The following is an adapted excerpt from The Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press, by Eric Boehlert.

As compiled by blogger Jon Swift, these were just some of the Obama conspiracies that prominent conservative bloggers and weblogs pursued and hyped, at times relentlessly, during the 2008 presidential campaign:

1. While attending Columbia University in the early 1980s and interested in the South African divestiture movement, Obama was involved in violent protests, including domestic terrorist bombings, that erupted when a South African rugby team toured America. (Just One Minute, Ace of Spades)

2. Obama had an affair with a young female staffer who was promptly exiled to a Caribbean island by an angry Michelle Obama, who discovered the blossoming relationship. (Ace of Spades, Say Anything, Right Voices, Protein Wisdom, Hill Buzz, Black Five)

3. Obama’s deeply personal memoir, Dreams from My Father, was actually ghostwritten by Bill Ayers, the former ’60s radical turned college professor who befriended Obama in Chicago in the 1990s. (American Thinker, Ann Althouse, Powerline, continue reading >

If you're interested in the political blogosphere and the netroots in general, Eric Boehlert's Bloggers on the Bus is a great read. It's built around potted sketches of some of the best known liberal bloggers (Atrios, Digby, Jane Hamsher, John Amato, Arianna Huffington, Glenn Greenwald, and others) and some of the blogosphere's greatest campaign hits during 2008 (the Obama MySpace debacle, the John Hagee meltdown, the Sarah Palin eruption, the great sexism debate), and Boehlert really does a terrific job of diving in and explaining how everything unfolded. I followed almost all of this stuff pretty obsessively in real time, but I still learned lots of details I'd never heard of before.

It's a very fast, entertaining read, and since it focuses (almost) exclusively on the liberal blogosphere it mostly avoids the sense of triumphalism you might get in a more partisan book. ... (Read the full review)

Eric Boehlert has just released a truly superb, illuminating and entertaining new book: Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press. As the title suggests, the book examines the impact which the blogosphere has had on both journalism and political activism, and it is, in my view, by far the best book yet to examine the rise of political blogs. Boehlert is my guest today on Salon Radio to talk about the issues raised by this new book.

In order to dispel stereotypes and myths propagated about bloggers (mostly by establishment journalists eager to demonize what they perceive as their competitors), Boehlert focuses on 8-10 bloggers, and writes in detail about their background and what brought them to blogging. There is a chapter that focuses heavily on the fight over FISA and telecom immunity, which also includes a discussion of the work I've done (and provides a lot more information and details about me than, frankly, I expected or desired). ... (Read the full review)

Award-winning journalist Boehlert (Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush) introduces the new generation of political muckrakers who took the 2008 presidential campaign—and old guard, by-the-numbers reporting—by storm. From the banner names of newly minted powerhouse The Huffington Post to the vitriol dished out by established liberal outposts like The Daily Kos, Boehlert presents a Web's-eye-view of the American left's grand reawakening. The netroots, as they became known, “literally kept the lights on during a very dark period for liberals”; prominent blogger Digby puts it more bluntly: “The Internet became available just as American politics turned bat shit crazy.” That craziness only accelerated through the presidential campaign, including the polarizing campaign of Hillary Clinton, Obama calling small-town Pennsylvanians “bitter,” and the entire shock-and-awry VP candidacy of Sarah Palin. Boehlert also examines the use and misuse of social networking sites like MySpace, and some seismic changes in televised news (including mainstream media's biggest new star, unlikely MSNBC news host Rachel Maddow). Blogger Markos describes his site as “a place for passionate activists, not conflict-averse weenies”; Boehlert illustrates that ethos well in this opinionated, impossible to put down narrative, chronicling with cagey insider detail the failures of copycat reporting and the inspired citizen-journalists picking up the slack.