“I don’t own a single share of stock.” —Michael Moore

Members of the liberal left exude an air of moral certitude. They pride themselves on being selflessly committed to the highest ideals and seem particularly confident of the purity of their motives and the evil nature of their opponents. To correct economic and social injustice, liberals support a whole litany of policies and principles: progressive taxes, affirmative action, greater regulation of corporations, raising the inheritance tax, strict environmental regulations, children’s rights, consumer rights, and much, much more.

But do they actually live by these beliefs? Peter Schweizer decided to investigate in depth the private lives of some prominent liberals: politicians like the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, the Kennedys, and Ralph Nader; commentators like Michael Moore, Al Franken, Noam Chomsky, and Cornel West; entertainers and philanthropists like Barbra Streisand and George Soros. Using everything from real estate transactions, IRS records, court depositions, and their own public statements, he sought to examine whether they really live by the principles they so confidently advocate.

What he found was a long list of glaring contradictions. Michael Moore denounces oil and defense contractors as war profiteers. He also claims to have no stock portfolio, yet he owns shares in Halliburton, Boeing, and Honeywell and does his postproduction film work in Canada to avoid paying union wages in the United States. Noam Chomsky opposes the very concept of private property and calls the Pentagon “the worst institution in human history,” yet he and his wife have made millions of dollars in contract work for the Department of Defense and own two luxurious homes. Barbra Streisand prides herself as an environmental activist, yet she owns shares in a notorious strip-mining company. Hillary Clinton supports the right of thirteen-year-old girls to have abortions without parental consent, yet she forbade thirteen-year-old Chelsea to pierce her ears and enrolled her in a school that would not distribute condoms to minors. Nancy Pelosi received the 2002 Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farm Workers, yet she and her husband own a Napa Valley vineyard that uses nonunion labor.

Schweizer’s conclusion is simple: liberalism in the end forces its adherents to become hypocrites. They adopt one pose in public, but when it comes to what matters most in their own lives—their property, their privacy, and their children—they jettison their liberal principles and embrace conservative ones. Schweizer thus exposes the contradiction at the core of liberalism: if these ideas don’t work for the very individuals who promote them, how can they work for the rest of us?

This book is great! It exposes things that you would never imagine possible, considering how people present themselves and what they preach to the public. The author does a great job of just exposing the facts and being respectful to thier personal family life. For anyone who is interested in how honest people are or aren't, you must read this book!!!

Schweizer has done an excellent job of proving the left doesn't practice what it preaches. There is information on Michael Moore, Hilary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Al Franken, Cornell West and many others that will infuriate you. They are truely shameless. Rich and shameless..

A prominent Republican would have his career in politics severely damaged if not destroyed if such hypocrisies were even SUSPECTED much less proven. The mainstream media and it's liberal bias and irresponsible reporting has done a great disservice to this country and it's people. The elitist attitude of the left as they assume the moral high ground while looking down their nose at you in EVERY situation is what is most sickening. It seems the far left live in their own little world where just having a conservative opinion is considered neo-con, racist, redneck white America and something to be ashamed of.

Even though Schweizer backs up every allegation with hard evidence the stupid "sheeple" continue heading for the cliff in a dead run!! Lord help us all.

I've been known to offer up my views on everything from movies to CDs to books. It's been in the realm of book reviews that I've taken the most flack. Why? Because I offer a conservative viewpoint and admit to it. There isn't a person on this planet who can claim to offer a completely unbiased point of view. Your lifestyle, your upbringing, your education and your life experiences all help to form who and how you are. Thus we are all biased so lets be honest about it up front, eh?

With that in mind I can tell you that I found the book DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO: PROFILES IN LIBERAL HYPOCRISY by Peter Schweitzer to be one of the most honest and hilarious books I've read in ages. Yes, he does have that conservative view to his writings, but not to the point where it overshadows the arguments that he is trying to put forth as say Michael Savage does. Instead, Schweitzer takes cold hard facts and makes his argument.

Just to deviate for a moment, I've read political discourse on both sides of the fence and the thing that amazes me most is that conservatives tend to use facts to make their arguments. Liberals tend to name call. Al Franken is the best example of this (and he is discussed in this book). Yes, some more well known conservatives resort to this now and then but not nearly as much so on a regular basis. If you would like to prove me wrong with a liberal author who makes a case using verifiable facts please write and let me know. I am always open to a good read.

Back to the book. Schweitzer takes a look at several high profile liberals and the ideas they espouse and then compares them to the lifestyles that they actually live. I mean if you believe we should all do what we can to save the Earth, you should do the same things you tell others too, right? If you believe that big corporations are the root of all evil, you should do everything in your power to not support them, correct? Schweitzer takes these twelve examples and shows how they do exactly what the title infers which is tell you one thing and do another.

First up is Noam Chomsky. Chomsky is an online God. You hear people in chat room and blogs hail him as the best thing since sliced bread. And every word that he says is held up as gospel when it comes to just how terrible a place America is. Everything from corporations to the industrial military complex are taken to tasks by Chomsky. And greedy Americans should be paying more taxes and inheritance taxes as well. So does Chomsky do the same?

This leading socialist thinker lives in an $850,000 home. He's put his incomes in various tax shelters so that his children don't have to pay inheritance taxes. While teaching and writing, his paycheck was supported by grants from the U.S.Army, the air force and the office of Naval Research. And for someone who claims that we should have open and honest free speech, his speeches are far from free as well as all sorts of media that he holds dear. Copyright infringement is warned against in everything he does.

Next chapter? Michael Moore. So much has been revealed about Moore that I'm beginning to think even the liberals of the country don't praise him as often as they once did. Preaching that he came from humble working class conditions in Flint, Michigan, it's been revealed he actually grew up in the more affluent middle-class town of Davison. Moore constantly talks about the workers of this country who are placed under the thumb of oppressive management. Moore constantly demonizes the United States saying that no one can make something of themselves there. Moore also claims that racism is rampant in this country and that he will hire blacks to work for him without the need for affirmative action.

So what's wrong here? First off, Moore made something of himself but believes no one else can. He makes thousands of dollars for each personal appearance and the demands he makes at those are outrageous (special water to drink?). The same country he bad mouths gave him the opportunity to make millions. As for workers? Ask some of those who have worked for him and you'll see he doesn't pay well or at times even pay at all. Two writers were asked by Moore to work under the table for less to avoid paying union wages. As for minorities? Of 134 producers, editors, cinematographers, composers and production coordinators that have worked on the various TV series and films Moore has made, only 3 have been black. Oh you might also be interested to know that this same person who claimed that the stock market was a terrible thing has invested much of his money there. Not only that, many of his dollars were invested in companies like Halliburton (look at the back of the book sleeve to see a copy of that tax return).

Are you beginning to get the picture? I could give more and more details about the book and each person covered but that would take the fun away from the reader. Schweitzer does a great job of mixing information that he gathered that is open to the public with the statements made by each of these people to show the two sided nature each of them shares. It's not him making the claim and saying its so because he said so but done with facts that are there for all to see if they look.

Who else is among the twelve? Al Franken, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Ralph Nader, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Streisand, George Soros, Gloria Steinem and Cornel West. Each has their own claim to fame here from abusing non-union workers to not paying people who work for them to using a capitalists system to reap rewards while at the same time telling others they shouldn't be so greedy or invest anywhere. Ecology? Some own companies that are major polluters or have stock in some of the worst of the worst, but those must be all right for THEM to invest in while telling everyone else they should punish those same companies by not investing.

Schweitzer writes well making this read easily accessible to the most novice reader. He puts things in simple form so as to make the point without clouding it with minute details, though the details are there. And he makes it humorous at the same time.

I will be the first person to say that there are a number of hypocrites on the right as well. Conservatives who make claims and do the opposite as well. Schweitzer points them out in the first chapter. The difference is the way they respond when it's discovered. They repent. They admit to their wrong doings. They don't continue to demand everyone else follow their creed while at the same time saying they won't do it too. For the twelve selected in this book that doesn't hold true. Not only do they continue to preach how bad things are, they still do them behind not too closed doors at the same time.

A well informed public is what this country needs. Books written about both sides should be read by all. Get both sides of the story. Don't blindly follow anyone. Seek out books like this one and others. The more you know, the better decisions you can make in the long run. And don't take these books at face value. Check the footnotes and see if they're honest. A good place to start getting informed is this book.

One last piece of evidence that some people make uninformed decisions right here at epinions. I've had at least two people tell me they've had the same thing happen. Write a review with an opposing viewpoint, preferably a conservative one. To do so is to invite insult in your comments or worse yet a bad rating not based on the content of the review itself but because of your beliefs. Think conservatives are mean and hateful? Look at those ratings and comments. When 15 out of 16 rate it very good and one very bad and that person doesn't leave a name? Judge for yourself.

I always suspected we had a bunch of hypocrites influencing and running our country. But to be so blatantly two-sided! Wow, these people must be pathological liars!!

Liberal or conservative, since reading this book, I will no longer unquestioningly believe anything I hear or read!

No, not the book (which was great) but the stories. It's a tad repetiive but that just reinforces just how "consistentl" duplicitous the leftists in the book are in their endeavors.

Before the left attacks and talks of a few pedophile priests or Rush Limbaugh popping painkillers, remember that conservatives:

a) usually apologize
b) are not harming anyone but themselves and their families and
c) normally take stands on issues of high morality and virtuous principle, which are difficult to maintain in a society where G-d gives us all free will
d) don't lie, fabricate, deny then sue when caught. they also are not afraid to debate and discuss those shortcoming. the left, especially folks like al franken and michael moore, refuse discourse or call names. they are the children they never had....

Schweizer's book, as most who read it noticed, is meticulously researched. He has endnotes to back up all quotes and claims. These stories are totally true, and any google search proves it.

It's lucky the left has fascist-like control of the media and academia or we'd all know that Michael Moore and Barbra Streisand, who claim America is racist, refuse to hire blacks for their films or pay more than $3 per hour to Latinos who work for them. Or that they own stock (and make millions) in the Military Industrial Complex and Halliburton, though they crusade against those entities as evil. Or about their (Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi for example) rapacious anti-environmentalist lifestyles (because they need yachting space or land for a new golf course or hotel) and lack of interest in civil liberties (depsite both being huge into organizations like the Sierra Club and the ACLU).

Or we might know Gloria Steinam, like most militant feminists, loves strong men and "selfishly" has been married. Or we might know that folks who deplore capitalism like anti-americans Noam Chomsky, Ralphie Nader and race-baiter Cornel West, actually make their millions purely off capitalism with their huge investments and off-shore tax shelters...and of course, charge huge amounts for their speeches before they retire to their 98% white twee suburbs in the northeast.

Trust me, this book is great and eye-opening, specifically because the mainstream media is so in bed with the left that they ignore these travesties...and I didn't even have the time to write about the chapter on the Clintonistas.

I am incensed reading every word, but then, with the aid of Schweizer's noteworthy conclusion, I relaxed.

You see, the left-wing elite is just like elites should be. They have their enjoyments and policies. The difference is, these folks somehow feel the insecure need to lie in public about their goals and beliefs, often for votes, sympathy or money.

So what if they like capitalism? That's why they're rich, and why America is great.

So what if they hire the best folks for the job, and a majority are not "minorities"?

So what if they live in the most secluded and wealthiest parts of America?

So what if they won't hire unions for their work? The job will be done better and faster WITHOUT unions.

And so what if they don't want the enviro-whacko policies to interfere with their ambitions and lifestyle?

Again though, the point is, the left NEEDS the votes and sympathy of these people for their own personal gain---so they lie and act as hypocrites, as no one holds them accountable. Must be nice.

They want to live like the conservative Americans they loathe, but don't want to admit it; thus they act a certain way and speak the other. Do as I say not as I do, indeed.