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

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.)