David Fredosso – Spin Masters: How the Media Ignored the Real News and Helped Reelect Barack Obama (Regnery Books)

David Fredosso’s new book Spin Masters: How the Media Ignored the Real News and Helped Reelect Barack Obama is a chapter and verse indictment of the mainstream media and their complicity in not only ignoring the pitiful results of Obama’s first term, but their creation of news and storylines that didn’t exist.

Fredosso recounts one of the most glaring examples of news creation when Democrat operative George Stephanopolis, who collects a paycheck from ABC Propaganda (formerly ABC News) and his promulgation of the “war on women” and badgering of Mitt Romney about his “plan” to ban birth control. Anyone who was truly paying attention and had an IQ above room temperature knew that there was no such “plan” or even thought process, even from the most pro-life Republican candidate Rick Santorum.

Fredosso makes the case that the media went far beyond debate moderator Candy Crowley of CNN’s inserting herself into the debate between Romney and Obama by ignoring countless high profile issues that were part and parcel of Obama’s first term including; terrible economic numbers, wasteful government spending that contributed to a huge increase in the national debt, serious abuses of power like the so-called recess appointments, despite  the fact Senate was still in session and the utter mishandling of the Benghazi attack.

Anyone in their right mind who gave serious consideration to Obama’s first term has to conclude that he ranks among the worst Presidents in U.S. history, who has done serious if not irreparable harm to the country, yet in the media vacuum and echo chamber, he still managed to get re-elected.

Fredosso’s detailing of the media’s malpractice should be a clear signal to the inept Republican party and to those who care about the future of this country, that if we are ever going to pull out of the tailspin created by two terms of Obama, then they will have to make significant progress on improving their methods of communication and making an impact on the American public. If that does not come to pass then the stupid masses will continue to be lead around by the nose by the media and continue to reelect the worst possible candidates.

My Share of the Task: A Memoir – General Stanley McChrystal (Portfolio)

If you are looking for a book filled with bitterness at the Obama administration in response to General Stanley McChrystal dismissal, then this is not your book. If you’re looking for a book that responds to the Rolling Stone Magazine piece or the follow up book, The Operators, both penned by the smarmy little weasel, Michael Hastings, then this is not your book.

If you are looking for an interesting memoir full of insight not only into the McChrystal’s long, successful military career, but also a story laced with leadership with a local and global worldview, then this is your book. McChyrstal’s career in an interesting mix of classroom, fellowship training and boots on the ground action. This is not the tale of cooridors of  power, perfumed prince, that is more a product of the Pentagon than the battlefield.

 

In My Share of the Task McChystal delivers intimate details of the strategy and the on the ground execution of the hunt for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terror leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. McChrystal cut his teeth in special forces, so he was not risk averse to strapping it on and spending a night in the ruts. You can feel the regret in the passages that describe a just missed attempt to take out Zarqawi.

The book takes it’s title from the Army Ranger’s creed which reads in part; I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong and morally straight and I will shoulder more than my share of the task whatever it may be, one-hundred-percent and then some. That creed rings true in the pages of the book which are long on spreading the credit to colleagues and underlings in place of the, I, me, my approach that’s so typical of these kinds of books.

Along the way McChrystal provides a guide post to leadership of a large, complex organization.