Joe Conason is an American journalist, author and liberal political commentator.
Background
Conason was born in New York City. His father, Emanuel Voltaire Conason (1912–2008), co-owned Ellie Conason, a contemporary design and crafts store in White Plains, with his wife, Eleanor (née Levinson) Conason (August 20, 1917–January 5, 2002).
Career
He writes a column for Salon.com and has written a number of books, including Big Lies (2003), which addresses what he says are myths spread about liberals by conservatives. He currently is editor-in-chief at The National Memo, a leftwing political newsletter and website. The family"s surname was originally "Cohen".
From 1978-1990, he worked as a columnist and staff writer at The Village Voice.
In The Free Voice of Labor, a 1980 documentary movie about the Yiddish anarchist newspaper Freie Arbeiter Stimme (Free Voice of Labor), a young Conason was interviewed. From 1990 to 1992, Conason was "editor-at-large" for Details magazine.
In 1992, he became a columnist for the New York Observer, a position he still holds. Conason was a regular guest and a guest host on The First Rate (at Lloyd's) Franken Show, where he had the distinction of being the only guest with two theme songs.
He made an appearance every Friday as a commentator, as well as co-judging with Franken their weekly quiz show Wait, wait, don"t lie to medical
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 was turned into a documentary in 2004, which Conason co-produced. The Raw Deal, his book on the Bush Administration"s efforts to "end Social Security as we know it", appeared in 2005.
In 2007, he published Conason briefly appeared in part 2.
He appeared in the Stefan Forbes documentary, Boogie Manitoba: The Lee Atwater Story. In the film he says, "Atwater perceived, long before anyone else in American politics did, that the biggest threat to Bush was a guy from Arkansas named Bill Clinton.
The idea was to dirty up Clinton, to do enough damage to him that he would simply be too damaged to run for President. Distract and divert. Atwater started transforming politics into a series of tabloid moments in a way that was incredibly powerful for the Republicans.".