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Mark Levin

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For other people named Mark Levin or Mark Levine, see Mark Levine.
Mark Levin
Levin at an Americans for Prosperity conference in 2011
Born
Mark Reed Levin

(1957-09-21) September 21, 1957 (age 67)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Career
ShowThe Mark Levin Show
StationWABC
NetworkCumulus Media Networks
Time slot6-9 p.m. EST
StyleTalk radio
CountryUnited States
Websitemarklevinshow.com

Mark Reed Levin (born September 21, 1957) is an American lawyer, author, constitutional scholar and the host of American syndicated radio show The Mark Levin Show. Levin worked in the administration of President Ronald Reagan and was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese. He is president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, has authored five books and contributes commentary to various media outlets such as National Review Online. He pronounces his name with the stress on the second syllable, leVIN.[1]

Biography

Mark Reed Levin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up in Erdenheim as well as Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. His father, Jack E. Levin, is the author of several books.[2] He graduated from Cheltenham High School after three years in 1974.[3][4] After high school, Levin enrolled at Temple University Ambler including summer classes and graduated with a bachelor's degree in Political Science in 1977 at age 19, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.[5] Levin won election to the Cheltenham school board in 1977 on a platform of reducing property taxes.[4] In 1980, Levin earned a juris doctor from Temple University Beasley School of Law.[6] Levin worked for Texas Instruments after law school.[4]

Beginning in 1981, Levin served as an advisor to several members of President Ronald Reagan's cabinet, eventually becoming the Associate Director of Presidential Personnel and ultimately Chief of Staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese during the Iran-Contra affair; Levin also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education, and Deputy Solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

He practiced law in the private sector and is president of Landmark Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm founded in 1976 and based in Leesburg, Virginia.[7][8]

Levin has participated in Freedom Concerts, an annual benefit concert to aid families of fallen soldiers, and uses his radio program to promote aid to military families.[9][10] Levin is also involved with Troopathon, a charity which sends care packages to soldiers serving overseas.[11]

In 2001, the American Conservative Union awarded Levin its Ronald Reagan Award.[12]

Levin accepted the inaugural Citizens United Andrew Breitbart Defender of the First Amendment Award in 2013.

Radio broadcasting

Levin speaks at the 2011 Defending the American Dream Conference hosted by Americans for Prosperity.
See also: The Mark Levin Show

Levin began his broadcasting career as a guest on conservative talk radio programs. For many years, he was a frequent contributor of legal opinions to The Rush Limbaugh Show, where Limbaugh referred to him on-air as "F. Lee Levin," a tongue-in-cheek reference to the defense attorney F. Lee Bailey. He was also a contributor to The Sean Hannity Show and eventually got a radio slot of his own on WABC, following Sean Hannity's program. Hannity has nicknamed Mark Levin "The Great One."[13] Levin and Hannity remain frequent contributors to each other's programs. He is a leading conservative commentator, ranked 4–6 position nationally among talk radio programs, with a minimum of 7.75 million total weekly listenership according to Talkers Magazine.[14]

Writer

Men In Black

Levin authored the 2005 book Men In Black: How The Supreme Court Is Destroying America, in which he advanced his thesis that activist judges on the Supreme Court (from all parts of the political spectrum) have "legislated from the bench." In a review of Men in Black, Commentary magazine's Dan Seligman wrote that Levin asks readers "to identify with 'originalists' who look to the text of the Constitution and the intent of its framers, and to reject the 'activists' who construe the Constitution broadly and are more concerned with getting to their own 'desired outcomes'."[15] In her review of Men in Black, Slate magazine's legal correspondent and journalist Dahlia Lithwick wrote that "no serious scholar of the court or the Constitution, on the ideological left or right, is going to waste their time engaging Levin's arguments once they've read this book."[16]

Rescuing Sprite

In 2007, Levin released a book about his dogs Pepsi and Sprite. The book was specifically about Sprite, a Spaniel mix that his wife and son persuaded him to adopt from the local shelter in 2004. The book was titled Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover's Story of Joy and Anguish. Rescuing Sprite chronicles Sprite’s health deterioration in 2006 and how Levin and his family dealt with their loss.

Liberty and Tyranny

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto was released on March 24, 2009, and became a #1 New York Times best seller for eleven of twelve weeks,[17] as well as No. 1 on Nielsen's BookScan.[18] It came in at No. 2 on Amazon.com's list of bestselling books of 2009.[19] The book includes discussion of a variety of issues that, according to Levin, need to be addressed in the United States. It is in Liberty and Tyranny that Levin refutes what he sees to be an incorrect use of the term "progressive" to describe "modern Liberals" and instead argues a proper terminology should be "Statist". 'Liberty and Tyranny has sold over one million copies according to Threshold Editions, the book's publisher.[20] Former federal prosecutor and fellow National Review Online author Andrew C. McCarthy wrote of Liberty and Tyranny in The New Criterion: "Levin offers not so much a defense as a plan of attack" against "America's Leftist ascendancy".[21]

Ameritopia

Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America was released January 17, 2012. In Ameritopia, Levin discusses the origins and development of both the modern day conservative and liberal political philosophies, the latter of which he refers to as "statist", through the works of some of the leading figures in American history.[22][23] Included are commentaries on works by Plato, Sir Thomas More, Thomas Hobbes, Karl Marx, John Locke, Charles de Montesquieu and Alexis de Tocqueville.[24] A review by Professor Carlin Romano in the Chronicle of Higher Education called the book "dis­as­trous­ly bad from be­gin­ning to end."[25] Jeffrey Lord, writing in the conservative American Spectator, called it "...historical X-ray vision in book form."[26]

The Liberty Amendments

The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic was released on August 13, 2013. The book debuted at #1 on the The New York Times Best Seller list in all three categories for which it qualified.[27] Hans A. von Spakovsky of National Review called the book "required reading for conservative bloggers."[28] In the Washington Times, Tenth Amendment Center Executive Director Michael Lotfi criticized Levin's idea as "the bullet to a loaded revolver pointed at the Constitution." Also in the Times, Richard Rahn wrote "If “The Liberty Amendments” can help foster a national debate about which corrective actions, including constitutional amendments, are needed to increase liberty and prosperity, Mr. Levin will have performed a great national service."[29] Hoover Institution fellow David Davenport wrote in Forbes that Levin's book used "weak arguments."[30][31] Also in Forbes, Ralph Benko credited Levin with "notably and nobly proposing to change the rules of modern politics and governance."[32]

References

  1. ^ "Mark R. Levin Archive, National Review Online". Retrieved 2011-04-24.
  2. ^ Jack E. Levin. "Jack E. Levin | Official Publisher Page". Authors.simonandschuster.com. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
  3. ^ "Cheltenham alumni website". Cheltenhamalumni.org. Retrieved 31 March 2012.
  4. ^ a b c Carey, Art (16 July 2009). "Looking at liberty and tyranny: Author and radio host Mark Levin offers a conservative view". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 24 January 2012.
  5. ^ Mark R. Levin bio by National Review
  6. ^ Jeffrey, Terence P.; Ryskind, Allan H. (2 October 2006). "Mark Levin Takes Talk Radio by Storm". Human Events. Retrieved 1 February 2012.
  7. ^ Limbaugh, Rush (16 November 2007). "Mark Levin In-Studio on "Rescuing Sprite"". The Rush Limbaugh Show. Retrieved 24 January 2012.
  8. ^ Levin, Rescuing Sprite, p. 9.
  9. ^ "Mark Levin 9-11-07 Sean Hannity Freedom Concert". YouTube. Retrieved 4 March 2014.
  10. ^ "Montgomery Gentry loves country and sings for "Freedom"". New York Daily News. 11 September 2007. Retrieved 4 December 2009.
  11. ^ "Troopathon Homepage". Move America Forward. Retrieved 4 December 2009.
  12. ^ "Ronald Reagan Award Presented to Landmark's President Mark Levin". Landmark Legal Foundation. Retrieved 4 December 2009.
  13. ^ Freedlander, David (19 October 2013). "Radio's Mark Levin Might Be the Most Powerful Conservative You Never Heard Of". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 5 March 2014. Hannity discovered him then, too, and stuck him with the nickname "The Great One," which is now used by Palin and nearly everyone who talks about him
  14. ^ "The Top Talk Radio Audiences, February 2014". Talkers Magazine. Talk Media Inc. Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  15. ^ Seligman, Dan (5 June 2005). "Men in Black by Mark R. Levin". Commentary Magazine. Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  16. ^ Lithwick, Dahlia. "The Limbaugh Code: The New York Times best seller no one is talking about.", Slate, April 1, 2005.
  17. ^ Schuessler, Jennifer (2009-06-21). "Hardcover Nonfiction". The New York Times.
  18. ^ Nielsens Bookscan Liberty and Tyranny, April 9, 2009
  19. ^ "Customers' Bestsellers: Top 100 Books". Amazon.com. 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2012.
  20. ^ Vivian, Jordan (2009-09-15). "Liberty and Tyranny Sells a Million". Human Events. Retrieved 2009-09-21. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  21. ^ McCarthy, Andrew (May 2009). "The Work of Generations". New Criterion. Retrieved 2009-10-08. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  22. ^ "The Tyranny of Utopia(PDF)" (PDF).
  23. ^ "Mark Levin on 'Ameritopia:' 'We Now Live in a Post-Constitutional Country'".
  24. ^ "Why Mainstream Media Ignores Conservative Bestsellers". The Atlantic. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
  25. ^ "'Ameritopia': How Dumb Can Po­lit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy Get?". Chronicle. Retrieved 12 April 2013. {{cite web}}: soft hyphen character in |title= at position 30 (help)
  26. ^ "Ameritopia Explodes Into 2012 Campaign". The American Spectator.
  27. ^ Smith, Kyle (9/1/2013). "Why are major media outlets ignoring bestselling writer Mark R. Levin?". New York Post. Retrieved 24 March 2014. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  28. ^ Hans A. von Spakovsky Archive Latest RSS Send (2013-09-04). "Amendments for Liberty | National Review Online". Nationalreview.com. Retrieved 2014-01-06.
  29. ^ Rahn, Richard (2013-08-27). "RAHN: Should the Constitution be amended?". Washington Times. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  30. ^ "Mark Levin is wrong: A lawless gov't, not the Constitution, needs nullified | Washington Times Communities". Communities.washingtontimes.com. 2013-12-27. Retrieved 2014-01-06.
  31. ^ Davenport, David. "Mark Levin Makes A Strong Conservative Case With Weak Constitutional Arguments". Forbes. Retrieved 2014-01-06.
  32. ^ Benko, Ralph (2013-08-19). "Mark Levin's Game Changer: Using The Constitution To Arrest Federal Drift". Forbes. Retrieved 25 March 2014.

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