Audacious Contradictions

Professor J,


I don't know that I ever disagreed with historians on that. One would hope that over the ages we would see that certain actions yield certain results, that the next time around we would choose differently. Would that we would "choose wisely" and find illumination and not just seek a prize. (There's a bit of movie trivia for you. :)) We don't though, do we? Human nature and abiding selfishness, so unwieldy, so stubborn. Such slow learners.

In the end I have to say this book grated on me a bit. As I've said before I think it's because I'm reading it with a crystal ball perspective. I read what he says, so much of it worthy of attention and thought, then I think of what he's done or said since. He seems a different person almost than the author. Which makes me ask (somewhat cynically) if he was writing what he thought people wanted to hear, what would get him elected or did he believe it when he wrote it? I'd like to think the latter.

And so "What happened to that smart guy?" Indeed. Perhaps he went from being a guy who (along with his wife) owed student loans and had a mortgage and worried about their daughters' education to magically, overnight, one of the uber elite. Those who you have pointed out, have no such worries.

He talks early on (p.25) about the "relative cordiality among the Senate's older members" and I think of him chiding Senator McCain during the health care debate.  On p.93 when expounding on his views of The Constitution he says, "it was a rejection of all forms of absolute authority, whether the king, the theocrat, the general, the oligarch, the dictator, the majority, or anyone else who claims to make choices for us."  I thought about a president who pressed on with a health care bill and stimulus with so much public opposition, who hinted it was all for our own good. On p. 161 he asks (after saying "Money does matter in education") ...why would so many parents pay so much to live in well-funded suburban school districts?" Yet, he shies away from pointing out that there may be something wrong with a system that perpetuates the connection between income and quality public education.  I found his recounting of his meeting with Warren Buffet and their discussion of the estate tax riveting but wondered about what part of his wealth he might hope to leave to his own daughters.

In his chapter "The World Beyond Our Borders" he says (p.319) of Africa "Democracy is spreading." One sentence written several years ago by a man who is now president and figuring out how best to handle Libya, Tunisia, Egypt.  I doubt that was the "Africa" he had in mind, North Africa being, culturally, more Mideast.  I'm going to leave the critique of how he's handled these recent situations as well as the rest of the foreign policy to you. I've no doubt you've much to say! ;)

There were a lot of things to agree with and disagree with. I alternately liked him and thought him arrogant as well as contradictory. I have to say I liked the author version of him more than the presidential version.