Author Biography | Full-Length Samples
Gene Lyons
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 and a no-nonsense approach.
Lyons has written a column for 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, The New York Review of Books, Entertainment Weekly, Washington Monthly, The Nation, 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). In 2004, Mozark Productions released a movie version of “The Hunting of the President.”
Lyons graduated from Rutgers University in 1965, and earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia in 1969. He taught at the Universities of Massachusetts, Arkansas and Texas before becoming a full-time writer in 1976. A native of New Jersey, Lyons has lived in Arkansas with his wife Diane since 1972. Diane, an Arkansas native, recently retired as from her position as Vice President for Board Relations at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Their two adult sons live in the Little Rock area. The Lyons live on a cattle farm near Houston, Ark., with a half-dozen dogs, three horses, and a growing herd of Fleckvieh Simmental cows.
Current Samples
July 28th, 2010
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GENE LYONS
The MSM fooled by GOPaganda -- again
By Gene Lyons
This time, the right-wing media juggernaut went too far too fast. Sleazy tactics similar to those employed by online provocateur Andrew Breitbart against former USDA official Shirley Sherrod have been driving the national political conversation and intimidating the so-called "mainstream" media for the better part of a generation now.
The assault on Sherrod, however, was so mean-spirited, crass and dishonest -- not to mention so astonishingly stupid -- that even Fox News provocateurs like Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck (after initially falling for the hoax) were pretty much forced to apologize. I expect O'Reilly actually meant it.
By inadvertently giving us a simple, compelling ...
July 21st, 2010
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GENE LYONS
Simplify, amplify and repeat, Mr. President
By Gene Lyons
If people took politics as seriously as sports, they might notice that the Republicans are acting a lot like LeBron James. He's the basketball star who, after basically rolling over and playing dead during the playoffs against the Boston Celtics, made his free-agent decision a multimedia spectacle. Now he calls himself "King James," as if he'd already won next year's NBA title and MVP trophy.
Most fans outside his new home in Miami react as follows: "Yo, LeBron. First win something, then swagger."
So it is with GOP congressional leaders already gloating in advance of November's midterm elections. Several are even warning Democrats not to try any funny business in betwee ...
July 14th, 2010
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GENE LYONS
Barber's column slices Post's integrity
By Gene Lyons
Only a devout Jeffersonian romantic could imagine that human beings govern themselves according to the dictates of evidence and reason. Even so, I've always adhered to the quaint view that journalists should avoid disseminating false information, particularly on the opinion pages. An argument that can't be won without cheating should properly be lost.
Contemporary political journalism, alas, has very little to do with such antediluvian values. Even among Sarah Palin's so-called "lamestream" media, the surrender to unreason and partisan tribalism appears to be all but complete. Consider, for example, the Washington Post's recent publication of an op-ed column by Alabama Tea Pa ...
July 7th, 2010
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GENE LYONS
Climategate burned by reality
By Gene Lyons
You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. ... But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, only in the mind of the Party. ... Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth. -- George Orwell, "1984"
What with the Northeast sweating out a triple-digit heat wave, naive observers might expect a spate of global-warming stories in the media. You know, retreating Arctic sea ice, vanishing glaciers, etc. After all, last winter's record Washington, D.C., snowstorms triggered a veritable avalanche (sorry) of pundits and ...
June 30th, 2010
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GENE LYONS
Americans still captive by the 'zombie lies'
By Gene Lyons
It's not simply about making the Obama administration look bad. Many Republicans actually love economic recessions. No better means of disciplining the labor force has ever been devised.
That's the real message behind the GOP's Senate filibuster denying extended federal benefits to roughly a million long-term unemployed. The same bill, which failed 57-41, would also have provided $16 billion in Medicaid help to states overburdened by declining tax revenues.
In consequence, several hundred thousand cops, teachers, firefighters and other public employees are sure to be laid off due to state budget cuts. Fat lot of good that will do the economy. But working stiffs will b ...
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