Insightful look at Obamas
By Douglas Brinkley |
February 17, 2012, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
WHEN the Republican Scott Brown defeated the Democrat Martha Coakley to win Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat in 2010, Michelle Obama was apoplectic. There was no major player in American politics whom Mrs Obama treasured more than Ted Kennedy. For most of her adult life, wherever he stood on public policy issues, she pretty much stood. The First Lady ardently believed that Kennedy's endorsement of her husband for the 2008 Democratic nomination had been a real act of courage, the straw that tipped the scales in his favor against Hillary Clinton. Recognizing Brown's surprise win as a threat to her husband's entire health care initiative (the election cost Senate Democrats their super majority), Michelle went scalp hunting. She blamed senior White House officials like Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs for the Massachusetts disaster - and her husband for not riding herd on them. "She feels," President Obama sheepishly told aides, "as if our rudder isn't set right."
Pointing out such concerns is, of course, the province of a spouse. The difference when a head of state's spouse performs an advisory role is that both the content and its consequences resonate through more than one household. And that's the point of Jodi Kantor's new book, "The Obamas." Call it chick nonfiction, if you will; this book is not about politics, it's about marriage, or at least one marriage, and a notably successful one at that. This is a couple who listen to each other, and no one believes more in America's 44th president than his wife. Last August, at a party for his 50th birthday, Kantor writes, Michelle toasted her husband for passing the health care bill, appointing two women to the Supreme Court and the killing of Osama bin Laden. When he signaled for the accolades to be toned down, she cut him off. "No, you're just going to stand there and listen," she said. "I know it makes you uncomfortable, but you only turn 50 once, so you're just going to have to take it." And he did.
Kantor, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times, interviewed the Obamas for a 2009 New York Times Magazine profile and became intensely interested in the working relationship between the power couple. Recognizing that most books on the Obama White House have largely been about policy, she sensed an opening. The result is "The Obamas," a dimly controversial palace intrigue that attempts to explain how the first couple's marriage works. "In public, they smiled and waved," Kantor writes, "but how were the Obamas really reacting to the White House, and how was it affecting the rest of us?" A reportorial wunderkind, she had the gumption not only to collect colorful, hard-to-come-by insider anecdotes about the Obamas, but also to venture into the dangerous terrain of psychoanalyzing the first lady. When an amateur puts the powerful on a shrink's couch, following the example of Freud with Woodrow Wilson, the hunches about human nature had better be spot on.
Fortunately, "The Obamas" is more Sally Bedell Smith than Kitty Kelley. Kantor interviewed 33 White House officials and aides and cabinet members, to good effect. She reconstructs a half-dozen or so strange, gossipy moments that hardly hold up as serious journalism but provide insight nonetheless. Mostly, she illuminates, in breezy prose, how the first lady sets the tone and tempo of the current White House. Kantor's admiring portrait of Mrs Obama, a hug really, shows a marvelous mother, an acerbic political strategist and a strong-willed spouse.
Pointing out such concerns is, of course, the province of a spouse. The difference when a head of state's spouse performs an advisory role is that both the content and its consequences resonate through more than one household. And that's the point of Jodi Kantor's new book, "The Obamas." Call it chick nonfiction, if you will; this book is not about politics, it's about marriage, or at least one marriage, and a notably successful one at that. This is a couple who listen to each other, and no one believes more in America's 44th president than his wife. Last August, at a party for his 50th birthday, Kantor writes, Michelle toasted her husband for passing the health care bill, appointing two women to the Supreme Court and the killing of Osama bin Laden. When he signaled for the accolades to be toned down, she cut him off. "No, you're just going to stand there and listen," she said. "I know it makes you uncomfortable, but you only turn 50 once, so you're just going to have to take it." And he did.
Kantor, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times, interviewed the Obamas for a 2009 New York Times Magazine profile and became intensely interested in the working relationship between the power couple. Recognizing that most books on the Obama White House have largely been about policy, she sensed an opening. The result is "The Obamas," a dimly controversial palace intrigue that attempts to explain how the first couple's marriage works. "In public, they smiled and waved," Kantor writes, "but how were the Obamas really reacting to the White House, and how was it affecting the rest of us?" A reportorial wunderkind, she had the gumption not only to collect colorful, hard-to-come-by insider anecdotes about the Obamas, but also to venture into the dangerous terrain of psychoanalyzing the first lady. When an amateur puts the powerful on a shrink's couch, following the example of Freud with Woodrow Wilson, the hunches about human nature had better be spot on.
Fortunately, "The Obamas" is more Sally Bedell Smith than Kitty Kelley. Kantor interviewed 33 White House officials and aides and cabinet members, to good effect. She reconstructs a half-dozen or so strange, gossipy moments that hardly hold up as serious journalism but provide insight nonetheless. Mostly, she illuminates, in breezy prose, how the first lady sets the tone and tempo of the current White House. Kantor's admiring portrait of Mrs Obama, a hug really, shows a marvelous mother, an acerbic political strategist and a strong-willed spouse.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
