Posted on 07/03/2005 7:31:04 AM PDT by kristinn
Byron York was in Washington covering an anti-war rally for the conservative National Review, and the protesters were members of International ANSWER, a far-left fringe group whose acronym stands for "Act Now to Stop War and End Racism."
"There were actually communists there," York recalls. "It was kind of amazing. They were calling each other `comrade.' In 2003, it was almost like `Jurassic Park,' seeing real, living, breathing communists walking around."
And it occurred to the Vestavia Hills native that International ANSWER wasn't the only organization opposed to the war in Iraq in general and George W. Bush in particular.
Rather, it was just one cog in a well-financed political machine that included such groups as MoveOn.org and America Coming Together and activists like billionaire George Soros, humorist Al Franken and filmmaker Michael Moore. Their mission: Dump Bush and jump-start the Democratic Party.
So York began to connect the dots and put the pieces together for his recent book, "The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy" (Crown Forum, $26.95).
(The long-winded title is, "The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President - and Why They'll Try Even Harder Next Time.")
"The question I have been asked the most about this book is, `Look, if these people were so smart and so organized and had so much money, how come they lost?'" York says.
"The answer is that John Kerry had a lot to do with that. He was not a good candidate. They know it, but he's what they had. So they didn't win. I think they were not in touch with a vast majority of Americans' positions on national security and the war on terrorism.
"It wasn't their time and they didn't have the right candidate but one of the things I say in the book is this was not just about defeating Bush," York goes on. "It was also about building new institutions that would last beyond 2004. And they've done that."
Had he stuck with his original plan, York would be teaching history instead of covering politics in Washington, D.C., where he lives with his wife, Marty.
The son of longtime Birmingham television personality Tom York and his wife, Helen, York graduated from Vestavia Hills High School in 1974 and majored in history at the University of Alabama, where he finished three years later.
He earned his master's degree from the University of Chicago and was working on a doctorate when he decided he'd had enough of academia.
"I went off to graduate school with the plan of getting a Ph.D. and becoming a college professor," he says. "I found that I really didn't like it. I was what they call an 'ABD' - 'All But Dissertation.'"
Father's footstep
So York, like his father, went into television, starting at the bottom as a video journalist at CNN Headline News in Atlanta in 1982.
"I ended up going into television, and I'm sure at the time I would have told you my father's profession made absolutely no difference," York says. "(But) I'm sure it played a role.
"It was a good opportunity because CNN was just getting started," he adds. "It was a great place to learn TV. They were hiring relatively inexperienced people like me, and it was a very good experience."
From his entry-level job running the TelePrompTer and the studio cameras, he worked his way up to writer, news editor and supervising producer before he left after four years to join WPLG in Miami. After a year and a half at that station, he moved on to WRC in Washington, where he produced the 11 o'clock news.
That's when he got hooked on politics.
"When you're in Washington, it just happens," York says. "It's hard not to become more and more interested in politics, and that certainly was the case with me."
His career took another turn in the early 1990s, when he began writing magazine articles on the side.
"There were some stories I had worked on at WRC that I decided to follow up in print," he says. "I began to write a number of free-lance articles, mostly about politics and the Clinton administration at the time.
"I found that I really enjoyed it, and at some point, the free-lance work kind of outweighed the day job. I made the reverse television-to-print move."
York started writing his conservative commentaries for the American Spectator before joining the National Review five years ago. He covers the Bush administration and "its Democratic adversaries" as the magazine's White House correspondent.
His recent posts have included "The Left Asks, 'Will We Ever Win Again?'" and "Michael Moore and the Myth of 'Fahrenheit 9/11,'" an issue he addressed extensively in his book.
SNIP
FYI.
This sounds like an absolutely must BUY and read book; good for future reference.
Yep. It's on my reading list, too.
Government take overs, land grabs, forced atheism, abortion and infant experimentation, homosexuality, child indoctrination, and their undying hate for Israel.
If people haven't noticed this connection already, they haven't been paying attention. The left wing communists really, really hate Bush because he's trying to end communism in America, and they know it!
Amidst these socialists are Marxist communists, Greens and 'Alts' of every persuasion... and ALL of them understand that they'll never win the White House unless they cling to the 'Democrat' label.
Their goal is simple: Convert America into a socialist democracy through the courts.
Besides all Byron York's outstanding qualifications, he's got great hair! :)
Hey, I really appreciate the heads up on York's new book! And he's right about the importance of the left wing conspiracy. We can be smug about controlling the White House and Congress, but the left wing conspiracy has laid the groundwork for control of the government for decades to come. ( I think their plan was in play years ago, that's why they attacked Richard Mellon Scaiffe with such intensity. He was getting the jump on them.)
I think Mark Levin's book is still up there on Amazon around # 10...let's hope Byron's book joins Men In Black for a long run on the best seller lists.
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