Michael J. Ybarra graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a B.A. in political science and received his M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. He was a former staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. Ybarra also contributed articles to the New Republic, The Washington Monthly and Upside Magazine. "Washington Gone Crazy" was a finalist for the annual book prize awarded by the Los Angeles Times. The New York Times Book Review listed the biography among the 100 Notable Books of the Year and was shortlisted for the Ambassador Book Award in American Studies. It won the D.B. Hardeman Prize for best book on Congress from the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation in 2004.