Syndicated columnist Gene Lyons discusses the demonization of Iran’s powerless president, the state of their democracy compared to the neighbors, consequences of recent elections around the Middle East, Bush’s lifelong hostility to learning, the impossibility of the American Empire’s survival of a war in Persia, possible domestic consequences, the neocon “idea” that the Iranians would take our side if we bombed them, the abject ignorance and gullibility of the American population, the rift between the Ayatollahs and al Qaeda, the fact that Iranians are human individuals and Hillary Clinton’s vote for Kyle-Lieberman, dogs, Mike Huckabee, Iran again, and Wesley Clarke’s predictions about what would happen in Iraq back in 2002.
MP3 here. (44:10)
Gene Lyons, National Magazine Award winner and columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, writes a weekly column for Newspaper Enterprise Association. A Southerner with a liberal viewpoint, Lyons comments on politics and national issues with a distinct voice. Lyons has been a columnist with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette since 1994. He previously spent five years as general editor at Newsweek, and was associate editor at Texas Monthly for a year. In 1980, he won the National Magazine Award for Public Service for the Texas Monthly article “Why Teachers Can’t Teach.” A prolific author, Lyons has written hundreds of articles, essays and reviews for such magazines as Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, Slate and Salon. His books include The Higher Illiteracy (University of Arkansas, 1988), Widow’s Web (Simon & Schuster, 1993), Fools for Scandal (Franklin Square, 1996) and, with Joe Conason, The Hunting of the President: The Ten Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton (St. Martin’s, 2000). Mozark Productions’ “The Hunting of the President,” a documentary based on the book of the same title and produced and directed by Harry Thomason, is an official selection of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Lyons graduated from Rutgers University and earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia. He taught at the Universities of Massachusetts, Arkansas and Texas before becoming a full-time writer. A native of New Jersey, Lyons has lived in Little Rock with his wife Diane, an administrative vice president at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, since 1972. They have two sons.
