Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture

From Publishers Weekly Feldstein, an award-winning journalist and professor at the University of Maryland, chronicles the controversial careers of two iconic figures, former president Richard Nixon and the investigative reported he feared most--Jack Anderson. With the astute analysis of a psychotherapist, Feldstein shows how the emotional and religious strengths, or flaws, of Nixon, the over-ambitious Quaker politician, and Anderson, the pious Mormon scribe, play out in a three-decade-long game to win over American public opinion. Whether Nixon was engineering a homosexual smear through wiretaps and doctored photos or the muckraking columnist was probing the Republican's hidden slush funds and numerous scandals, the book chronicles a slew of wrongdoings worthy of a sleazy pulp bestseller. Neither man escapes unscathed: Nixon, the schizoid schemer, or Anderson, the self-righteous campaigner. Brutal, brilliant, and gripping, this dark parable of tainted Beltway politics and an overreaching media lays the groundwork for the current cultural stench of celebrity exposes and bed-hopping lawmakers. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. From Booklist For a quarter of a century, politician Richard Nixon and columnist Jack Anderson engaged in a bitter battle royal, each occasionally using blackmail, bribery, spying, and burglary to try and defeat the other. Media scholar and former reporter Feldstein offers a deliciously detailed account of the backstory, fierce enmity, and legacy of scandalmongering and poisonous conflict between the media and political figures. Despite their similar backgrounds—both grew up in working-class families steeped in religion (Nixon a Quaker, Anderson a Mormon)—they nurtured career ambitions, with no compunction about moral ambiguity, that eventually led them to Washington. While Nixon climbed through the ranks of the Republican Party until he reached the presidency, Anderson exceeded his mentor, Drew Pearson, to make his “Merry-Go-Round” column a powerful force for destroying political careers. The two battled through the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, with Anderson riffling through garbage and bugging conversations to document each and every Nixon misstep, triggering Nixon’s retaliation with wiretaps, smears, and even a plot to kill Anderson. Feldstein delivers an engaging chronicle of the poisoned relationship between two powerful men and its lasting impact on political journalism. --Vanessa Bush