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Arianna Huffington is a nationally recognized author, syndicated columnist, radio host, social activist, political pundit, TV personality, and, most recently, an independent candidate for governor of California.
In her new book, "Fanatics and Fools: A Game Plan for Winning Back America", Arianna pulls together these various strands of her life -- and a few others! -- to offer a no-holds-barred look at where America stands today and a clear and heartfelt vision of where we should be heading.
From her childhood years in Greece, Arianna has always been surrounded by politics -- and intensely political parents. As a young man, her father joined the resistance to the Nazi occupation of Greece by editing an underground newspaper. He was caught, and spent the rest of the war in a German concentration camp. Her mother was also a part of the resistance.
At 16 she moved to England and graduated from Cambridge University with a master's degree in Economics -- a background that proved useful when dissecting the head-scratching economic policies of the Bush administration.
Arianna has since gone on to write ten books, covering a wide variety of subjects -- each of which helped inform her work on "Fanatics and Fools":
Her best-selling biographies of Picasso and Maria Callas taught her the importance of putting flesh-and-blood to potentially dry facts and historical data -- a lesson she puts to use in "Fanatics and Fools'" devastating mini-portraits of the leading lights of the Bush administration, as well as the book's "Portraits of Struggle", poignant and heart-rending snapshots of ordinary Americans struggling to make ends meet.
Her political best-sellers -- including "Pigs At the Trough" and "How to Overthrow the Government" -- informed the new book's scathing depiction of our contemporary political landscape, one peopled with scoundrels and cowards, and awash in the constant and corrosive flow of dirty money.
And "The Fourth Instinct", her study of human nature and our instinctive longing for meaning and community, served as the foundation for the bold moral vision she lays out in the new book. It's a vision that springs from Arianna's heartfelt belief that we are all a mixture of good and evil -- and that, so far, politicians have only appealed to our self-interests. In fact, she argues, the American people are longing for a leader who will appeal to what is best in all of us -- our caring and compassion -- and summon "the better angels of our nature".
She experienced that sense of extended family growing up in Greece, where children were always put first and where the entire community, not just their parents, felt responsible for them. The children's health and education were paramount -- not an afterthought. Her own mother, who had been divorced from her father since Arianna was ten, thought nothing of working any kind of job so her two daughters could get the education that she considered so important for their future. She called herself "the original deficit financer", often making ends meet by borrowing or by selling her possessions -- from a carpet brought by her parents from Russia to her last pair of gold earrings.
The book is also brimming with Arianna's trademark brand of biting wit and satire. She's always believed that the best way to change hearts and minds is by first engaging audiences with humor. This love of punchlines with a purpose has been showcased in Arianna's many appearances on "Politically Incorrect" and "Real Time with Bill Maher," as well as her memorable "Strange Bedfellows" teaming with Al Franken during the 1996 presidential campaign.
But Arianna has never been content to merely write about the issues of the day. Instead, she's always seen herself as a crusading journalist/activist in the tradition of her hero Upton Sinclair. She's always walked her talk. In 2000, she helped organize the Shadow Conventions to put the media spotlight on key issues neither major party was willing to address: the way money is corrupting our politics; the ever-widening gulf between the Two Americas; and the nation's failed $40 billion-a-year war on drugs.
Two years later, she cofounded the Detroit Project, a grassroots campaign to prod Detroit to stop building gas-guzzling SUVs and the people of America to break our addiction to foreign oil. She followed up the tremendous success of the Detroit Project by helping to create the Bermuda Project to expose corporate America's growing use of shady offshore tax havens as a way to avoid paying its fair share -- a theme that has been embraced by all the Democratic presidential candidates.
She has also campaigned, both through her column and her role as national co-chair of Parents In Charge, to reform our country's failing public education system, and champion the empowerment of parents and the public charter school movement.
It's all part of her commitment to building a populist political movement in which the American people finally take back their government and their country.
It was in this spirit that she embarked on her 2003 run for governor of California -- a grand adventure she recounts in the pages of "Fanatics and Fools". Her experiences on the campaign trail brought her face to face with the inadequacy of criticism and outrage alone and led to her realization that in order for the Democrats to win in November (an outcome she considers vital for the future of our country), the Democratic presidential nominee will have to do more than merely bash Bush and offer up new-and- improved versions of familiar policy proposals. Instead he will have to reach out to voters with a vision that recaptures the idealism and generosity of spirit that has marked our greatest leaders, from Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt to FDR and Bobby Kennedy.
He will also have to call on all of us to sacrifice and serve our fellow man -- especially the least fortunate among us. Arianna has attempted to personally meet this challenge throughout her life. Her ongoing commitment to community service and volunteerism has led to her work with numerous charitable organizations, including the Points of Light Foundation and A Place Called Home, which works with at-risk children in South Los Angeles.
Finally, Arianna's work has certainly been changed, informed and deepened by her experiences as the mother of two teenage daughters, Christina and Isabella, with whom she currently lives in Los Angeles. It is her fervent wish that her efforts -- and the proposals she makes in "Fanatics and Fools" -- will help lead to an overhaul of our broken political system, and make it so that when her daughters are finally ready to vote, the act will lift their hearts, not turn their stomachs.
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