46 Anti-Obama Books Published in Two Years
The Daily Beast reports:
Hating President Obama has become its own industry—and here's a new stat to prove it: To date, there have been at least 46 anti-Obama books published. I'm not talking about thoughtful criticisms of his policies, but detailed demonizations of the president. These screeds cannot help but have an impact on the typically low-turnout, high-intensity midterm elections that will take place Tuesday.
It's also evidence that the proliferation of Obama Derangement Syndrome has out-paced Bush Derangement Syndrome—big time. At this point in Bush's presidency there were only five anti-W books (a total no doubt depressed by the national unity that emerged in the wake of 9/11). It took Bush until November of 2004—the culmination of his contentious re-election campaign - to hit 46.
And while hating Bill Clinton was both a sport and a pastime on the far-right when he was in office, a rough count of anti-Clinton books this point in his presidency reached only 11, despite an approval rating in the mid-30s and the onset of the 1994 Republican Revolution.
I started wondering how many Obama attack books had been published when I saw David Limbaugh's Crimes Against Liberty: An Indictment of Barack Obama at a bookstore a few weeks ago—at this point the titles all blur together in a manic mad-lib, always accusing Obama of something close to war-crimes against the American people. With the help of research assistant Nicholas Anderson, I compiled a full list of anti-Obama books available on Amazon.com. Among the choice titles:
The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and other Anti-American Extremists; Barack Obama's Plan to Socialize America and Destroy Capitalism; Obama's Change: Communism in America; To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular Socialist Machine; How Barack Obama is Destroying the Military and Endangering Our Security; Obama: The Postmodern Coup—Making of a Manchurian Candidate; Trickle Up Poverty: Stopping Obama's Attack on Our Borders, Economy and Security; The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America; and my favorite: Whiny Little Bitch: The Excuse Filled Presidency of Barack Obama.
Mixed among those books are works by radio show hosts who reach millions of listeners each week, columnists, commentators, bloggers, cranks and a former Speaker of the House who is thinking about running for president. You might not be able to distinguish between the self-published pathology and the semi-professional polemics—they are all fear-mongering for personal and partisan profit. And that's the larger point.
