The Obama Hate Machine: The Lies, Distortions, and Personal Attacks on the President---and Who Is Behind Them

by Bill Press

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.

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.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, The United States Of America

308 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Bill Press began his career as a political insider and media commentator on KABC-TV and KCOP-TV, both in Los Angeles. Over the years, he has received numerous awards for his work, including four Emmys and a Golden Mike Award.

The former co-host of MSNBC's Buchanan and Press, CNN's Crossfire and The Spin Room, Press has built a national reputation on thought-provoking and humorous insights from the left side of the political aisle.

Press is the author of six books: Spin This! (Atria, 2002), Bush Must Go! (Dutton Books, 2004), How The Republicans Stole Christmas (Doubleday, 2005), Trainwreck (Wiley, 2008), Toxic Talk (Thomas Dunne Books, 2010), and his latest, The Obama Hate Machine (Thomas Dunne Books, 2012).

The host of radio’s nationally syndicated Bill Press Show (Monday-Friday from 6-9am ET), Press attends the daily White House press briefing and writes a syndicated newspaper column, distributed weekly by Tribune Media Services.

Press resides in the nation’s capital with his wife Carol.

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review can now be seen at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud!

Sadly the people who NEED to read it won't.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book, and wrote the review, in Feb. 2013. It's still as apropos today, during President Obama's last two years of his second term, as it was when the book was written, in the early part of his first term. Many of the Obama-haters in 2008 are still Obama-haters, they have just found different things to hate about him. While I have, at times, been disappointed and frustrated by Obama, I still believe that he has done no better nor worse a job as any previous president.

Politics are dirty.

Everybody accepts this as a given, but for many people on both the Right and Left, the past two elections seemed unusually vicious. Why?

Bill Press, a liberal radio talk show host, attempts to answer that question in his well-researched, fascinating, and, at times, infuriating book, "The Obama Hate Machine".

A veteran of the news media, Press lives and breathes everything having to do with politics. Like many Americans, he has become fed up with the outright lies and vicious attacks on the President's policies and person, which started long before the then-Senator even threw his hat in the 2008 election and has continued to today, not even a year into Barack Obama's second term.

Press, like most rational-minded pundits on both the Right and Left, accepts that there are some justifiable complaints to be made about the Obama administration, but it is often difficult to separate the legitimate criticism from the outright vitriolic bullshit that is being spewed by sore-loser Republicans.

Here are some of the well-known "facts" uncovered about Obama during the 2008 campaign which still persist in the minds of the ignorant:

* Obama, in his youth, attended a radical Muslim school, a madrassa, in which he was secretly taught to hate non-Muslims. (The truth: Obama did, in fact, attend a Muslim high school when he lived in Indonesia, but it was far from a terrorist-recruiting madrassa. Obama actually writes about this experience in his book "Dreams from my Father".)

* Obama is a secret Muslim, because his father and grandfather were Muslims. (The truth: Obama is a converted Christian. Yes, his father was a Muslim by birth, but not a practicing one. Besides, as Colin Powell said, "What if [Obama] is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim? No, that's not America.")

* Obama is half-black, half-white. Therefore, he is neither. (The truth: this is too stupid and racist to even attempt to explain.)

* Obama hates white people. He must, because he was a member of a church in which the preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, preached hatred of white people. (The truth: Obama severed ties with the church and openly disavowed the Rev. Wright's racist preaching.)

* Obama is a terrorist. He must be, because he is a close friend of former Weatherman William Ayers. (The truth: Obama was once on a few boards with Ayers, and they just happened to live in the same neighborhood. They were never "close friends".)

* Obama isn't even an American. (The truth: the so-called "Birther" argument is perhaps the most persistent of the many Obama lies out there. The truth is, Obama was born in Hawaii, which makes him an American citizen. There is plenty of documentation which proves this, none of which is apparently acceptable to any of the die-hard Birthers.)

* Obama is a Socialist, a Marxist, a Communist, and a Fascist. (The truth: a quick scan of Obama's record would prove, to anyone who knows what a Socialist, Marxist, Communist, and Fascist actually stands for, that Obama is none of these things. Indeed, it's arguable, according to Press and other liberal critics, that Obama can even accurately call himself a liberal.)

Who knows why such ridiculous lies still persist in roughly 20% of the population (according to recent polls and surveys), but Press is more interested in who and what is behind the propagation of these lies.

Certainly there are the handful of Republicans and conservative pundits involved, but Press makes the case that the real (super)villains in this story are two men: Charles and David Koch, both multi-billionaires who, for years, have been lobbying politicians to pass legislation and support candidates that would help their business endeavors. For years, they have been pretty successful.

Press blames the controversial Supreme Court landmark decision "Citizens United", which allows corporations to give unlimited political contributions, for aiding and abetting the Koch Bros.'s unchecked and seemingly unlimited campaign funding. Their only goal is, apparently, the complete downfall of Obama.

Press also blames a lazy and ineffectual news media that allows politicians to say incredibly stupid and non-factual things without being called on it for fear of being branded part of the "liberal" media. This has created an atmosphere in which Republicans can pretty much say anything they want, true or not, and get away with it.

The solution? A call for fair-minded Republicans to be more vocal in condemning the idiots in their own party from spreading these stupid lies, major campaign finance reform, and a weak media to grow some balls.

Mainly, Press just wants a return of a "politics of civility". He's definitely not alone. The question is, can we ever return to something which probably never existed in the first place?

[Kathleen Valentine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you tend toward this is an awfully good perspective on the history of hate rhetoric and behavior in politics. It starts out with the amazing infighting between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and the physical battles and duels among members of Congress. The chapter on the abuses heaped on Lincoln is shocking. I'm in the middle of the chapter on FDR now. It's amazing how history just keeps repeating itself.

[Ann A · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish there were more books like this to counter all the right-wing propaganda out there. The chapter on the Koch brothers should be required reading for all those concerned about how much influence powerful corporations can have on shaping public policy (and we ALL should be concerned).

[Teri Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

The media no longer reports facts. Everyone should catch on to this game...sadly conservatives won't.

[Doreen Petersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating and well-written book. Regardless of your political affiliation it is a great read and any who choose to read it will be given plenty of food for thought!

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're the type of person who can tolerate someone who identifies Fox News as the network of the Republican Party, or can tolerate someone poking fun of the Fox News slogan as being "Fair and Balanced", you'll at least be able to get through, if not enjoy, this book. Otherwise, if you're a firm believer that Fox News is in fact "Fair and Balanced", and all the other news networks are left leaning and biased, I wouldn't suggest reading this book. If you do, you'll probably just end up throwing it against the wall and breaking something.

Besides taking a dim view of Fox News, another favorite target of Bill Press are the Koch Brothers. It's a close call as to which takes more abuse, but both certainly get their turn.

In a style similar to TV's Jon Stewart, in which Stewart shows a quote from a politician and then takes it apart, Press uses quotes of many Conservatives against themselves. And as the book title indicates, he also tries to make the point that in many cases, attacks on the President are personal rather than policy driven, and often distort the facts. While in most cases, Press makes his point, in some cases he tends to throw in an extra invective or two, which is unnecessary, because his numerous references can and do stand on their own.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book explains much of what and who is behind the hate and outright political war against our President and how it has been orchestrated. Very revealing.

[Jay Nedds · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, plan on reading the conservative side of this, I like how the "Tea Party" is/was a GOP political machine, which republicans are in the pockets of Big Business, including the supreme court.

[Ginny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written, but just makes me angry all over again!!

[Rachael Booth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it is true that a lot of things in the book can be found just paying attention to the political news - staying away from Fox "News", of course - seeing the plethora of the unfounded, idiotic, untrue and just downright mean things being said about president Obama all in one place is extremely unsettling. Politics has always been a game of muckraking but our current political climate is one of a kind. When has any of ever read or heard about a leader of the opposition party in a House of Congress overtly stating that their primary job is to "make the president fail" so he doesn't have a second term. What happened to working for the people? This book shows the madness and big money behind this extreme rhetoric and should be read by all.

[Lester Cockram · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this book in the local library yesterday on the new book shelf. Quickly found that the book was actually written in May, 2012. Found the book comical and entertaining but not factually compelling to convince that Obama is not on a socialist agenda.
Enjoyed the attack history on other presidents and the short reviews on 67 other books written about our far left president. Bill Press really tries hard to convince the reader that Obama is not a liberal/socialist, wish there was some way of knowing what is really going on in Mr. Press and Obama's mind.
Will be most interesting to see if Mr Press has a 2016 follow up.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh.

Most of this just rehashes info from current news reporting. If you are unaware that reporters are more biased now than in the 1950s, or that the Koch brothers funnel millions of dollars to politicians who will help their bottom line, or that there is a false equivalency of bias between the right and the left, then this is the book for you.

The history of slanted journalism was interesting. The review of individual anti-Obama books was an exercise in tedium.

[Lamar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can anyone in the world really believe more than 10% of this book? I know I can't. I did like the section about our feuding founding fathers but I wonder if any of that is true since most of this book is so ridiculous.

[Eugene · Rating 2 out of 5]

Depending on which side of the aisle you are on will depend on whether you believe this book or not.

It has a very long chapter on the Koch brothers as expected but George Soros is not mentioned. I do have to

agree with his take on the media, however.

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

-- and Who is Behind Them. Answer: Fox News, those meanies. The end.

[Jerry Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, these types of book are interesting to me since they are almost always read by those who are already sympathetic to the line of argument rather than those who arguably need to hear the message, who will never read it. I therefore wonder how much value they truly have.

Having said that, this is an interesting book for me who is generally supportive of the reasoning here and has been left increasingly exasperated by the intensely negative and personal attacks on Obama. That isn't because I am a strong fan of his, but I find the right wing negativity boring, repetitve, often laughable and not at all constructive. I remember hearing Republicans declare that their primary goal was to get Obama out of office or at least prevent his re-election. Seriously? Not putting Americans back to work? Not tackling the deficit? Not economic recovery? Getting rid of a man you clearly personally detest is the prine goal. That, for me, is hard to take seriously.

Having read this over the inauguration week when Obama was sworn in for his second term, it is clear that the worries that are inplicit in this book (i.e. that the negative and personal campaigning would prevent his re-election) didn't come to pass. However, all it seemed to do was up the ante as far as right wingers are concerned and the attacks continue.

To the book itself, I repeat my curiosity as to whether this will have any effect. Press tries to rebut various critiques of the President by facts. This is laudable and really the only way to refute outrageous assaults on him, but do we really think it will make any difference? He even cites examples in the text around the "birther" issue. Claims that Obama isn't a US citizen are rebutted by records from Hawaii. Oh no, claim the critics, where is the "long form" birth certificate? That is missing because it doesn't exist - the other evidence is fabricated. So the long form is produced and now we have to deal with claims that that, too, is fake. And on and on it goes. Facts don't seem to stop these claims and I guess that is the subject and maybe the point of the book.

It was interesting to learn about the Koch brothers and some of the other Obama hating sources, particularly Fox news although I don't think that tells anyone anything they didn't already know.

Overall I guess it is good to see that these sorts of personal attacks didn't prevent the re-election in 2012. Press is clearly on the more liberal side of things and I suspect falls into the camp that feels Obama is LESS radical than he should be and, in fact, is barely even a liberal. He mentions where he would like to see the country go, particularly on health care reform, in several places in the book.

It's an interesting, pretty well written read, but again, I would say that as I am broadly in agreement with his overall argument. There is some useful historical perspective and he digs fairly well into the reality of the political machinations of the parties. I learned some things that contrinuted to my depth of understanding of the situation, but nothing here that truly surprised me.

[Scotterwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really, really disliked the partisan language used here and there (and more and more) throughout the book, which was an automatic star off (calling people like Glenn Beck "crazies" may be accurate but it's not at all helpful or necessary). I didn't feel one chapter was necessary at all, though I could appreciate it, in which he writes a paragraph review of all the books up to that point that were against Obama (including a couple books criticizing him from the left, which Press actually tended to appreciate). I just thought, "Okay, we get the point, these people are saying nutty things without support. Just list them off at the end or something, rebut the bad arguments, and call it a day." But the chapter on the Koch Brothers was really informative for me at least, and I liked his chapter criticizing the media and their role in perpetuating bullshit in the political arena. Overall I enjoyed reading it, learned some things, was reminded of some things, and though I didn't love the book, I did like it and the information was solid from what I've seen. I wish it had citations, too, but oh well.

[Stacy Bearse · Rating 4 out of 5]

A superficial, yet telling story of the attack against Democratic ideals. The right-wing trumpet blares loudly with lies and half-truths, that the mainstream media is slow to question. Obama a Muslim? Not a citizen? A commie? A Manchurian candidate? Terrorist sympathizer? Government takeover of health care? Death panels? All lies. All attributable to organizations run by or sponsored by the Koch brothers and Roger Ailes. I remember when spreading falsehoods like these was subversive. Now, it's called "patriotic". What crap.

Press wastes a chapter listing dozens of anti-Obama books. But his chapter on the antics of the brothers (and father) Koch deserves to be expanded into its own book.

[Britt Wisenbaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

The torrent of hateful speech directed at President Obama is disected here, given the historical context of how the right in America has built an opposition machine to face each Democratic administration in turn. Here we see the disparate elements are not so unrelated as incurious mainstream media would have us believe, with the many institutions bankrolled by Koch Indestries being involved in a multiplicity of ways. There have been so many crackpot "scandals" built around our first black president, that it is almost impossible to believe a recounting, even though we lived through it.

[Rosebud · Rating 2 out of 5]

I knew most of the stuff in this book as it relates to Obama, so it just solidified my disgust for the Republican/Tea Party and all its hacks and liars.

One funny thing I learned was in the early part of the book where the author talked about some of the hateful and untrue things that were said about previous presidents. For example, John Adams was accused of having sent someone on a ship to England to bring back four women--Adams and his friend would share them two apiece. Adams later commented that if the guy went over there an brought back four women, he certainly hadn't shared any of them on his return.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

Press gives us a well-reasoned survey of the forces that specially aligned to thwart Obama's presidency. It would have been a much better book without stooping to the snarky cheap shots that he's trying to condemn from the right. He, rightly, makes clear that reasoned advocacy for both sides should be encouraged as an essential component of democracy and there are at least a few examples where he congratulates those from the right who engage in a higher level of discourse. He should make sure that he stays above that level as well.

[Melissa Mc Lees]

This book was very intrigueing and interesting. I have learned some stuff from this book. I just hope that the personal attacks on people will stop because a lot of what people say about a person is not true. I do think that if you want to know what is behind all of the bashing of The president Obama you ought to read this book, but some people's view may not change depending on what you believe already or who you are.

[Maxine McDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really learned a lot from this book mainly about all the Koch Bros organizations and how they manipulate congress, judges, supreme court and the media to get what they want and destroy our democracy. It's definitely disgusting. Now I'm more aware when I see American's For Prosperity, Freedom Works, The Heritage Foundation, and The Cato Institute and 52 others as sponsors of ads or bills as these are Koch Bros founded or funded foundations.

[Sabra · Rating 3 out of 5]

The irony is that President Obama is (at most) a slightly left leaning centrist. If today's GOP was still the "party of Lincoln" they claim to be, Barack Obama would have been a perfect Republican candidate. Unfortunately, the American public has allowed itself to be dragged so far to that reactionary right, that anything in what used to be the middle looks radically leftist.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am going to reserve judgment on this book until after I have read Dinesh D’Souza’s "Obama’s America: Unmaking the American Dream". If for no other reason other than to show that I, unlike Fox News, am ‘fair and balanced.’ Dual review forthcoming.

[Sherrie]

It's not that I thought the book was bad, it just seemed to be repeating itself and I don't have time to read the same thing over and over. I did learn some interesting things about past presidents though.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Should have read "The Obama Hate Machine" in 2012, but this book is still very relevant to 2014, unfortunately!

[Richard Kraft · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice collection of all of the negative press and the motivation behind the stories. A pretty quick read.

[Madras Mama · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems a decent defense of Obama without any hidden agenda. Impartial to the extent that Bill was listing out some of the issues that the press should have challenged. Thanks for exposing the Coke brothers.