Sally H. Jacobs is author of the new book, "The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama's Father."

A veteran reporter at the Boston Globe, Jacobs tells the story of Barack Obama, Sr., who came to the U.S. from Kenya, men and married Ann Dunham in Hawaii and left his young family to get a master's degree from Harvard. A brilliant economist, Jacobs decribes him as " a father of eight, nurturer of none," and "a polygamist, an alcoholic, and an ardent African nationalist unafarid to speak truth to power at a time when doing so could get you killed." 

Jacobs is scheduled to appear In The Arena on Wednesday, July 13, 2011.

BOOK EXCERPT: Here is an excerpt from "The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama's Father by Sally Jacobs."  Available from PublicAffairs, a member of The Perseus Books Group.  Copyright © 2011.

LATE ON A NOVEMBER evening in 1982, Obama [Sr.] was driving home when he rammed his white pickup truck headlong into the high stump of a eucalyptus tree at the side of the road and died instantly. He was forty six.

Obama’s eight children, some of whom had not seen him for years, largely closed the door on the subject of their father. For better or worse, the Old Man was gone. FULL POST

Juan Cole is a professor of Middle Eastern History, University of Michigan, and author of blog, Informed Comment. This week, The New York Times reported that Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer–who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush–said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Cole, who writes an influential blog that at one time criticized the Iraq war.

CLICK HERE to see their exclusive TV interview with Eliot on Friday, June, 17, 2011.

BLOG EXTRA:  Carle retired from the CIA in March 2007. Here is the preface from his new book, "The Interrogator: An Education, " scheduled for release in early July. In the non-fiction memoir, Carle describes the inside story of a high-level interrogation of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist and his discovery that almost every CIA assessment and action about the case–and the War on Terror–was wrong.

PREFACE: LYING, HONOR, AND THE GRAY WORLD

I was a spy. I broke laws. I stole. I lied every day, about almost everything: to my family, to my friends, to my colleagues, to everyone around me. I almost never was who I said I was, or did what I claimed to be doing.

Sometimes I was not American. I exploited people’s deepest hopes, won their deepest trust, so that they provided me what my government wanted. I was an angel who made men’s dreams come true, but my name was Faust. FULL POST

Bob Lutz, who spent 47 years in the auto industry–nine of them as vice chairman of General Motors–is scheduled to meet Eliot In The Arena on Wednesday, June 15, 2011.

Here is an excerpt from his new book, in which he explains how GM and other car companies lost their way, and how they can achieve greatness again.

Excerpted from Car Guys vs Bean Counters by Bob Lutz by arrangement with Portfolio Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc., Copyright © 2011 by Bob Lutz.

It was in 1979 in the United Kingdom. I had just been elevated to president of Ford Europe and was conducting my first monthly quality meeting.

Ford’s quality was about average for Europe at the time, but we were having a major problem with our UK-built four- cylinder engines: camshafts (an essential part that controls the valves) were wearing out at a totally unacceptable rate. Some camshafts failed after as little as 10,000 miles, few lasted more than 15,000 miles, and the bulk of the repeat failures occurred soon after the expiration of the then-prevalent 12,000-mile warranty.

I asked what we were going to do to achieve industry- standard durability on camshafts. Manufacturing and Engineering had a number of solutions, all requiring some increase in parts cost and a nominal investment in equipment. I authorized these on the spot, and emphasized the need for speed in incorporating the changes.

End of story? Not quite! FULL POST

Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner, authors of the new book, "Reckless Endangerment," are scheduled to appear In The Arena on Friday, May 27, 2011.

In the book, Morgenson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist of The New York Times, exposes how the watchdogs who were supposed to protect the country from financial harm were actually complicit in the actions that finally blew up the American economy. Drawing on previously untapped sources and building on original research from Rosner—who himself raised early warnings with the public and investors, and kept detailed records—Morgenson connects the dots that led to this fiasco.

BLOG EXTRA: Here is the introduction to "Reckless Endangerment" by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner.

Introduction: This is not the first book to be written about the epic financial crisis of 2008 and neither will it be the last. But Josh and I believe that Reckless Endangerment is different from the others in two important ways. It identifies powerful people whose involvement in the debacle has not yet been chronicled and it connects key incidents that have seemed heretofore unrelated.

As a veteran business reporter and columnist for the New York Times, I've covered my share of big and juicy financial scandals over the years. For more than a decade as an established financial and policy analyst, Josh has seen just about every trick there is.

But none of the scandals and financial improprieties we experienced before felt nearly as momentous or mystifying as the events that culminated in this most recent economic storm. That's why we felt that this calamity, and the conduct that brought it on, needed to be thoroughly investigated, detailed, and explained. The disaster was so great—its impact so far-reaching—that we knew we were not the only ones who wanted to understand how such a thing could happen in America in the new millennium. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today's six OFF-SET questions is Diana B. Henriques, a reporter for The New York Times, and author of the new book, "The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust."

Henriques joined The New York Times in October 1989 as a financial reporter. Before that, from July 1986, she was a writer for Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly, a Dow Jones publication. She is the author of "The White Sharks of Wall Street: Thomas Mellon Evans and the Original Corporate Raiders" (2000), "Fidelity's World: The Secret Life and Public Power of the Mutual Fund Giant" (1995) and "The Machinery of Greed: Public Authority Abuse and What to Do About It" (1986).

Henriques is scheduled to appear In The Arena on Friday, May 20, 2011. An excerpt from her book follows this blog interview.

In February, in his first interview for publication since his arrest in December 2008, Madoff maintained that family members knew nothing about his crimes. After all the research you've done, do you believe that assertion? Is it possible his brother, sons and wife didn't know?

I could not find any evidence at all that Ruth, Mark or Andrew Madoff knew about Madoff's crime until his confession in his study on Dec. 10, 2008. Indeed, there are compelling reasons to conclude that they did not know, which I lay out in my book.

For example, consider that confessional in the study: if his wife and sons are his accomplices, what should have happened next? They should have packed their bags, emptied the bank account, gassed up the private jet and fled to some distant spot without an extradition treaty. They had the means and, if they were Madoff's accomplices, the motive to flee - and none of them did. His brother has been on notice for more than two years that he is the subject of a criminal investigation, but to date, no charges have been brought against him. FULL POST

Sebastian Junger is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and the bestselling author of "The Perfect Storm" and "A Death in Belmont."

His book, "War" –also a bestseller and now in paperback - is the result of five trips Junger took to the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan between June 2007 and June 2008. He followed the activities of a single platoon, with the goal of conveying what soldiers experience–what war actually feels like.

Junger is scheduled to appear In The Arena on Wednesday, May 18, 2011.

BLOG EXTRA: Here is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of his book, "War." 

(*Editor's note: This excerpt contains profanity and is not suitable for all readers.)

The soldiers walk single file along the crest of the spur spaced ten or fifteen yards apart. The terrain falls off steeply on both sides into holly forests and shale scree. The moon is so bright that they’re not even using night vision gear.

Unknown to Winn and his men, three enemy fighters are arrayed across the crest of the ridge below them, waiting with AK-47s. Parallel to the trail are ten more fighters with belt-fed machine guns and RPGs. In the U.S. military, this is known as an “L-shaped ambush.” Correctly done, a handful of men can wipe out an entire platoon. FULL POST

Republican Texas Rep. Ron Paul will announce on Tuesday the formation of a presidential exploratory committee at an event in Des Moines, Iowa, CNN has learned. While Paul is announcing an exploratory committee, he has not made a final decision about launching a campaign for the White House in 2012.

Rep. Paul is scheduled to appear In The Arena on Tuesday, April 26, 2011.

BLOG EXTRA: Here is an excerpt from Ron Paul's book, "Liberty Defined," courtesy Grand Central Publishing, 2011.

                                                     Abortion

On one occasion in the 1960s when abortion was still illegal, I witnessed, while visiting a surgical suite as an OB/GYN resident, the abortion of a fetus that weighed approximately two pounds.

It was placed in a bucket, crying and struggling to breathe, and the medical personnel pretended not to notice.

Soon the crying stopped. This harrowing event forced me to think more seriously about this important issue. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG:  In January 2009, Andrew Breitbart, publisher of the news portals Breitbart.com and Breitbart.tv, launched Big Hollywood, a site on Hollywood and politics from the center/right perspective. He gained greater notoriety when his second blog endeavor, Big Government, broke the ACORN child sex trafficking story. Breitbart launched Big Journalism in January of 2010 and his newest blog, Big Peace, launched July 4, 2010. Breitbart co-wrote the best-selling attack on celebrity culture, Hollywood, Interrupted, and he was the primary developer of The Huffington Post.

Breitbart appeared In The Arena on Tuesday, April 19, 2011, where he and Eliot Spitzer found agreement on "vulgar" Wall Street practices.

BLOG EXTRA: Here is an excerpt from Breitbart's book, "Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World!" Permission granted by Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group USA. All rights reserved.

  Chapter 10

  The Big Plan: Join Us

Now you know the Complex, and you know that we can fight it if we just use the right tactics, understand our opponents, and walk toward the fire. Walk toward the fire. Don’t worry about being called a racist, a homophobe, a sociopath, a violent heteronormative xenophobe with fascistic impulses. They say all those things about you because they’re keeping you inside the Complex, forcing you to respond to their playbook. They want to stop you in your tracks. FULL POST

Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA), sits down with “In The Arena” Host, Eliot Spitzer to discuss his journey from being a poor child living in Chicago to be the first African-American governor of Massachusetts.

Gov. Patrick is scheduled to appear In The Arena on Tuesday, April 12, 2011. Here's an excerpt from his new book:

A REASON TO BELIEVE
Governor Deval Patrick

Reprinted from A REASON TO BELIEVE by Governor Deval Patrick.  Copyright © 2011.  Published by Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

         P R E FA C E

Once, when I was fifteen, I had to catch a bus to meet a friend, and I was running late. We lived on the South Side of Chicago, near the corner of 54th Street and Wabash Avenue, so I raced south down Wabash past the whitewalled commercial bakery that always smelled of sour yeast, across the weed- filled median on Garfield Boulevard, and east down a block past the liquor store, the Laundromat, and the shop that sold live chickens to housewives. The shopkeeper could slaughter the bird or the women could do it themselves at home.

I reached the bus stop just as the familiar green and white CTA bus pulled up, oily and wheezing. I climbed the steps, reached for my coins, and only then realized that I did not have enough for the fare. The driver, a world- weary black man with a gray grizzle and salt- and- pepper mustache, had already jerked the bus into gear and started down the street. He gave me a withering look and told me gruffly to sit down, pointing to a seat close to the door. I obeyed. FULL POST

In his new book, Republican Sen. Rand Paul outlines the vision for America that prompted voters in Kentucky to vote him into Congress in a victory that was dubbed a “Randslide.”  His run for the U.S. Senate was his first bid for political office. Dr. Paul, the son of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, has been a practicing ophthalmologist for 18 years.

Sen. Paul is scheduled to appear on Parker Spitzer on Friday, Feb. 25, 2011.

This is an excerpt from THE TEA PARTY GOES TO WASHINGTON by Rand Paul. (Copyright © 2011 by Rand Paul. Reprinted by permission of Center Street, New York, NY. All rights reserved.)

November 2, 2010, was an historic night. I had been elected to the US Senate campaigning on a traditional, constitutional platform, rooted in the founding of our nation and refl ect­ing the values of individual freedom that have always made America great. With the Obama administration barreling in the opposite direction at breakneck speed, enacting legislation that would have astounded George Washington and incurring debt that would have outraged Thomas Jefferson, my message found an eager audience not only in Kentucky but across the country. On that night, I restated my promise to voters:

They say that the US Senate is the world’s most delib­erative body. Well, I’m going to ask them to deliber­ate upon this. The American people are unhappy with what’s going on in Washington. Eleven percent of the people approve of what’s going on in Congress. But tonight there’s a Tea Party tidal wave and we’re sending a message to them. It’s a message that I’ll carry with me on Day One. It’s a message of fiscal sanity. It’s a message of limited constitutional government and balanced budgets. When I arrive in Washington I will ask them, respect­fully, to deliberate upon this—we are in the midst of a debt crisis and the American people want to know why we have to balance our budget and they don’t? I will ask them, respectfully, to deliberate upon this: Government does not create jobs. Individual entrepreneurs, business­men and -women create jobs but not the government. I will ask the Senate, respectfully, to deliberate upon this—do we wish to live free or be enslaved by debt? Do we believe in the individual or do we believe in the state? FULL POST