A DIFFERENT TIME

New Yorker Magazine Drops First Excerpt of Barack Obama Presidential Memoir ‘A Promised Land’

Inside, a blow-by-blow account of the ex-president’s fight for health-care reform, and how surprised he was at the fierce opposition he faced.

The New Yorker has gotten hold of the first excerpt of Barack Obama’s upcoming memoir, A Promised Land, which gives a blow-by-blow account of the ex-president’s 2009-2010 health-care fight. The book is due to be published on Nov. 17, but it was expected that a few choice cuts would be released ahead of next week’s election. In the excerpt, Obama admits to “overconfidence” in the health-care debate, saying he fully expected to overcome Republican opposition to his overhauls. Obama goes on to write: “I also had a grudging respect for how rapidly Tea Party leaders had mobilized a strong following and managed to dominate the news coverage, using some of the same social-media and grassroots organizing strategies we had deployed during my own campaign.” The book is the first of a planned two volumes covering his time in the White House.