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The Promise: President Obama, Year One

3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 · rating details · 744 ratings · 118 reviews

Barack Obama's inauguration as president on January 20, 2009, inspired the world. But the great promise of "Change We Can Believe In" was immediately tested by the threat of another Great Depression, a worsening war in Afghanistan, and an entrenched and deeply partisan system of business as usual in Washington. Despite all the coverage, the backstory of Obama's historic fi...more Barack Obama's inauguration as president on January 20, 2009, inspired the world. But the great promise of "Change We Can Believe In" was immediately tested by the threat of another Great Depression, a worsening war in Afghanistan, and an entrenched and deeply partisan system of business as usual in Washington. Despite all the coverage, the backstory of Obama's historic first year in office has until now remained a mystery.InThe Promise: President Obama, Year One,Jonathan Alter, one of the country's most respected journalists and historians, uses his unique access to the White House to produce the first inside look at Obama's difficult debut.What happened in 2009 inside the Oval Office? What worked and what failed? What is the president really like on the job and off-hours, using what his best friend called "a Rubik's Cube in his brain"? These questions are answered here for the first time. We see how a surprisingly cunning Obama took effective charge in Washington several weeks before his election, made trillion-dollar decisions on the stimulus and budget before he was inaugurated, engineered colossally unpopular bailouts of the banking and auto sectors, and escalated a treacherous war not long after settling into office.The Promiseis a fast-paced and incisive narrative of a young risk-taking president carving his own path amid sky-high expectations and surging joblessness. Alter reveals that it was Obama alone"feeling lucky"who insisted on pushing major health care reform over the objections of his vice president and top advisors, including his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who admitted that "I begged him not to do this."Alter takes the reader inside the room as Obama prevents a fistfight involving a congressman, coldly reprimands the military brass for insubordination, crashes the key meeting at the Copenhagen Climate Change conference, and realizes that a Senate candidate's gaffe about baseball in a Massachusetts special election will dash the big dream of his first year.In Alter's telling, the real Obama is an authentic, demanding, unsentimental, and sometimes overconfident leader. He adapted to the presidency with ease and put more "points on the board" than he is given credit for, but neglected to use his leverage over the banks and failed to connect well with an angry public. We see the famously calm president cursing leaks, playfully trash-talking his advisors, and joking about even the most taboo subjects, still intent on redeeming more of his promise as the problems mount.This brilliant blend of journalism and history offers the freshest reporting and most acute perspective on the biggest story of our time. It will shape impressions of the Obama presidency and of the man himself for years to come.(less)

Hardcover, 459 pages

Published May 18th 2010 by Simon & Schuster

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Sep 05, 2010 Erickarlos Gutierrez rated it 4 of 5 stars

Alter gives a refreshingly insightful, and, at times sympathetic persepective of the Obama administration. The major themes of the book highlight Obama's modus operandus when it came to governance, policy, management, and leadership. It highlighted his suprising expertise at executive level management, and his equally surprising sub-par execution of all-things related to communication to the american public.

Alter provides a sharp contrast between the previous Presidents and our current President...more

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Nov 01, 2010 William rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: political-history, nook, favorite-books-of-2010

If you want a concise presentation of President Obama's failures and successes in his Administration's first 18 months, start this book at the Epilogue. In very few pages, you will have a roster of accomplishments that are in many places historic, all far-reaching, and most all completely unheard of by the average voter. This is the story of Obama's presidency so far: that his drive for measurable steps forward -- from the elimination of "middle-man" vendors for student loans that in turn helped...more If you want a concise presentation of President Obama's failures and successes in his Administration's first 18 months, start this book at the Epilogue. In very few pages, you will have a roster of accomplishments that are in many places historic, all far-reaching, and most all completely unheard of by the average voter. This is the story of Obama's presidency so far: that his drive for measurable steps forward -- from the elimination of "middle-man" vendors for student loans that in turn helped to fund the health care bill, to unprecedented increases in education standards and teacher rewards, to the most thorough Administrative analysis of military policy since the Cuban Missie Crisis, to gaining concessions by China to publicly record its goals for pollution reductions -- occludes the need to score political cheap shots and short-term gains against an unmistakably aggressive, even obstructionist opposition party.

Each chapter in The Promise details, sometimes painfully so, one of the major initiatives shaped or confronted by the Obama Administration, and while there are enormous frustrations to be had in Obama's missteps, throughout the course of the book an appreciation builds for not only the gargantuan tasks faced by any politician during the economic recession of 2008-2010, but for the remarkable capability of this current officeholder in taking a hands-on approach to each of the challenges.

There is no doubt that, however long it lasts, Obama's presidency will be historic. What is regrettable is how little we realize that each of Obama's lesser known gestures toward reshaping the presidency and regaining economic stability for the United States have affected our long-term growth. You come away feeling that the perhaps prematurely awarded Noble Prize will be less remembered for peace and better thought of as a reward for the economic policies and initiatives taken by Obama that not only saved the Union for the short-term, but probably extended its life. This is a genuinely remarkable presidency, whether or not people are willing to recognize it.
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Nov 09, 2010 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the book I would have written about President Obama if I could, so naturally, I'm captivated! Where was Mr. Alter when I was an island, needing a like-minded individual to chew on the issues during primary season? Excellent reporting and analysis.

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Jun 17, 2012 Holly Morrow added it

Caveat emptor: “The Promise” is not so much an appraisal of President Obama’s first year in office as a tribute. Maybe Alter (a Newsweek correspondent) will be to this Administration what Woodward was to the Bush Administration – the semi-official scribe. Even the criticisms in this book are of the variety that you use in a job interview when asked to describe your greatest weakness (“Sometimes I work too hard”) – where you’re trying to find something that objectively complies with the mandate f...more Caveat emptor: “The Promise” is not so much an appraisal of President Obama’s first year in office as a tribute. Maybe Alter (a Newsweek correspondent) will be to this Administration what Woodward was to the Bush Administration – the semi-official scribe. Even the criticisms in this book are of the variety that you use in a job interview when asked to describe your greatest weakness (“Sometimes I work too hard”) – where you’re trying to find something that objectively complies with the mandate for self-criticism but also illuminates a desirable or admirable trait. So, in Alter’s telling, Obama’s loyalty and devotion to old friends occasionally blinded him to their failures as public servants, or he was too impatient with the nonsense of Congress, or too focused on getting the job done to notice how he was coming across to the public. Alter has an especially annoying habit of tying up a discussion of an issue with a pat, and unsupported, statement that vindicates Obama: after talking about a Persian New Year greeting that Obama recorded for VOA, Alter says, “It may have sounded hokey to Americans, but it played well in Iran.” Really? That’s an interesting assertion, but I wonder how he knows that. Or: “Obama’s first year brought no progress with North Korea, but at least the world was united in how to confront it” – umm, except for CHINA. Anyway, Alter is in the tank for Obama, have I made that clear? But his book is still interesting, mostly because of its backroom drama and interpersonal insights – how the selection of Clinton as SecState unfolded, the dynamics between Obama and his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a lot of detail about how the economic team (particularly Summers and Geithner) work together, some backstory on how the Pentagon and certain Generals tried to box the President in on Afghanistan strategy. So, as critical analysis I think this book fails, but as a collection of tidbits fleshing out the context of the major news stories and policy decisions of the last year and a half based on extensive access to Administration officials, it succeeds.(less)

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Aug 15, 2010 Richard Harden rated it 5 of 5 stars

As a political scientist by training, I have become disgusted with the uninformed rhetoric clogging the airwaves, the internet and the minds of an increasingly more unthinking public. It disturbs me the way writers who should know better, as well as many more who should not and do not care that they do not, misuse terms like "liberal," "conservative," "[un:]constitutional," "progressive," and "moderate." It disturbs me to an even greater extent that the public blindly and uncritically absorbs in...more

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May 23, 2010 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Bram, Eric W, DK (for his president kick)

Screw Lost.

The short review is: a real accomplishment and a rewarding read, even for us political junkies. Alter manages to distill a number of very complex political issues and struggles into concise explications of policy debate, not just salacious chatter about personalities and horse-race. Yet he's also intent on capturing something about the character of the major players, President Obama most particularly. It is very much a book about what he's accomplished, and how--but it is also a wart...more Screw Lost.

The short review is: a real accomplishment and a rewarding read, even for us political junkies. Alter manages to distill a number of very complex political issues and struggles into concise explications of policy debate, not just salacious chatter about personalities and horse-race. Yet he's also intent on capturing something about the character of the major players, President Obama most particularly. It is very much a book about what he's accomplished, and how--but it is also a warts-and-all study of a leadership evolving. Better, more complex histories may come along, but this is way better than your average rehashing of daily reporting.

Meanwhile, the haters will be bashing Alter for koolaid-drinking or some such. Alter undoubtedly admires Obama,and he hasn't too much time for the false objectivity of giving every moron with an opinion lots of airspace. His footnotes on phenomena like the birthers can be cutting, and are always concise. And I for one am grateful that such chatter mostly went into footnotes. Obama sees the circus of a twenty-four-hour newscycle and partisan games as distraction, and Alter never gets distracted. Huzzah. Which is not to say Obama gets a pass--there are clear-eyed assessments of BO's missteps, flaws, learning curve. Real challenges and counterarguments get their due--there's great stuff on health care and Afghanistan and TARP--again, Alter is fascinated by the difficult choices Obama faced, and how he decided.

And you know, even as a decided fan of Obama's pragmatic idealism, I was startled by the accounting sheet for this first year. As one of Alter's sources notes, if you broke the TARP bill down into its signal elements, it'd be one of the largest alternative energy bills in history, one of the most substantive education bills in history, a substantive infrastructure bill, etc. The accomplishments in one year--even beyond the big-ticket items--are objectively startling. Agree, disagree--this President has already achieved so very much.

Yet so much is affirmed primarily by counterfactual. If no TARP, what would have happened? If no movement on the automakers, what would have happened? Here Alter can only hypothesize, however persuasive and well-supported his account. He has to keep nodding to the future, to that imagined point in time when we can make a clearer assessment of what was and what might have been (if not for what was).

Last little whine. Alter throws in the obligatory nod to Cuomo's brilliant aphorism about campaigning in poetry and governing in prose. And, alas, writers who write on campaigning and governing have trouble even with the prose bar. Not true or fair here--Alter's a clean, crisp stylist, and he has a very sure, even brilliant sense of narrative and detail--it's not cluttered yet it's a thorough accounting, and it's structured with much sophistication. But I would have loved a little more beauty, a zippier Richard-Ben-Cramer prose, ....but when a book is so of the moment, what right do I have to whine? (less)

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Aug 22, 2010 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sept-oct-2010

Drawing on insider access and more than 200 interviews with key players, Washington veteran Jonathan Alter examines the nascent Obama presidency with a journalist's eye for the telling detail and a historian's perspective. Despite the transparency that the office of president demands (for the most part), Obama remains enigmatic--ebullient, confident, and optimistic; aloof, demanding, and maybe a bit out of touch. Alter, whose obvious admiration for Obama never impedes his journalistic instincts...more

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Mar 24, 2011 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, potus-biographies-project

This was an interesting read, though I think the book, as history, was sort of doomed from the start. Alter selected the perspective of admiration, rather than dispassion, from the start of the process--the book was then written with the scaffolding of admiration/sympathy as a starting point. And, to be honest, I don't think there was a way to write this type of book without a perspective. He did his research as the events he was writing about were happening. For what it's worth, the research is...more

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May 04, 2011 Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011

Halfway through reading The Promise, which thoroughly documents Obama's first year as president, I checked Amazon to see how the book fared with other readers. Many adored the book, yet many criticized it for being too favorable toward Obama. Although I can't deny that Jonathan Alter is clearly a fan of Obama, this book had a few things going for it that kept any bias in check:

a) It would be hard to argue that this is from any perspective other than center-left. Particularly during the end as th...more

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Jun 08, 2010 Oldroses rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, politics

Barack Obama is not a saint. What a relief. "The Promise: President Obama, Year One", written by Jonathan Alter, a "Newsweek" reporter, is a refreshing change from the worshipful treatment of President Obama in "Game Change". Mr. Alter provides an even-handed treatment of the first year of the Obama presidency. He shows us a president who is all too human, making mistakes in both personnel and policies but mostly getting it right.

The reader is provided with thorough background information on al...more Barack Obama is not a saint. What a relief. "The Promise: President Obama, Year One", written by Jonathan Alter, a "Newsweek" reporter, is a refreshing change from the worshipful treatment of President Obama in "Game Change". Mr. Alter provides an even-handed treatment of the first year of the Obama presidency. He shows us a president who is all too human, making mistakes in both personnel and policies but mostly getting it right.

The reader is provided with thorough background information on all of the major players in President Obama’s administration. I was especially fascinated by the description of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s agonizing decision whether to take the job as Chief of Staff or remain in the House, eventually succeeding Nancy Pelosi to become the first Jewish Speaker of the House. First Jewish Speaker? I had no idea that anyone thought that way in the 21st century. I thought that we had put silly religious issues behind us. I’m old enough to remember when (Catholic) JFK was running for the presidency and voters (including my Goldwater Republican parents) were terrified that if he were elected, the Pope would be running the country. As history reminds us, JFK was elected and governed the country without the Pope.

First Lady Michelle Obama is treated respectfully. I was surprised to learn that despite her husband never having been subject to rumors of infidelity, she is described as “a tiger when it came to Barack and other women.”, the example of Halle Berry’s enthusiasm in campaigning for Obama prompting the future First Lady to forbid her husband to appear with her.

Mr. Alter’s previous book, "The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope", dealt with FDR and the New Deal. Not surprisingly, he frequently draws parallels between President Obama’s first year in office and FDR’s first year in office. Both entered office faced with a collapsing economy. Both were forced to clean up the messes left by the previous administrations. And both passed landmark legislation in their first year, Social Security by FDR and health care reform by Obama.

It’s often difficult to end a book of this length and breadth, especially with the protagonist still early in his administration and still likely to continue making history, but I found the ending to this book very satisfying. The long, drawn-out battle for health care reform takes up most of the book, but in the end the reader is reminded of President Obama’s other first year accomplishments such as banning pay discrimination against women (always close to my heart), health insurance for millions of children, tightened rules governing credit cards and the crackdown on predatory lending, achievements that have become lost in the noise and confusion of the battle over health care, but which are huge victories in their own right.
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Jan 02, 2012 Josh McConnell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: american-history-politics, politics, biography

Though relatively easy to read in its syntax, The Promise: President Obama, Year One is most certainly a dense book. If you have no interest in politics and simply want to read more about Obama and his life, then I recommend staying far away from this one. Read Barack Obama's own books for those topics. Instead of an autobiography, The Promise dives right into its analysis of President Obama's first year in office without any extensive introduction. There is no story building nor history of the...more

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Aug 18, 2010 Joyce rated it 5 of 5 stars

Terrific book! I should probably say up front that I'm an Obama fan, so I really don't know how others would perceive it. Alter's writing is easy to read and he obviously has a great number of sources - a quarter-century of Newsweek employment has been put to good use.

I think that I'm reasonably informed about teh workings of government, but there was much to learn about the process of the executive branch and how it interacts, or doesn't, with other branches and agencies.

Alter intends this book...more

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Jun 05, 2010 Leendert rated it 4 of 5 stars

the man described by alter in his history is a slightly different man than in the pages of remnick's biography. the two combined paints a picture of an extraordinary man - obama.

what alter's book does, in addition to providing an insider's scoop on political machinations, is to highlight how sparse and anemic reporting and journalism on american politics are nowadays. a great deal has been accomplished in 2009 and the first months of 2010 but you would never know it from watching cable news and...more

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Dec 01, 2010 Christina rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reading this just after the GOP sweep in the midterms has left a bitter taste in my mouth. So much opportunity lost! Yet, Alter in many ways explains why, even though the book was written before the election. It is amazing how an administration can do so much and receive credit for so little. Yes, a lot of it is superficial messaging. Yes, many of us who are political junkies were dying for a man like Obama to speak to us like adults after 8 years of 'Git 'er done!' But once elected, the White H...more

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Aug 02, 2010 Amr rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: united-states, politics, obama, biography

The fairly liberal author really likes Obama and his accomplishments in the first year, which is not surprising but it becomes very obvious sometimes (even for me, someone who favors Obama) which is not good for a book that is supposed to be a very early draft of history of the first year of the Obama presidency.
However, the book is full of details about what happened in the first year (even though they mostly favor Obama) and more importantly it offers details on Obama's management style and hi...more

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Jul 02, 2010 Sam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: government-at-work, read-2010

The premise:
1) Alter writes a book about the run-up to FDR's election and his historic first one-hundred days.
2) Barack Obama and his staff blatantly use Alter's FDR book as a map of how to begin their administration.
3) Alter works closely with Obama's staff to document the first year of Obama's administration in order to ultimately release a book about the run-up to Barack Obama's election and his historic first year.

All in all, I'd say it's a pretty neat trick. And, as it happens, it's a prett...more

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Sep 01, 2010 Julie Christiano rated it 5 of 5 stars

Amazing what I did not know that makes me admire President Obama even more- could that even be possible???? Very well researched and written. As Lbball27 noted, I may be addicted to nonfiction!

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May 24, 2010 Emily added it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, news-politics, nonfiction

Alter goes through the year 2009 for Team Obama in great detail, giving each major piece of legislation its own chapter. As someone who just lived through 2009 a year ago, I found myself rooting for Rahm Emmanuel to curse people out some more. Obama himself tries to maintain the veneer of bipartisanship, and ends up failing to smack down opponents when they really deserve it.

I was surprised to read in the newspaper that both Alter and David Remnick (who ended up calling his book "The Bridge") w...more

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Jan 25, 2012 Steve Skirvin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: politics-and-protest, american-history

One of those books that is so well written and interesting that your able to read quickly despite it being over 400 pages. The book is an insider view of Obama's first year in office, which provides a detailed look at the state of the country after Bush and company ran things for eight years. Needless to say, things were much worse than team Obama imagined. The author is lightly critical of the President, but you are able to get a real sense of how Obama's mind works and his vision for the count...more

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Jun 19, 2010 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: politics, history, biographies

Insightful and informative look inside the first year of the Obama administrative. Best part was the look inside Obama's personality through how he deals with those in his inner circle to how he treats the American people. Extensive coverage of the economy, foreign policy and the health care bill. It took a while to read but was worth it!

Proud to have finished this a few hours before Father's Day because it was my father who introduced me to American politics (Aaron Sorkin did have a hand in it...more

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Sep 22, 2010 Phil Mullen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Nice behind-the-scenes info., from a person whose reporting in Newsweek has earned a fair amount of trust from me.

Doesn't worship Obama, which I approve.

Clearly doesn't like Orszag (who may deserve a few more good grades?).

Tells useful stuff about Geitner, whom he also pins to the wall in several matters (e.g., the non-payment of back taxes on the foreign job).

This is the 2nd Obama book I've read, & I admire the Prez still, despite the dark climate as I write this, with the Repubs. highly li...more

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Jul 19, 2011 Eric added it

First of all, I'd like to disclose that the primary reason I read this book was because the author is the father of my roommate from freshman year. Putting aside bias, however, I can still say I found it to be a good book. It provided some interesting insights into how the Obama administration handled its first year in office. The health care narrative at the end there didn't really fit into Alter's "first year" structure, but that's more the fault of how things turned out than any fault of the...more

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Feb 02, 2013 Jim rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: politics-and-society, history, non-fiction

Jonathan Alter details the actions taken by the Obama administration through the year 2009. It is a detailed but readable account, in the style of solid, long-form journalism. Alter does a good job of explaining the dynamics and personalities that shaped decisions and politics surrounding the financial and auto bailouts, the stimulus, and, most centrally, the push to pass healthcare reform.

Sometimes, the minutiae of policy-making can be a bit of a slog. What is more interesting, perhaps, are acc...more Jonathan Alter details the actions taken by the Obama administration through the year 2009. It is a detailed but readable account, in the style of solid, long-form journalism. Alter does a good job of explaining the dynamics and personalities that shaped decisions and politics surrounding the financial and auto bailouts, the stimulus, and, most centrally, the push to pass healthcare reform.

Sometimes, the minutiae of policy-making can be a bit of a slog. What is more interesting, perhaps, are accounts of the personalities involved. Alter's Obama comes across as a little sphinx-like, hard to get a read on, which is probably his main strength as a political player (sharply-honed intellect, aside).

One of the more colorful people in the book is chief-of-staff, later Chicago mayor, Rahm Emmanuel. The Rahm of this book is very much in the mold of a quasi-Machiavellian, hard-nosed realist. Behind the scenes, Emmanuel played a central role in the way "Obamacare" took shape. Anyone who bewails the loss of the public option has Rahm to blame. (Emmanuel would counter that the public option was never going to be passed and insisting on it would sink the legislation. Then he would flip you off.)

Overall, this is an important account of a crucial period in our history. Any fair analysis of the situation compels one to admit that the Obama administration took office at a time when it was very likely that the financial system was about to implode and the largest part of the US manufacturing sector was about to fail. Whatever the shortcomings of their decision-making, and there is much to criticize, one has to admit that the Obama team pulled off some fairly impressive crisis management. When compared with the panicked reactions of the previous Bush administration, the Obama team was a picture of institutional competence.

As with most inspirational leaders, Obama's support has suffered when inspiration has come up against the needs of practical governance. Alter's account shows how idealism succumbed to hard reality and the ways in which decisions, taken in a context of crisis and necessity, would set up resistance on the right and erosion of support on the left. The cruel irony of Obama's first year is that his successes fueled his party's defeats in the 2010 elections (and perhaps, from the hindsight of 2013, set up his reelection).(less)

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Feb 13, 2011 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm usually skeptical of the value of current events books written on such a short timetable, but Alter's account is deeply reported and compellingly written. The author is unquestionably sympathetic to Obama but generally even-handed in his approach (though defending Obama's preference for "extraordinarily smart men and women" by slamming the Bush White House for its "legions of second-raters" is a cheap shot). My favorite behind-the-scenes revelation was that Rupert Murdoch planned to endorse...more

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Sep 05, 2010 Irving Koppel rated it 5 of 5 stars

This very exhaustive and sometimes exhausting account of President
Obama's first year in office is well worth the read. If you're a political
junkie like me,you'll appreciate the meticulous accounts of all the
"sturm und drang" that our new president faced from the beginning.

Faced with an unprecedented array of problems left to him by his prede-
cessor, Obama had to move rapidly and decisively. Without any help from
the Republicans,Obama achieved the following in the first year and a
quarter:reg...more

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Aug 24, 2010 Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars

To write about President Obama's 1st year in such a balanced and clearway is amazing. Here we have the challenges, the opinions of Obama and his advisors and a view behind the scenes of what and how much work had to go into each of the many accomplishements. On top of that, we have the skills pointed out and the places where Obama is weak and needs to improve. Alter writes as if he were obama's boss giving an employee review. Perhaps that's what we need to read as employee taxpayers.

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Jun 15, 2010 Jason Lemons rated it 3 of 5 stars

Great first pass insider's look at the first year of the Obama Presidency. Alter has drank a little much of the kool-aid, this comes through in fits and starts. There is a lot of filler (I'd recommend skimming the first hundred pages, in addition to a few other parts). But there are some really interesting tidbits that come out about the innerworks of the process--particularly concerning the most important aspects, i.e. Stimulus, Health Care, Afghanistan, etc. Occasionally, Alter interjects his...more

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Nov 06, 2010 Seth rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book emphasizes style over substance - personalities over political analysis. But it is an interesting portrait of our president. As expected, he comes across as cool and a little detached. But deeply engaged in the issues and challenges. Also some good inside poop on the process of putting together his cabinet. Unfortunately, was finished before health care, so it misses some of the weirdness that we are now experiencing in this country.

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Sep 22, 2011 JoAnn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: current-events, favorites

This is a remarkably interesting, insightful, and informative book that focuses on the first 16 months of the Obama presidency. I learned so much about current issues and policy. It was written by a Newsweek columnist with unique access to the Obama administration and it's important policymakers. My biggest issue with this book was that there was not enough background information and explanation; it assumed a prior knowledge of politics, policy, issues, and people, which I didn't have, and goes...more

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Oct 25, 2010 Eric rated it 3 of 5 stars

Interesting take on Obama's first year. It was written from a liberal standpoint but was fairly balanced in its take--Obama set high goals and met many of them but has a ways to go. Obama did much of what he said he did. The book made no attempt to make a judgment on whether they were the right goals or not. It was interesting to read some of the behind-the-scenes during the first year--and wonder where it will all go from here.

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About Jonathan Alter

Jonathan Alter is an American columnist and senior editor for Newsweek magazine, where he has worked since 1983. Alter is a Chicago, Illinois native and resident of Montclair, New Jersey. He is a contributing correspondent to NBC News, where since 1996 he has appeared on NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC. When the shows were on the air, he could often be heard on Imus in the Morning and The Al Franken Show on...more

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Books by Jonathan Alter

The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope

Between the Lines: A View Inside American Politics, People, and Culture

Tortured Logic: A Verbatim Critique of the George W. Bush Presidency

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