues that go to the core of our society.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Smiley, a liberal black TV and nationally syndicated radio commentator, comes out swinging at the Republicans and their "Contract on America" in this partisan, thoughtful political statement. He bypasses virtually no one as he skewers politicians beholden to the tobacco industry; black conservatives ("an oxymoron") and the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court ("Black America's worst nightmare"). He encourages liberals to combat conservatives because "in any good fight, nothing counters a sharp right like a hard left." He tackles the bigotry of talk radio, the sense of moral decay in America ("The Right seems to think that financial success is an indicator of moral virtue"), the moral reasoning behind affirmative action and the need for blacks to become an elective force. He also gives us his thoughts on rap music (it's a legitimate art form), interracial marriage (he thinks it weakens the black family structure) and the recent political phenomenon known as the angry white male (he notes that blacks have always suffered society's unfairness). A hard-hitting intellectual counterpunch that liberals will endorse. (June)Kirkus Reviews
Liberal pulpit-pounding from a young master of the exploding what's-wrong-with- America genre."People are tired of being preached to, from the Left and Right," talk-radio host Smiley observes. That said, he does an awful lot of preaching in this short book, in which he aims to convert his audience to Democratic populism through a mix of folksy exhortation ("well, we'd darn well better raise our voices quickly before the rhetoric of the Right overwhelms us all") and broad-view oratory ("whites today weren't responsible for slavery. But they have indirectly benefitted from the racial inequality and economic injustice that arose out of it"). In measured moments, Smiley offers sensible observations on the desirability of consensus-building and unification; drawing on his background as a poor black in a largely white area of rural Indiana, near the national headquarters of the KKK, he insists that people of all ethnicities can get along and form an equitable political coalition. He also gives credit where it is due, allowing that when conservatives "talk about the moral fabric of our country being torn apart and the need for a return to family values, they are right." Still, for Smiley the left is the Democratic Party, the right the Republicans, which leaves an awful lot of political territory unexplored, and he is too obviously impressed by his own influence ("the real power in this country today is in the media," he avers) to be entirely convincing. Some of his facts are questionable, too—he claims, for instance, that while smoking kills half a million Americans a year, illegal drugs produce only 3,000 deaths, which seems a gross undercalculation. But no matter: Smiley is on a roll throughout this book, and his enthusiasm for his cases bears his arguments along even when pure logic doesn't.
In the end, the preaching is directed to the choir, no matter how good the oratory may be.