Ichabod, The Glory Has Departed

Author, Author!

When the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, a one time professor with a doctorate in history from Tulane University, was leading a Republican majority in Congress, his vitriolic critics routinely assailed him for neglecting his duties while profiteering from his publishing ventures. Gingrich wrote or collaborated on five books from 1994 through the time of his resignation from the Congress in 1997. His vocal detractors claimed that these literary exercises, which included a work of fiction, an autobiography and three politically themed titles, interfered with the speaker’s official duties.

How the times have changed! President Barack Obama has signed a half million dollar contract to adapt his first book, “Dreams From My Father” into a children’s book. The only appropriate response from the chattering classes is to cheer their beloved leader. I wonder if school districts will assign the new version as a textbook.

Although numerous presidents have written books on a variety of topics after tiring from the presidency and several were published authors before being elected, Obama is in the unprecedented position of accepting a publishing contract while serving as the chief executive. The deal was finalized immediately before the inauguration, but not made public until now. It is good to know that the economic crisis has been settled and foreign affairs are in good order. Otherwise, how could Obama find time to moonlight as the author of a children’s book?

Perhaps, the president will employ the services of a capable ghostwriter. It has been suggested by certain cynical persons that it may not be the first time. Some readers have pointed out the similarities between Obama’s prose and that of his neighbor William Ayers. One curious feature common to both men’s writings is their shared preference for using nautical similes and metaphors. Interestingly enough, Obama has never been known to have taken an active interest in boating whereas Ayers is an lifelong enthusiast.

While Ayers promoted Obama as an author before anyone else was aware of the fact, this premature boosterism did not resonate with the reading public. “Dreams From My Father,” which was initially published in 1995, sold poorly until after it was reissued to coincide with Obama’s keynote address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. The re-release sold like hotcakes and its belated success resulted in a second book deal for “The Audacity of Hope.” The title of the latter book was derived from a sermon by the controversial minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

What makes “Dreams From My Father” unique is that so few of those praising the book for its supposed merits seem to have actually bothered to read it. Numerous copies have been sold to Obama’s liberal camp followers, but, unlike Chairman Mao’s “Little Redbook,” no one was actually expected to memorize it cover to cover or to become familiar with its contents. Lord knows, I tried, but, time and time again, I had to put it aside. Based upon those chapters that I managed to slog through, I was reminded of Oscar Wilde’s comments upon reading about the death of little Nell in “The Old Curiosity Shop” by Charles Dickens. To paraphrase Wilde, one could not read portions of Obama’s autobiography without dissolving into tears of uncontrollable laughter.

Portions of the book are unintentionally hilarious. While describing the completion of his undergraduate studies at Columbia (after transferring from Occidental College), Obama described living in an impoverished New York neighborhood. While sitting on the fire escape outside of his apartment, he and his room mates would shout at the elites who would travel from their posh residences uptown to the inner city in order to let their pampered dogs run wild. The dog owners would permit the animals to defecate at will without any consideration for the downtrodden locals. The bigoted snobs did not even bother to have the decency to clean up after their pedigreed pets! No wonder Obama wants to enact punitive tax policies that will soak the rich! He must have ruined several pairs of shoes.

Does anyone actually believe this type of thing occurred on a regular basis, if at all? Imagine the same thing in local terms: how many Chicago suburbanites would travel to Englewood or the Lawndale to walk their dogs? Do city residents from Sandburg Village frequent Cabrini Green or Seward Park to exercise their canines? Like so many episodes in the book, including the author’s imagined relationship with his absent and uncaring biological father, which suggests a need for therapeutic counseling, the entire dog poop sequence seems to be fabricated. Later in the book, Obama depicted his mother as a struggling single parent making ends meet while using food stamps. In actuality, Stanley Ann Dunham was a perpetual graduate student who elected to apply for public assistance to subsidize her studies rather than working her way through the university. Thirty-four years after matriculating at the University of Hawaii in 1960, where she met and married Barack Obama, Sr., Dunham completed her doctoral thesis on rural blacksmithing in Indonesia. I am unaware if the manuscript has been published.

In “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama repeats an anecdote from Jeremiah Wright about the selfish indifference of affluent Americans to the needs of the poor. Allegedly, the galleys of the Carnival Cruise Line discard more food on a daily basis than the starving residents of Haiti can dream of eating to satisfy their appetites over the course of several months. What wasteful gluttony, wealthy (read “white”) Westerners practice! How insensitive of them not consider the needs of the poor. It is a parable of selfishness comparable to that of poor Lazarus, the hungry beggar, sitting outside of the rich man’s kitchen. Lazarus would consider himself fortunate to have a crust of stale bread, but the rich man is willfully blind to his needs.

It is almost possible to be swept away by the rhetorical flourishes employed by the Marxist oriented Wright and his one time protégé. If you pause, however, and ask salient questions, you may reject most of the arguments as invalid and fallacious. Why are the Haitians poor? No answer. Could it have something to do with their government and its pervasive corruption? Why is food being discarded from the cruise ships? Does it relate to health and sanitation codes that mandate that old food be disposed of? Can you imagine the outcry that would ensue if the cruise ship owners attempted to distribute spoiled food and stale bread to the Haitian masses? It might set off a public relations controversy greater than the AIG bonuses that were incorporated into economic recovery legislation sponsored by the Democrats.

In recent decades, autobiographical works by former presidents have become almost obligatory as publishers rush to secure the rights to the memoirs of past leaders of the free world. Obama managed to secure his first literary advance largely on the basis of being named the first African American editor of “The Harvard Law Review.” While serving as editor, Obama failed to produce much in the way of legal scholarship. His sole contributions to the review appears to have been one or two miniscule footnotes.

It is worth remembering, however, for all of the mileage that Obama has gotten out of being chosen as the law review editor at Harvard, where affirmative action policies may have altered the selection process in Obama’s favor (a fact that Obama had the honesty to acknowledge on at least one occasion), that former US Representative Mel Reynolds received a Rhodes scholarship to attend Oxford University. In an era of mandated diversity recruitment programs and
unchallenged political correctness, academic accolades and honors can be conferred without being properly earned all in the name of egalitarian social engineering.

Unlike other public figures, including several politicians who produced autobiographies or scholarly books worth perusing, men such as Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Winston S. Churchill, or, arguably, John F. Kennedy, Obama never felt it necessary to actually accomplish something concrete or tangible other than attending classes at a university before sharing his life story with us. Obama produced two largely autobiographical books before the age of forty-five. He was not even a state senator when his first book was published. So much for modesty being a virtue. While some of the books written by the former world leaders that I have cited have become hopelessly dated, others remain enduring masterpieces. Grant’s memoirs and Churchill’s Nobel Prize winning writings have lost none of their original vitality. The most notable thing about Obama’s trite writings are the large royalties that he has earned from books that are purchased and shelved without necessarily being read. Maybe this is on a par with most of the Oprah Book Club selections.

In 1935, the Nobel Prize winning author and satirist, Sinclair Lewis published a book about an ambitious US Senator who advanced to the presidency. Senator Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip, an otherwise unaccomplished and semi-literate politician, rose to prominence largely on the strength of having published a bestselling book that was largely ghostwritten by his handlers.

As the French say, the more things change, the more things stay the same.
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