Bill Press

A cautionary report on the disproportional influence of the far-right media on major syndicates presents examples of potentially harmful partisan ideas supported by such figures as Glenn Beck, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh. By the author of How the Republicans Stole Religion.

One of America’s best-known progressive commentators reveals that, far from betraying conservative ideals, George W. Bush’s administration has behaved exactly as anyone would expect of a group that believes government is evil and always doomed to failure. Bill Press demonstrates that 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 that the conservative movement has remained on track for decades—and that, from the beginning, those tracks were headed for disaster.

Americans increasingly agree on one thing: Every day that Trump stays in office, he diminishes the United States and its people. In Trump Must Go, TV and radio host Bill Press offers 100 reasons why Trump needs to be removed from office, whether by impeachment, the 25th Amendment, or the ballot box. Beginning with the man himself and moving through Trump’s executive action damage, Press covers Trump’s debasement of the United States political system and degrading of the American presidency. Ranging from banning federal employees’ use of the phrase “climate change,” to putting down Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as “shithole” countries, we have to wonder what he’ll do next. He has a bromance with Putin that enables several meetings between Trump staffers and Russian officials, and he has a wrecking crew administration: Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Housing Secretary Ben Carson, to name a few. Extensive “executive time” marks Trump’s calendar so he can golf, watch TV, and eat fast food. Trump has done it all…badly. But, in a political climate where the world has learned to expect the unexpected, Press offers readers a twist: one reason not to ditch Donald Trump.

Spin — intentional manipulation of the truth — is everywhere. It’s in the White House, in the courtrooms, in headlines and advertising slogans. Even couples on dates — not to mention book blurbs — are guilty of spin. Here, colorful news analyst Bill Press freeze-frames the culture of spin to investigate what exactly spin is, who does it and why, and its impact on American society. Using examples drawn from recent history — the Clinton presidency, the Florida recount, and the Bush White House — Press first probes spin’s favorite haunt: politics. He then surveys incarnations of spin in journalism, law, and advertising, and chews on the spin of sex and “dating,” a word that has become the very embodiment of spin. Perhaps surprisingly, however, Press argues that spin isn’t all bad, and that without it the harsh truths of our times might be unbearable. With a keen sense of humor, Spin This! turns the tables on the prime purveyors of spin by highlighting some of their biggest blunders. Looking to the future, Press notes that the twenty-first century, beginning as it has with a president who was “spun into office,” will be a fertile stomping ground for spin. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

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. InThe 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.

In the wake of an election seen by many as a triumphant victory for “moral values,” political commentator and one-time seminarian Bill Press launches a counteroffensive against the so-called religious right. For decades, Press argues, conservative preachers such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson—joined by most Catholic bishops—have defined religion so narrowly that Democrats and liberals have been pushed outside the fold. According to their narrow gospel, God put George Bush in the White House to deal with gays, guns, and abortion—and those who don’t agree are on the sure road to hell. Bill Press says it’s time to take religion back: “Who gave this gang the inside track on religion, anyway? The way I read the Gospels, Jesus was as liberal as Paul Wellstone. He sure as hell wouldn’t have been a registered Republican. One other thing’s for sure: if Jesus ever came back to earth, there’s one gang he wouldn’t hang out with; and that’s this phony bunch of pious, puffed-up preachers who wear religion on their sleeves.” How the Republicans Stole Christmas is also Press’s fervent call to Democrats and liberals to reclaim religion and return it to its basic principles of social justice, charity, and tolerance. Press argues that the Right didn’t just steal religion, the Left let them have it, offering no resistance as conservatives dictated what’s right and what’s wrong. But on today’s social issues, according to Press, religious conservatives have gotten it all wrong. They have turned Jesus from a loving Messiah who championed the poor and dispossessed into a cold-blooded advocate for the rich and powerful. Press does not confine his criticisms to so-called Christian leaders; he uncovers the same wrong-headed tendencies in other faiths and among nonbelievers, who even today cling to the Old Testament as an appropriate code of behavior.

The name Bill Press is synonymous with honest journalism, intelligent commentary, and progressive politics. But based on where he came from, it’s a wonder he didn’t end up a Trump voter. He grew up in a blue-collar family in a small town in Delaware south of the Mason-Dixon line, where segregation was the rule. As a Catholic, he was taught that abortion, divorce, sex outside of marriage, and homosexuality were morally wrong: beliefs later reinforced in ten years of seminary studies for the priesthood. He was on his way to be a rock-ribbed conservative. So what went right for him that he swerved so far to the left? In From the Left, Press shows this gradual transformation, starting with two years of studies in Europe and a providential escape to California. From Sacramento he made his way to Southern California television and talk radio as a political commentator and liberal talk show host. Jumping to Washington and national cable TV, Press hosted Crossfire and The Spin Room on CNN, and Buchanan and Press on MSNBC. A member of the White House Press Corps and columnist for Tribune Media Services and The Hill, Press was an early supporter of Bernie Sanders and hosted two of the Senator’s first presidential strategy sessions in his living room. If you’re already on the left, you’ll cheer a fellow traveler. If not yet there, you soon will be.

The prominent liberal syndicated radio and television host concisely explains the many ways President Obama has failed to live up to either his promises or his progressive potential, leaving Democrats disillusioned on the issues that matter most. Bill Press–a progressive champion and former chair of the California Democratic Party, a one-time co-host of CNN’s Crossfire, and the popular nationally syndicated radio and television host of The Bill Press Show–reflects back on what for many progressives has been a disappointing presidency and comes to a depressing conclusion: Obama grossly misunderstood the mandate of the enthusiastic crowds that swarmed him on the campaign trail. Instead of recognizing their burning desire for strong progressive leadership, Obama tried to be a “post-partisan” president. The tragedy of Barack Obama is that, in trying to become the great uniter, he has instead become a grave disappointment. From climate change to gun safety to, yes, even health care, Obama’s legacy on important issues falls far short of what could have been. Time and again, he let down his most impassioned supporters–the ones who used their powerful voices to vote for change–neglecting their priorities and wasting his potential by either not doing enough or, worse, repeating the errors of his predecessor. President Obama rode into office on a celebratory tide of liberal jubilation, but as his typically centrist presidency comes to a close, he leaves his supporters haunted by what might have been.