Barack Obama's summer vacation book list a portent of things to come?

Here’s how boring times get around Washington, D.C. in August when Congress is on vacation and the president has taken his family to Martha’s Vineyard with similar plans – political pundits and bloggers have nothing to write about except the most mundane and uninteresting of subjects: What books did President Obama take along for any anticipated beach reading, what do they mean about his presidency, and what do they say about him as a human being? Performing psychoanalysis by bookcase is a risky enough way to mistake the personality of a reader, but it seems that plenty of political junkies are attempting the same near impossible diagnosis with a simple, five book sampling.

Here’s a short list released by White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton:

Hot, Flat and Crowded by Tom Friedman, a book the president has reportedly already read once. Imagine what that says about the man who occupies the Oval Office…he reads a well written volume concerning the benefits to America of an environmental revolution that stresses more reliance on green power sources and a shift away from fossil fuels…scandalous.

John Adams by David McCullough is interpreted by some over-analytical and very bored commentators as a sign that Obama will be quoting Adams when he returns from vacation and goes back to work on his agenda. Doesn’t it make a reader wonder what Adams views on national healthcare were? He was a president known as much for his political guile as any other quality. Obama read a book about Abraham Lincoln’s contentious cabinet when he was forming his cabinet, and he also read a book about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first hundred days during after being sworn in as president. Either Obama is trying to channel dead presidents for ideas or he’s interested in the history of the office he holds and how other presidents have handled the responsibility. What a silly idea.
 

Lush Life by Richard Price, a murder/mystery story of race and class set in New York’s Lower East Side concerning the murder of a bartender and the NYPD’s following investigation of a restaurant manager and struggling writer named Eric Cash who claims he and the murdered man were accosted by muggers who did the dirty deed. The investigators don’t believe him, of course, as the genre requires, and there is plenty of deception and bumbling about. Race, murder, poverty, confusion, deception, bumbling – could this be an indication of President Obama’s mental state? Sure, why not. There’s nothing better to speculate on in Washington D.C. in August and early September.

Plainsong by Kent Haruf, a drama about the life of eight characters living in a Colorado prairie community. One of the main characters is Tom Guthrie whose wife moves out on him, leaving him in charge of raising their two boys, Ike, 10, and Bobby, 9, who both come across as well-adjusted, polite and sensitive boys who have to mature as they observe the less than well-adjusted, polite and sensitive behavior of adults they have unconditional love for. Could this be an indicator of the situation within the Obama family or household? Of course it could be, if the person making the supposition is a bored, dull political nut who is really reaching for something to write about.

The Way Home by George Pelecanos, a crime thriller based in Washington, D.C. based on the experiences of a former rebellious teen that had been into drugs until a minor brush with the law landed him in juvenile prison. At 26 years-old and working for his father there is plenty of dissension between the generations, the elder wondering why the younger isn’t more ambitious and the younger irritated that he’s installing carpet for his progenitor and not being accepted for who he is or gaining any respect for changing his ways. There’s so much ammunition here for hysterical supposition the reader can make up their own scenario.
 

website author John Dickerson pulled a little magic out of his keypad when he used his medium to remind the world that none of what Obama is reading is as fun as the good old days when Bush claimed to be reading The Stranger by French Existentialist Albert Camus, a man who thought more about life and man’s position in the world than George W. did in – never mind…you get the idea. (The Stranger is about a former lay about who becomes a dedicated Arab killer, if you’ve forgotten the storyline). Now there’s some psychoanalysis by book somebody should have paid attention to.

What could the five books President Obama took to the beach with him tell a literary detective about his mindset? Well, there’s a little bit of fiction, some non-fiction and a historical piece…very indecisive. And, all the books were written by white men, after the way women supported Obama’s candidacy for president and turned out to vote for him…very unappreciative. Going on with this psychoanalysis by book bit would be as stupid and meaningless as anybody reporting or commenting on it in the first place, so this is where -