Gutfeld: Why I wrote 'How to Be Right'

The right needs to get better at explaining good ideas

For the past four years on "The Five," I've been doing monologues. It's what I was hired to do, to make you think and laugh and sometimes aroused.

My goal when writing these one-minute thought puddles is to keep it fun and persuasive, with humor trumping anger. It's not about reciting stuff you've already heard but offering a perspective in a way that makes you nod your head and go, "I get it."

But it's also meant to help you in your quest to argue more effectively, convincing others of a fact-based perspective, free of emotion, cliche and most of all, shrill anger. It's not about being correct, but being persuasively correct.

Especially in an age where you're the target. The media, academia, the government, they all pretty much hate you and me, which is why I wrote this book.

The book stems from two ideas: How can I explain how I explain things? And how can I help you explain things, too? It's that simple.

My theory: The left is great at explaining bad ideas. The right is bad at explaining great ideas.

So my book is designed, hopefully, to fix that, to get better at explaining good ideas, in part by learning from the left's own tricks and ejecting humor into crevices of our own arguments, whether it's through the power of metaphor, mockery or absurdity.

The goal here is not to shout but to win and do so in a charming and thoroughly enjoyable manner. Because there's no point in thinking you won if afterward everyone hates you.

So I urge you to pick up the book. It's short and sweet, much like me.