A study of Presidential reading habits

Conversation downstairs concerns Barack Obama's reading habits.

One party to the conversation says he's heard that Obama's a voracious reader.

Other parties say they've heard the same thing.

All parties agree they aren't surprised.

All parties also agree they like this about our President-elect.

Party upstairs eavesdropping on the parties downstairs is not surprised.  All parties to the conversation downstairs are themselves voracious readers.

Party upstairs thinks about Presidents and their reading habits, at least as much as he knows about them through his own voracious reading of biographies and histories.

Jefferson was a voracious reader.  His voracious reading habits helped to bankrupt him and found the Library of Congress.

Truman was a voracious reader.  He practically read the Library of Congress.

Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Bill Clinton---voracious readers every one.

Franklin Roosevelt, too.

That infamous back-handed compliment of FDR?  "A second-rate intellect but a first-class temperament"?  That was said by someone who didn't like Roosevelt.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Might have been true.  Grumpy old Supreme Court Justices have a different standard for judging these things though.

All the party upstairs knows is that the library at Hyde Park is beautiful and part of its beauty is that it is a room meant to be used by a lover of books.

Party upstairs, having thought these facts over, nods sagely to himself.  Concludes that on the whole it's a good thing to have a President who's a voracious reader.

Then he remembers.

Richard Nixon was a voracious reader.

So was Jimmy Carter.

And John Adams.

Supposedly George W. Bush reads a lot.

Yeah.  I know.

But he and the librarian he married must have had something to talk about.

And the party upstairs has known far too many voracious readers who've apparently learned no practical life-lessons from any of the many books they've read or, at least, have never figured out how to apply those lessons.

The party upstairs being at the top of his own list.

Sound judgment and clear-headed reasoning and a habit of skeptical self-reflection do not follow inevitably from a study of the Great Books.

It's possible to read your way through all of Shakespeare and to come out the other end as big a dope as you went in, to memorize whole passages and be able to recite them on cue while you're being as ambitious as Macbeth, as jealous as Othello, as vain and foolish as Lear.

Words, words, words.

Party upstairs thinks that, all things considered, he'd rather have a President who read and liked to read than one who preferred to watch television, the whole question just leads to self-flattery.

Party upstairs goes back to what he was doing before he let himself get distracted by the conversation downstairs.

Reading a book about a couple of Presidents.

Comments

[Mike Schilling]

You've been through all of
F. Scott Fitzgerald's books
You're very well read
It's well known

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

[actor212]

Bush is a dress-up doll who will assume any mantle his handlers deem appropriate: cowboy, rancher, fighter pilot, President.

To call him a voracious reader is to simply add one more character to his action figure's line-up.

He doesn't read for enlightenment. He reads because he wants to seem like the kid who's studying hard to pass his final exam, meanwhile the book lies open in his lap while the Rams lose to the Redskins on the TV.

My suspicion is you could make the same analysis of any of the players on your list and come up with reasons they read, and the ones who were really good Presidents read because they wanted to, whereas the crappy ones read for other reasons, because they had to: self-esteem, keeping up with the Joneses, even escape (that's my take on Nixon).

[Ken Muldrew]

Actor212, I think Nixon read widely because he wanted to improve himself, and by that I mean to imply that he enjoyed reading because self-improvement was important to him. I just don't think that he had a good way to measure success (and really, that's a tough thing to get from reading...I think it's one of those things that comes from an apprenticeship (the "party upstairs", having been raised by Pop Mannion, is maybe a little better at this than he gives himself credit for)).

But I'm curious about Carter. He brought a strong ethic of responsibility to the presidency, and a sense that the state was not above morality insofar as its actions affected individuals, both within and outside of the state. As far as I can tell, Americans despised him for trying to make them feel responsible for the actions of the American state. But now many Americans are openly hoping for Obama to do the very thing that Carter was derided for. What makes them think that Americans will like it any better when Obama does it? Is it just that Obama might have the political savvy to pull it off? Or have the depradations of the past 8 years prepared people to finally accept Carter's program?

[Redbeard]

"As far as I can tell, Americans despised him for trying to make them feel responsible for the actions of the American state."

Given what I now understand about the media's treatment of the Clintons, I'm thinking the Villagers despised Carter and the broader population was just angry about a bad economy. Carter sent his daughter to public school which made all those Villagers who sent their kids to Sidwell Friends feel like elitists (or racists--because it's obvious most kids in DC schools aren't white). Did Carter ever hold a big barbecue for the reporters and do skits making fun of himself as David Gergen advised Bill Clinton? Perhaps the vanity of the Villagers made them think Carter's sense of morality was too strong, and that made them mock his positions that were fundamentally right, like conserving energy, and giving the Panama Canal to Panama and preserving the ANWAR.

[actor212]

Ken,

I think the difference between Obama and Carter (and Clinton) is that when Carter came to DC, he was viewed as an outsider, whereas Obama, while still wet behind the ears, is viewed thru the lens of his term in the Senate.

I suspect that will help him enlist the aide of people in Congress, where both Clinton and Carter suffered for the hubris of being outsiders and bringing in outsiders.

[Ken Muldrew]

If the DC insiders wield that much power in shaping public opinion, then I guess Obama is also coming onto the stage at a much better time in history. The demise of information conglomerates can't come soon enough.

[actor212]

Ken, The RNC feeds talking points to the blogosphere and MSM. I have no doubt the DNC does the same thing.

The difference is, we're a more cantankerous bunch!

[Bluegrass Poet]

I ran across the quote below just this morning, reading a book called A Reader's Guide to Wallace Stevens (by Eleanor Cook). It may be relevant to this discussion:

Paradoxically, Stevens was aware of the danger of too much reading. The desire to read is insatiable, he said to his young Cuban friend, the writer Jose Rodriguez Feo. "Nevertheless, you must also think."