Begala on What Obama's Reading

[babylonsister]

Paul Begala on What Obama's Reading

by Paul Begala


Paul Begala is a CNN political contributor and a research professor at Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute. He was a senior strategist for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign and served as Counselor to President Clinton in the White House.



The Defining Moment, by Jonathan Alter


The president-elect has been reading a life of Franklin Roosevelt and appears to be taking to heart history's lessons on how to fix the Depression.

snip//

Barack Obama is comfortable in the world of ideas, he is rooted in the life of the mind. And now he is charged with translating those ideas into reality.

I could not be happier or more impressed. Alter has a first-class writing style and a first-class sense of the moment. The book, published in 2006, was not intended as a veiled memorandum of advice for the 44th president, but in some ways it may have become just that.

Alter recounts the story of an exuberantly hopeful new president—winning the White House after overcoming enormous obstacles. As he prepares to take office, the ongoing economic collapse worsens. Convinced the Depression was caused by incompetent Republican economic theories, he refuses to be used as a prop.

The failed Republican administration wanted to convince the public that the Depression was a lightning strike: random, unavoidable, and tragic. FDR knew it was a case of arson—and he made sure the country understood the man-made causes of the collapse.

more...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-19/paul-begala-on-what-obamas-reading/

[pscot]

1. Sounds like a step up

from My Pet Goat.