Joe Conason

Type Media Center Fellow

Joe Conason is a fellow at Type Media Center and Type Investigations’ editor-at-large. For 18 years he wrote a weekly political column for The New York Observer, where he formerly served as executive editor, and for 12 years he wrote a weekly column for Salon. He is now editor-in-chief of The National Memo, a daily political newsletter and website. He previously served as investigative editor of The American Prospect, editor-at-large for Condé Nast’s Details, and as a staff writer for The Village Voice. His articles and essays have appeared in Harpers, Esquire, The Nation, The New Republic, The Guardian, and The New Yorker, among scores of other periodicals. A winner of The New York Press Club’s Byline Award, he has covered every American presidential election since 1980. 

Conason will release his third book The Longest Con on July 9, 2024 with St. Martin’s Press. He is also the author of two New York Times bestselling books, The Hunting of the President (St. Martins Press, 2000) and Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth (St. Martins Press, 2003). He recently completed a new book about former President Bill Clinton’s life and work since leaving the White House in 2001 – Man of  The World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton (Simon and Schuster, 2016). He is a frequent guest on radio and television, including appearances on MSNBC. He currently lives in New York City with his wife and two children.

https://joeconason.org/

Books

The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism

A sardonic chronicle of how conservatism turned into a racketeering enterprise – and why Donald Trump became the living emblem of the American right’s moral decay.

Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton

Veteran political journalist Joe Conason brings you along with Bill Clinton, as the forty-second president blazes new paths in his post-presidential career. It is unlike the second career of any other president: “Bill Clinton” is a global brand, rising from the dark days of his White House departure to become one of the most popular names in the world. Man of the World tells the engrossing story of an extraordinary man who is still seeking to do good in the world.

The Hunting of Hillary

The Hunting of Hillary recounts the true history of the “vast right-wing conspiracy”—as Hillary Clinton herself once famously described it—that sought to bring her down along with her husband when he was president.

It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush

For the first time since the Nixon era, Americans have reason to doubt the future of democracy. Today, to an unprecedented degree, big government conspires with big business and big evangelism, while civil liberties are diminished and war is promoted by taxpayer-funded ideologues, raving pundits, and religious zealots. Could we be headed toward an age of authoritarianism?

The Raw Deal:How the Bush Republicans Plan to Destroy Social Security and the Legacy of the New Deal

The Raw Deal explores the Right’s privatization goals, Bush’s hard-fought privatization campaign, the corporate interests behind the plan, the media campaign to undermine confidence in Social Security, and how the swindle can be stopped. Conason’s no-apologies, no-nonsense approach clears up the myriad misperceptions surrounding this important, confusing issue and gets to the truth about the big Social Security bluff

Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth

In Big Lies, Joe Conason rips through the ten most damaging lies perpetrated by the right wing propaganda machine. This scathing, fact-filled analysis debunks it all. Big Lies confronts right-wing slander and bias with a long-awaited, badly-needed counterpunch to the deceptions that have plagued American politics for a generation.

The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton

In vivid prose, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons discuss how and why Clinton’s foes launched a cascade of well-financed attacks that undermined American democracy and nearly destroyed the Clinton presidency. In The Hunting of the President, Conason and Lyons identify the antagonists, reveal their tactics, trace the millions of dollars that subsidised them, and examine how and why mainstream news organizations aided those who were determined to bring down Bill Clinton.

Highlights

The Hidden World Of Mike Johnson, Culture Warrior

House Speaker Mike Johnson, lately elevated to one of the most important posts in the federal government, is nothing if not a fervent culture warrior.

Mike Johnson Seems Nice -- Until You Take A Closer Look

Mike Johnson, the four-term Louisiana representative just elected as House speaker, makes a pleasant first impression. That may be why his fellow Republicans chose such an untested politician, with no obvious qualifications, to fill that demanding post. Or they may have simply succumbed to exhaustion and embarrassment after the procedural fiasco that left Congress in limbo for weeks.

 

The MAGA Culture Of Menace Is No Surprise

When Republicans claim to be shocked by threats of violence that have repeatedly marred their party’s contest for speaker of the House, it is hard to suppress a bitter laugh. The malignant direction of their party over the past several years is no secret — and although many of them are too cowardly to identify the poison’s source, everyone knows his name.

Replacing McCarthy? Keep Expectations Low

Having bounced poor Kevin McCarthy out of office – a moment that might have been painful if the former speaker possessed a spine – House Republicans now face the difficult prospect of choosing a replacement.

What the Biden impeachment inquiry has proven

So far, the Republican drive to impeach President Joe Biden has illustrated a crucial aspect of political life in America. It has nothing to do with the president, or at least not the current president.

Exposed Again: The Criminal Intent Behind Trump's Fascist Coup Plot

Now that former President Donald Trump has been indicted not once but twice for attempting to steal the 2020 presidential election, his apologists say he was merely pursuing his constitutional right to contest the results.

Apprehending The Supreme Court's Bonnie And Clyde

What is to be done about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his deranged spouse?

Behind Josh Hawley's Disgusting QAnon Slur Against Judge Jackson

Of all the Senate Republicans who regularly engage in gutter politics, none is more likely to scrape bottom than Josh Hawley.

When Putin Strikes Ukraine, He Is Aiming For America

When Tucker Carlson insists there is no reason for Americans to distrust Russian President Vladimir Putin — and that his reputation for criminal brutality is simply fabricated by the “globalist deep state” controlled by George Soros — his rhetoric conceals the true source of friction between the United States and Russia.

Vladimir Putin Should 'Denazify' Himself

When Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the reason for his bloody invasion of Ukraine was to purge it of “drug addicts and neo-Nazis,” the Russian dictator provoked sneers and laughter. It was a ludicrous claim against a nation that had elected a Jewish president, who lost family members to the Holocaust, with 75 percent of the vote in 2019. The far-right party, by the way, won 1.6 percent in that election.

Today's Republican Party Emits Sinister Echoes Of 'America First'

When Donald Trump first adopted “America First” as a slogan for his movement, it was unclear whether he had done so from sheer ignorance of its disgraced history or as a slyly malevolent tribute.