Joe Conason
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Joe Conason is a United States-based journalist and author and is a noted commentator for liberal positions. He writes a column for the weekly New York Observer newspaper, for Salon.com and is the author of the book Big Lies (2003), which addresses what he says are myths spread about liberals by conservatives. Conason is a regular guest on The Al Franken Show who once had his own theme song Carry on Joe Conason -- Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas. He makes an appearance every Friday as a commentator, as well as co-judging with Al their weekly quiz show Wait, wait, don't lie to me.
He attempts to debunk alleged conservative talking points such as:
- Liberals are the wealthy elite, conservatives are plain-folk. He coined the term corporate-jet conservative as a counter to limousine liberal.
- Liberals want to take away individuals' freedom (to smoke cigarettes, make controversial statements, etc.), while conservatives promote freedom.
He seeks to bring what he considers to be truth in government, and, whenever he believes misinformation to be distributed, points it out.
In 2000, he co-authored the book The Hunting of the President: The 10 Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton with Gene Lyons. The book has been made into a movie. Among his past works was an article for Spy magazine in 1992 releasing the names of Jennifer Fitzgerald and Jane Morgan as women who allegedly were having affairs with George H. W. Bush, using Linda Tripp as a source.
In the 1980 documentary movie about the Yiddish anarchist newspaper the Freie Arbeiter Stimme (or Free voice of labor), a young Joe was interviewed. His grandfather Joseph Cohen served as the paper's editor for a number of years and Conason may have been an intern for them.
Conason received a B.A. in History from Brandeis University in 1975.
