THE OBAMA HATE MACHINE

The ubiquitous liberal radio and TV pundit vigorously defends President Obama against what the author terms…well, see the subtitle.

Press, who has published a number of volumes attacking Republicans and defending Democrats (Toxic Talk: How the Radical Right Has Poisoned America's Airwaves, 2010, etc.), writes firmly within a current political genre: books that sag with secondary-source quotations and convince no one on the other side but supply supporters with arms and ammo for coffee-shop colloquies. Press’ tactics are straightforward: He begins with the euphoria (among many) at President Obama’s inauguration, then steps away from the celebration to a consideration of the forces at work to strip the new president of credibility. The author pauses to consider nasty politics in other eras, and then identifies the über-villains in his tale: Charles and David Koch, the massively rich brothers who fund numerous pro-right organizations, including the Tea Party. Press looks at the coordinated attempts to “other” Obama by portraying him as a crypto-Muslim and terrorist sympathizer, a socialist, Nazi, communist—as one who is outside “real” America and whose U. S. citizenship is dubious. The author spends many pages describing the dozens of anti-Obama books, devotes a chapter to the Koch brothers, another to the failings of the media and ends with an odd little coda about the politics of civility. Along the way, Press blasts Dick Morris (“the most amoral man in American politics today”), Michele Bachmann (“batshit crazy”), Fox News and its commentators, Sarah Palin, Paul Ryan and Donald Trump.

Liberals will love it; conservatives won’t read it.