Morning Drive: Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Talking

Michael A. Smerconish—nationally syndicated radio talk show host, columnist, author, and all-around lightning rod of controversy and spirited discussion—is back! In Morning Drive, he displays the same no-nonsense candor he did in his two best-selling books, covering the gamut of his trademark straight talk on hot-button issues on the minds of Americans today, from government spending and taxes to torture and fighting terrorism, from immigration to gay marriage and global warming. 

 Taking the news headlines of today to set forth an agenda for tomorrow, Smerconish argues that the TV world presents an unrealistic, “liberal or conservative” view of the world. Maybe that explains why the man often labeled “conservative” by the television shows he appears on sees no contradiction in his kind words for Barack Obama. In this new book, Smerconish takes readers to such volatile venues as the set of Real Time with Bill Maher, where he found himself under attack in the “wing nut seat,” and recounts being the first person selected to guest host Don Imus’s TV show after Imus was fired from MSNBC.

Whether tracing his path to punditry, setting forth his views, or applying his “Muzzled Meter” to controversial statements made by everyone from Mel Gibson to Barack Obama, Smerconish voices a slew of strident opinions in Morning Drive—all based on his discussions with those-in-the-know and on personal experience. Such impressions—not least, those Smerconish garnered on his “morning drive” radio talk show based in a swing state (Pennsylvania) during the 2008 presidential campaign—come together in a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at how media-driven political perception becomes reality.

Morning Drive is a rollicking, political coming-of-age by one of the rising stars of cable punditry.

Once reliably Republican. Now less so. What is he?
A lightning rod of controversy and spirited discussion. That’s what.
Michael A. Smerconish 

One of America’s leading political pundits takes on our media-driven mindset and tells it like it is—on the issues that matter most to the nation’s present—and future.

Praise for Morning Drive

“Michael Smerconish is a feeling, thinking American. He has an open heart and an open mind. Read Morning Drive and you hear someone trying to put it together for himself. . . . [W]hen it comes to defining the America debate in the early twenty-first century, this guy’s right where the tire hits the road.”
—Chris Matthews, host of Hardball with Chris Matthews

“Morning Drive is a must for Washington insiders and citizens across the country who are interested in preserving not just a healthy two-party system—but also their ability to get access to balanced, impartial news.”
—United States Senator Arlen Specter, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

“Michael Smerconish . . . doesn’t part on ideology or a partisan political agenda, and he sure as heck isn’t predictable. It’s that same independence and unpredictability that make Morning Drive a great read.”
—Governor Edward G. Rendell, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

“Morning Drive provides terrific insight into who Michael is, how he came to be, and how independent thinking is essential to achieving smart political results.”
—Harold Ford, Jr., former United States Congressman, Chair of Democratic Leadership Council

Publishers Weekly

In this memoir-cum-mission statement, radio talker Smerconish delivers a wrap-up of his punditry career mapped to a 15-point "Suburban Manifesto" he first published in a 2006 Philadelphia Daily News column. A long-time Republican upset by his party's present course, Smerconish outlines his principles and goals in the realms of politics (pushing back against the far right) and media (he claims to be mislabeled "conservative"). Instead of focusing on opinions, however, Smerconish presents memorable anecdotes from his career, illuminating life behind the mike. Readers of any political persuasion should find Smerconish's candor and style accessible and quite charming, as he demonstrates unusual respect for all kinds of political thought. His Manifesto (with entries for immigration, gays, preventing terror, Bin Laden, etc.), however, provides scatter-shot organization, derailed further by a tendency to wander (or leap) off topic. Though this volume makes Smerconish a more accessible and sympathetic figure than most pundits, it puts his strong common-sense agenda (his ostensible raison d'etre) on the back burner.
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Michael Smerconish is the coauthor of the best-selling Murdered by Mumia (Lyons Press) and the host of his own exceedingly popular drive-time radio show in Philadelphia on CBS Radio’s The Big Talker (1210 AM WPHT). He is a regular fill-in host for Bill O’Reilly’s nationally syndicated Radio Factor, and a regular panelist on David Gregory’s Race for the White House on MSNBC. He has appeared on every television program where politics is discussed, from the Colbert Report on Comedy Central to The View on ABC.