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He battled conservatives on cable television for years, yet calls Fox News host Tucker Carlson a close friend.

He once downed shots with Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic and secured the freedom of a political prisoner held in Nicaragua.

He almost became a Catholic priest but ended up an acolyte of California Gov. Jerry Brown.

And to hear Bill Press tell it, he owes it all to his upbringing in Delaware City and his education at the Salesianum School.

"I was very much shaped by the experience of growing up in a small town and the local Catholic parish," the 78-year-old  said during a recent interview with The News Journal. "That's where I learned a lot of great, core family values and got my first taste of politics."

Press details those formative years in his new autobiography "From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire."

Released just a few weeks ago, the book provides a detailed account of how the son of a gas station owner rose to national prominence as one of the most recognized progressive voices of his time as a co-host of "Crossfire" and "Spin Room" on CNN, "Buchanan and Press" on MSNBC and the daily talk radio program "The Bill Press Show."

That journey also recently helped him to secure him a spot among the most famous people from Delaware.

"If I had know the polls were open, I could have had my family weigh in," he said.

Still known as "Chippy" by his family and longtime Delaware City residents, Press's First State bona fides are beyond reproach.

Both his father and grandfather served as mayors of Delaware City. The family regularly attended services at Saint Paul's Catholic Church. As a teen, Press joined the Delaware City Volunteer Fire Co.

Not all of his memories of the "Ozzie and Harriet kind of town" are warm, however.

Press pointedly recalls the deep racial divides along the C&D Canal in the 1950s — from separate schools and neighborhoods to the annual minstrel show at his all-white church.

He also details the destruction of the surrounding countryside to make way for what is now known as the Delaware City Refinery — a project he says promised jobs and wealth to local residents and delivered neither.

One he credits with developing his loathing for all forms of prejudice. The other he says sparked his devoted support for environmental activism.

But his love for politics was given root at Salesianum, where he was elected senior class president and became editor of the student newspaper — a position that allowed him to interview then-U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy on the platform at Penn Station.

"It changed my life and shaped my life more than any other experience before or since," Press wrote of his time at the all-boys school. "In a sense, I've never left Sallies."

And that's just the first 30 pages.

The rest of the book follows Press's long, strange journey from a seminary in Switzerland through a three-year run in the Sunshine State's California Democratic Party, stardom as a cable news talking head and a spot among the inner circle of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign.

Along the way are more cameos than a Robert Altman film. Arnold Schwarzenegger hikes by. Eugene McCarthy celebrates a birthday. Linda Ronstadt finds love. And Little Richard snubs Robert Novak.

Just don't expect a screed on the evils of conservatism — at least not in this book.

Sure, he's no fan of President Donald Trump, and his conviction for progressive causes is unwavering.

But Press also is quick to praise Republicans such as John McCain and Pat Buchanan while taking polite shots at Democratic stalwarts like Jimmy Carter, Al Gore,  and, yes, even Hillary Clinton.

"Just because I'm a progressive doesn't mean I would hesitate to criticize Democrats," he said. "I call it as I see it, regardless of party."

 As for Delaware City, Press says he still visits family there on occasion. Those trips usually involve a meal at Crabby Dick's and a drive by the family home on Washington Street or his father's former gas station — now a Valero — on Fifth Street.

"It's still very much the sleepy town I remember," he said.

So is there any chance he might return someday and follow in his father's footsteps by making a bid for mayor?

"With my politics, I'm not sure I could win," he said with a laugh. "You should never say never but I think you can say never on that one."

Excerpts from "Bill Press From the Left":

Yes, Delaware City was a great place to grow up. What I didn't realize until much later was that Delaware City was a great place to grow up — as long as you were white. Not for African Americans. Even though we didn't live in the Deep South, Delaware was still a border state, and Delaware City was a segregated town. There were black churches and white churches, black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods, black markets and white markets. There was even a separate black section of town, across the canal, called Polktown. We white kids, grades 1-12, walked a couple of blocks to Delaware City School. Black kids walked a mile out of town to the "colored school" school. We didn't call them blacks or coloreds then, of course. Like everybody else in the South or border states, we routinely and thoughtlessly used the N-word ...

***

In their book about Fort Delaware, Unlikely Allies, Bruce Mowday and Dale Fetzer report that Delaware City was also the beginning of a reverse-direction Underground Railroad that took Southern sympathizers to Dixie to join the Confederate army.

It seems strange, looking back, not only to have experienced segregation, but to have practiced it. Which we did, as kids, I'm ashamed to say, without even thinking about it. Why? Because that's just the way things were. That's how we were brought up. That's what we accepted.

***

Another life lesson learned the hard way: Discrimination in any form is just plain wrong. I still can't believe I routinely used the N-word, called gays queers and faggot, and believed women were inferior to men. Yes, I can hide behind the excuse that "that's just the way things were back then" and "I was never taught any differently," but I still feel guilty — and thus strive even harder to be open and tolerant today. In fact, because of my background, I'm even more intolerant of those who discriminate, especially those hypocrites who try to hide behind religion or politics to justify their prejudice against people of color, women, LGBTQ Americans, Muslims or Jews."

Contact reporter Scott Goss at (302) 324-2281, sgoss@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @ScottGossDel.

 

 

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