Summer Reading

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (John Helemann and Mark Halperin). A #1 bestseller, Game Change is a fast-paced insider view of the candidates and their campaigns in the 2008 presidential race. Particularly fascinating is the chapter covering the Palin pick: the McCain people knew they had to create fireworks with the VP pick before Obama ran away with the election. Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty was the favorite of many in the McCain camp, but they went with Palin as the ultimate risk-or-reward pick. A key lesson of the book: Obama won not only because of a pliant and awe-struck media, but also because he and his aides ran a disciplined and focused campaign. Example: in their preparation for the vice-presidential debate, the Obama team created a mock debate hall identical to the real set on which the debate would take place. Jennifer Granholm was the stand-in Palin for Biden’s debate sessions; Granholm prepared by analyzing Palin’s Alaska debates, and then spending time debating a mock stand-in for Biden to prepare her for the “real” mock debates versus the actual Biden. Palin, on the other hand, spent days poring over dozens of index cards choked with basic information on foreign policy, economic institutions, etc, before the McCain camp in desperation finally had her dispense with the index cards, and instead had her spend the few days before the debate memorizing a set of rote answers to likely questions. Ironically, Palin still debated Biden to a draw, opening with the disarming, “Do you mind if I call you Joe?” line. All of which goes to show that Biden, with the better preparation, still missed the barn with a 4x4 while Palin displayed characteristic charm and poise on stage, her deficient knowledge of foreign policy notwithstanding. Game Change provides a few insights in the political strategies of the different candidates, but mainly it’s a fun tabloid book to read for the politically fervent, in the same way that I imagine People is engaging for the celebrity obsessed.

Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight (Karl Rove). A rollicking ride through Rove’s life and his years in the Bush administration, Rove’s memoir is a comprehensive and intelligent defense of numerous Bush policies and assertions-waterboarding, WMDs, etc- that are contemptuously dismissed as self-evidently false or immoral by many in the academy and media. A candid memoir, Rove talks openly about the contentious relationship between his own parents, and their struggles in life. Rove’s mother committed suicide in 1981, just seven years after her own mother had attempted suicide. Reading such painful details is a reminder that all political figures, whether we agree with their policies or not, are always mere men in need of redemption.

Samuel Adams: A Life (Ira Stoll, 2008). I seem to remember reading a glowing review of this book in The Weekly Standard. On the cover, Walter Isaacson, himself author of a critically acclaimed biography of Benjamin Franklin, says Stoll has done a “glorious job bringing to life” Samuel Adams role in the revolution. Balderdash, I say. A pedantic style, shoddy research, and a child-like reliance on secondary sources (particularly on McCullough’s John Adams) combine to make a pedestrian effort at capturing Adams’ life. Not that it’s a total waste of time; the book at least is able to provide the general cast of Adams’ life, and Stoll’s analysis of why Adams, considered by the founders as one of the most essential revolutionaries during the days of ‘76, has been passed over by modern historians, is worth-while. However, Stoll is no McCullough, even if Sam Adams is nearly as worthy a subject as his cousin.

The Power and the Glory (Graham Greene). A novel set during the days of the anti-clerical purges in early 20th century Mexico, Greene’s protagonist is a priest on the run from the anti-Christian fascist (communist?) government in power. The priest loves whiskey almost more than God, and is accepted by the villages because, well, all of the other priests have either been arrested or have fled the country. The vagabond priest, despite violating his ministerial oaths by having a child through an illicit affair, despite his near-compulsive need for whiskey, still believes in the faith delivered to the saints, even if he is certain he isn’t one.

The U.S. in Iraq

Here is a quick summary of two books on U.S. involvement in Iraq:

Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood (Donovan Campbell). Ramadi, Iraq: population, 350,000. Heat waves that top 120 degrees, and a seven month long deployment. You are Marine Officer Lt. Donovan Campbell, Princeton grad and committed Christian, and your company is tasked with keeping schools open, water flowing, and roads clear of IEDs. I bought this book after hearing Campbell on NPR and reading an interview he did with World Magazine, and read it in three days. If you ever feel odd because it feels like our country is not at war, or if you just want to know what it’s like to be an American solider in Iraq, read this book.

The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq (George Packer). Packer, now a writer for the New Yorker, that most pretentious of magazines, writes both an autobiographical sketch of time he spent in Iraq covering the first period of the U.S. occupation and a sweeping overview of what strategic mistakes the U.S. made as it failed to win the peace as fully as it won the war. The book was published in 2005, two years before the surge, so many of the criticisms he makes have been righted at this point. The book is best read for its broad overview of the strategic assumptions that drove American policy in first years of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and for its ability to give a visceral feel for what post-Saddam life felt like for many Iraqis.

Churchill and Nixon

Two biographies for your consideration: if you can only read one, read Churchill.

Nixon, vol. I. (Stephen Ambrose). Ambrose is well-known for his military dramas of WWII (Band of Brothers, etc), but he also wrote biographies of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. Nixon is possibly the most vilified president of modern times, a man who normalized relations with China, ended the war in Vietnam, and presided over the Watergate scandal. In his first volume, Ambrose tells the story of a remarkably driven man who was elected to the House at 33 years of age, and became Eisenhower’s vice-president just six years later. Nixon would famously lose the 1960 presidential campaign to JFK, and then manage to also lose a gubernatorial bid in his home state of California in ’62. Amazingly, Nixon would rise from the ashes to win the presidency in 1968, completing a comeback unmatched in American political history. The first of Ambrose’s two-volume biography covers Nixon’s life up to 1963. Nixon is a fine summary of the most polarizing president of the 20^th century, and a helpful guide to the essential diplomatic questions of the 1950s. One of the more interesting sections covers Nixon’s work on the House Committee on Un-American Activities with Whittaker Chambers in exposing Alger Hiss in 1948.

Churchill, (Martin Gilbert). Gilbert is the official biographer of Winston Churchill, and, together with Randolph Churchill, has written a massive multi-volume work of W.S.C. The nice thing about Churchill is that it is a one-volume distillation (tho it still runs close to 1,000 pages) of Gilbert’s larger work. Here you get the essential outline of Churchill’s life, and what a life. Paul Johnson has written a much-lauded new biography of Churchill that runs much swifter 200 or so pages, so Johnson’s work might be the place to start. But I can’t believe Churchill could be described in so little space, since even Gilbert is often forced to cut things down to a bare minimum for his volume. To borrow Tom Wolfe’s phrase, Churchill was indeed a man in full.