Updated for Obama's last year in office, the liberal syndicated radio and television host Bill Press reflects on how the Obama administration has failed and disillusioned the American left. The bestselling liberal syndicated radio and television host Bill Press turns a critical eye on Barack Obama and assesses why his performance as president on issues liberals care deeply about has failed the American left. Press argues efficiently that Obama may have drawn the wrong lessons from the enthusiastic crowds that swarmed around him on the campaign trail in 2008--instead of seeing the potential and desire for a stronger progressivism, Obama tried to rise above and unite the parties. The tragedy of the Obama presidency is that, by trying to be the first "post-partisan" president, he ended up being one of the weakest. On issues as far ranging as gun safety to health care to foreign policy, Obama has let voters down by simply not doing enough or taking the wrong actions. As Press describes it, liberals began the Obama presidency with high hopes, and they now near its end with deep disappointment and a sense of buyer's remorse.

Ten things trainwreck reveals that REPUBLICANS HOPE YOU NEVER FIND OUT

Why the conservative movement that spawned Reagan, Gingrich, and Bush is now dead.

How many core conservative principles the Republicans have betrayed.

How Republicans have made us less safe, not more.

How Republicans became the biggest spenders of all time.

How much bigger the federal government has grown under conservative rule.

How many Republicans got caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

How Republicans went from protecting the environment to plundering it.

How the party of peacekeepers became the party of perpetual war.

How Reagan was worse than Nixon--and Bush worse than both.

Why conservatives can never again be trusted with power.

In Bill Press's funniest and most astute book yet, he drives the final nail into the coffin containing the ideas of the so-called party of ideas. And it's a coffin many Republican presidential candidates have been using as a campaign bus.

Conventional conservative wisdom holds that somehow, during the first seven years of the twenty-first century, the Republican Party lost its way and abandoned core conservative principles while maintaining absolute control of all three branches of government. Is this true? Or are unnecessary wars, ballooning deficits, rampant corruption, incompetent governance, inadequate public services, crumbling infrastructure, and repeated attempts to deceive the public the inevitable consequence of any government based on conservative political philosophy?

In Trainwreck, one of America's best-known progressive commentators reveals that, far from betraying conservative ideals, the administration of George W. Bushhas behaved exactly as anyone would expect of a group that believes government is evil and always doomed to failure. Why, asks syndicated radio host and newspaper columnist Bill Press, would people whose primary message is that government doesn't work want to prove otherwise?

Press traces the history of the modern conservative movement from the rise of Robert Taft in the 1940s, through the glory days of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich, to the long and agonizing fall of George W. Bush. He examines the movement's intellectual underpinnings in the writings of Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley Jr. and its national political birth with the nomination of Barry Goldwater for president in 1964.

This in-depth analysis reveals three very salient facts: hatred of government has been a core value of the conservative movement from its inception; the behavior of the George W. Bush administration has mirrored that of the Reagan administration in every important way; and, until Hurricane Katrina revealed in 2005 that the emperor had no clothes, movement conservatives were the president's strongest supporters and closest allies.

Press demonstrates that, while constantly changing and evolving, conservative positions have remained consistently wrong, and that, from its inception, the movement was dedicated to tearing things down, not building them up.

Trainwreck will convince you, once and for all, that the conservative movement has remained on track for decades--and that, from the beginning, those tracks were headed for disaster.

In Toxic Talk, Bill Press exposed the ways in which the extreme right-wing media has done an end run around the American voting populace by exerting a disproportionate control over open political debate. In The Obama Hate Machine, Press returns to show how the Right has taken rhetoric to slanderous new levels in attacking the nation’s forty-fourth president.

But presidents have always been attacked like this, right? Wrong. As the author shows, while presidents and presidential candidates routinely have been subject to personal attacks, the outright disdain Obama’s extremist opponents have for the facts has inspired an insidious brand of character assassination unique in contemporary politics.

Obama was born in Kenya . . . Obama sympathizes with Muslim terrorists . . . Obama is a communist who wants to institute death panels and touch off class warfare…The extent to which these unfounded assertions have taken hold in the American mindset shows just how ruthless, destructive, and all-powerful the right-wing machine—hijacked by extremists in the media and fueled by corporate coffers—has become. The author reveals how corporate interests such as the infamous Koch Brothers continue to steer political coverage away from fact-based dialogue into the realm of hysteria. Bill Press also observes this phenomenon is not limited to the airwaves and provides an “I Hate Obama Book Club” list, calling out the scores of anti-Obama tomes—and even some from the Left—that have helped drag politics even deeper into the mud.

In his characteristic on-the-mark arguments sure to appeal to anyone on the Left or in the Center, Press shows how the peculiar nature of Obama-hating subverts issue-driven debate and threatens not only the outcome of the 2012 election but the future of the American democratic system.

"A timely cannon blast at the right-wing media machine and how it subverts the principles of democratic representation

"Talk radio has done an end run around the voting populace. With Rush Limbaugh now the unofficial leader of the Republican Party and the far right controlling the five major syndicates, conservatives have a disproportionate voice in the medium--even in liberal cities such as New York, Boston, and San Francisco. Writing with his characteristic and incisive wit, Bill Press exposes the destructive power of Rush, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, and the other polarizing figures of talk radio who dominate 90% of the political airwaves today. Citing their own words as evidence, Press brilliantly makes the case that much of what is broadcast on radio and television today is--at best--distorted and partisan, and--at worst--lies, propaganda and bigotry sold by these talented modern-day pitchmen who have followings in the millions.

In "Toxic Talk," Bill Press exposed the ways in which the extreme right-wing media has done an end run around the American voting populace by exerting a disproportionate control over open political debate. In "The Obama Hate Machine," Press returns to show how the Right has taken rhetoric to slanderous new levels in attacking the nation's forty-fourth president.
But presidents have always been attacked like this, right? "Wrong." As the author shows, while presidents and presidential candidates routinely have been subject to personal attacks, the outright disdain Obama's extremist opponents have for the facts has inspired an insidious brand of character assassination unique in contemporary politics.
"Obama was born in Kenya . . . Obama sympathizes with Muslim terrorists . . . Obama is a communist who wants to institute death panels and touch off class warfare."..The extent to which these unfounded assertions have taken hold in the American mindset shows just how ruthless, destructive, and all-powerful the right-wing machine--hijacked by extremists in the media and fueled by corporate coffers--has become. The author reveals how corporate interests such as the infamous Koch Brothers continue to steer political coverage away from fact-based dialogue into the realm of hysteria. Bill Press also observes this phenomenon is not limited to the airwaves and provides an "I Hate Obama Book Club" list, calling out the scores of anti-Obama tomes--and even some from the Left--that have helped drag politics even deeper into the mud.
In his characteristic on-the-mark arguments sure to appeal to anyone on the Left or in the Center, Press shows how the peculiar nature of Obama-hating subverts issue-driven debate and threatens not only the outcome of the 2012 election but the future of the American democratic system.