You Don't Know Me: A Citizen's Guide to Republican Family Values

by Win McCormack

Book Overview

YOU DON'T KNOW ME: A CITIZEN'S GUIDE TO REPUBLICAN FAMILY VALUES outlines the hypocrisy behind some key G.O.P. platforms. In an easy to use A-Z format, Win McCormack demonstrates right-wing depravity... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0979419867
• ISBN13: 9780979419867
• Release Date: August 2008
• Publisher: Tin House Books
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

"Family Values" is just a brand name for Republicans

When Democrats (who don't claim the moral high ground) have a falling out with decorum, it is generally a ho-hum affair: married man has sex with a younger woman. When Republicans explode their main springs due to repressed sexal urges, it's always a dizzying leap off the high dive, involving chaffed knees at glory holes, greased sex toys in unmentionable places, grotesque mishandling of minors or frantic coupling with animals, and always, always accompanied by outlandish excuses, explanations and rationalizations. "You Don't Know Me" captures all the faux pas and red faced meanderings with wit and humor, while backing revelations of each unfortunate peccadillo with footnotes and documentation. This book is a must read for those of us who would respond to the Right's constant bleating about the loose morals of the liberals and elite in our society.

Glass houses

To err is human, and when it comes to sex and relationships, almost all of us have erred (probably more than once). I suspect that there are few people who don't have a few indiscretions tucked away somewhere in their closet. These skeletons don't necessarily make us bad people. But they sure do suggest that a bit of humility is called for when it comes to climbing on moral high horses in order to judge the same behavior in others. Otherwise, the finger-pointing becomes sheer hypocrisy. The value of Win McCormack's You Don't Know Me is that it's a reminder that many of our nation's loudest and most in-your-face champions of "family values" talk the talk but don't walk the walk. He documents the misbehavin' of 101 of them, ranging from US presidents and a supreme court justice to congresspeople (both current and past), governors, media celebrities, and evangelists. Some of the acts (gay sex, autoeroticism) don't seem wicked in and of themselves (except to people who beat the family values drum). What's disturbing is the hypocrisy of public figures condeming the very kind of behavior that they privately indulge in. Other kinds of behavior are pretty bad and condemnatory from either side of the political aisle: spouse battery, refusal to pay child support, sexual groping of women (and men), sexual harrassment, adultery, beastiality (yep, you read that right). And the wickedness is compounded, once again, by the fact that the perpetrators of these sorts of acts hypocritically climb on the public bandwagon of family values. So you've got the surreal situation, for example, of congressmen who've committed adultery going after Clinton; congressmen and evangelicals who are closet gays going after gays; a hang-'em-high judge convicted of possessing child pornography; media celebrities who claim to be squeaky clean sexually harrassing women; a politician who's had at least two abortions fixated on repealing Roe v Wade; and politicians who champion the sanctity of the family dumping their wives and refusing to pay child support. I don't think McCormack's book should be read with a kind of schadenfreudliche glee by liberals. Neither political party is free of the taint of hypocrisy. But it is a sad reminder that the compartmentalization of personal and public lives performed by many celebrities harms their own integrity and, even worse, harms others when these same mover-and-shakers push through repressive public policies condeming the very behavior they secretly embrace.

Where is McCain?

This is a similar book to "Glass Houses" which came out during the Clinton Impeachment hearings demonstrating the utter hypocracy of the "family values" Dixiecrat-Republicans. While this book has a lot of updated material, more could have been included including Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly (though his sexual harrassment case is there) and Laura Schlessinger. Under "Adultery" John McCain is missing; a serial womanizer worse than Bill Clinton ever was and who, like Newt Gingrich, left a sick and loyal wife for a younger woman, he gets a free ride. Also missing is that paragon of patriotism, Rush Limbaugh - the spokesperson for "family values", who has been married is it 3 or 4 times, no kids, no church, draft dodger, etc. Our elected officials are human beings and often have lapses. But when the Right Wing makes these issues their foundation for existence and for finger pointing, it lapses into unforgivable hubris. Remember that one of Hitler's election promises was a return to traditional German family values.