REVIEWS: “Many Americans, myself included, wonder what happened to our public discourse in the last few years. This book tells that story more vividly than any other I’ve read. If you want to know how the conservative media went off the rails and why elected representatives started calling Obama a traitor and a tyrant, John Wright is the perfect guide.” --Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona's 7th District “John Wright exposes how Obama's detractors have created a caricature of the president as a turban-wearing, Mecca-praying, Kenyan-born communist who learned his politics from bearded little men clutching hissing bombs. As Wright points out, what makes Obama’s self-appointed enemies different from haters of past presidents is that they will invent any tall tale to promote the lie that Obama is not a real American.” --Edward McClelland, author Young Mr. Obama: Chicago and the Making of a Black President “The Obama Haters is a compelling look at the profit-driven political opposition ‘industry’ that threatens civil discourse and rational solutions through lies, half-truths, and exploitation. It’s a must read for anyone who cares about what’s ailing our democracy and worries about the divisiveness and partisanship that’s tearing it apart.” --Edward G. Rendell, former governor of Pennsylvania “The value of this volume is in its calling out hate mongers before they encourage more political violence such as the January 2011 tragedy in Tucson. In effectively countering vicious lies about President Obama, John Wright makes a strong case for recognizing and marginalizing potentially dangerous hate speech thinly veiled as free speech." --Anthony Cortese, professor of sociology Southern Methodist University author, Opposing Hate Speech |
The Obama Haters: Behind the Right-Wing Campaign of Lies, Innuendo & Racism Published by Potomac Books in April 2011 "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" --Exodus 20:16. The ninth of the Ten Commandments Is Barack Obama a traitor to the United States? Is he a communist or socialist or fascist? Was he born in Kenya? Is he a Muslim? Does he operate a gangster government? Is he plotting concentration camps for his political adversaries or death panels for sick people? Does he hate white people? Millions of people ascribe to all those fictions, along with many others, about Obama but they can’t provide any facts to support such beliefs. The Obama Haters dissects all of these fabrications, and many others, in painstaking detail the way a pathologist studies disease.
Americans in 2008 hungered for change after George W. Bush’s unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a plunging economy, and lack of trust due to shameful incompetence after Hurricane Katrina. Yet beneath the radar lurked a sinister, stealth campaign to destroy Obama. During his 2004 race for the U.S. Senate, scant attention was paid to a slur portraying him as a Muslim. Another early smear via chain e-mail purported that Obama was born outside the United States, which, if true, would disqualify him from becoming president. The Obama campaign worked to prevent either lie from influencing voters. By the time he won the Democratic nomination, these two unbelievable aspersions had morphed into hydra-headed monsters, with dozens of lies getting attention from websites, e-mails, talk radio, TV broadcasts, and the flapping tongues of political opponents. The Obama Haters is a historic record, the first serious attempt to set the record straight. People with opposing views dislike Obama. That is their right, and that is healthy in a participatory democracy without forced allegiance. Rather than following blind partisanship, the author praises various conservatives who criticize Obama over policy differences on a factual basis. The title The Obama Haters reflects the depth of enmity toward Obama. The dictionary defines hatred as “prejudiced hostility or animosity.” That sums it up accurately and succinctly. The hatred is obvious. Yet, equally evident is that much of the hatred is misplaced, due to fatuous reasoning. Yet, ironically, Obama embodies many of the character traits and values purportedly cherished by those who despise him the most. The author has little patience for extreme ideologues after living years in Latin America, where left-wing and right-wing death squads murdered anyone they suspected of getting in their way. In the Obama haters’ playbook, it’s acceptable to call the president a communist, a fascist, a terrorist, or a traitor, with total disregard for the facts. Incredibly, some even think it’s OK to bring a gun to a political rally. The Obama Haters explores the roots of these dangerous trends, who is behind them, and how their propaganda machine takes utter falsehoods mainstream. |