What Should Obama Read?

Historiann has tagged me with a rather difficult meme: "Books to Gift the President." Not only is it difficult a difficult meme, but it is also humiliating because, despite my PhD status, and despite my high score on the BBC list, my undergraduate status as an English major, and my weekly immersion in the work of Shakespeare, I generally have the sort of reading tastes that wouldn't benefit as intelligent a president as we now have. I don't read about politics, and he probably wouldn't get much out of whatever mystery sits on my end table (Tana French's The Likeness, if you are interested) or out of Toni Morrison's Mercy (the last fiction book that I finished). I also doubt that he would have much practical use for Annette Gordon-Reed's The Hemings of Monticello, or Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon, or Domesticating History. Or, rather, any benefit that would come out of reading such books would require too long of an explanation to make the reading worthwhile.

In any case, we soldier on in our general ignorance because it is an honor to be nominated. Or tagged.

What should Obama read?

1) The Scottish Play and King Lear, by William Shakespeare (Two for one because neither are books). Actually, I recommend a study of Shakespeare's entire oeuvre, but these two will suffice in the meantime. The first shows how one little nasty act, one you think won't really matter because the payoff will be so great, can lead to another nasty act, and another, and another, until you yourself are destroyed. The second warns against the tragic effects of vanity.

Also, several local companies will be putting on productions of Lear in the next couple of years, so he can show his support of the arts directly by attending one. Heck, he could even support a bill to support more funding for the arts, as well. The arts actually employee a significant number of people beyond those on the stage, so funding for the arts would be a little stimulus on its own. Also, if you can help theaters or museums lower ticket prices, more people might patronize these arts, become educated, demand more from their entertainment, and return often. See? Trickle down! (No, I haven't hit the wine yet this evening.)

2) I have to second Historiann's suggestion of Robert Caro's biographies of Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ was a master politician of the "kick ass and take names" variety. It wasn't pretty, but it was effective. He knew how to lead a party of the opposition right into power and hold it. At the same time, although not covered in the series, LBJ also serves as a cautionary tale about continued commitment in a quagmire of a war. All of that political capital can be pissed away in an unpopular, ultimately pointless war.

3) Blanche Wiesen Cook's biographies of Eleanor Roosevelt, preferably the second volume. Eleanor could work her way through power, too. She also had a social conscience and an awareness of various different disaffected people, including the ways that the New Deal continued to disaffect them. By necessity, he will learn a bit about FDR's tactis, as well.

Really, Obama should read anything on women's history and gay rights. He may be black, but he is a straight man and that means that he sometimes forgets that the world does not revolve around him (I myself have to be knocked off center from time to time), that women's issues and gay issues are HUMAN and AMERICAN issues. We are a constituency, and we are damn sick of being asked to take the crumbs because this seems to be the best we can do. Put your library card where your mouth is, Obama, and be our president, too.

If he doesn't have time for a book, maybe a poem would do: "The Strong Black Woman is Dead," from Womanist Musings. Obama had gotten a lot of mileage off of the strong black women in his life -- and a white one or two, as well. He might want to take a moment to ponder the implications of that for those women.

4) Our president might also try Marriage, A History, by Stephanie Coontz. He would learn that marriage was not always this companionate union of love and bliss that we get sold these days. People once married in much the same way that we make business contracts or political deals today. Being a lawyer, he might appreciate the neatness of the contract approach, quit being such a coward over gay marriage and find some solid arguments to shift the ground under the "family values" rhetoric. That might lead to a whole new set of policies regarding the rights of gays, reproductive rights of women, and status of children. (No, the Rastafarians who live below me have not sparked up.)

5) God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Don't burn me at the stake for this one. I'm not trying to disabuse Obama of his faith or convert him to atheism or anything of that sort. I would just like him to realize that not everyone is Christian or religious or holds a belief in a higher power. Many of us would feel more comfortable if he stuck to that separation of church and state, and removed such formalities as homophobic ministers or prayers or invocations of Our Lord and Savior from political discourse. Once God enters the picture, all reason has gone. Again, be our president, too.

6) Nickle and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich. I'm sure he must have read it, or be aware of it. Even if he has, he might want to take a dip back into an account of life on minimum wage. The economy or the country ain't all about the "middle class," you know.

7) BONUS: Clio Bluestocking Tales' Online Museum of Historical Kitsch -- you know, once it is published in book form. He might like a little laugh over the chapter devoted to Obama crap.

He might even want to visit some of the museum gift shops that sell these items. Then, he might want to look around the museum. He might even get the idea that he could support a bill to fund the humanities so such museums, regardless of the contents of their gift shops, could continue to educate the public. He might even realize that the museums also rely upon the research of academics in universities and colleges, so he might want to sponsor bills to fund more faculty positions. That would get all of these academics, under or unemployed, out of whatever job that they are doing to make ends meet, thereby freeing that job up for someone else. They might not have to commute five billion miles between jobs everyday, thereby cutting down on gas use and emissions. They could afford to buy houses....see, again, a nice little stimulus package on its own. (Again, no wine, no second-hand doobage).