Read this in USA Today while getting a hair cut:
President Obama spent nearly five hours on the golf course here Monday. He’ll need a lot more time to get through his reading list.
From the relatively short Plainsong (301 pages) to the heftier John Adams (752 pages), the president has come to Martha’s Vineyard with five books destined to challenge his time-management skills.
***The complete list, according to White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton:
•Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman, which urges a “green revolution.”
I seriously would rather he spend his vacation reading the Onion and porn than the mustache of understanding.
Edward G. Talbot
Hell, anyone would rather read the Onion and porn. On the other hand, what he does on vacation is pretty much his business – as far as I’m concerned, he can fellate blind field mice if it doesn’t impact his ability to do his job when he gets back.
Zifnab
Oh sure, he’s doing five books at Martha’s Vineyard today. But back under George Bush, you could expect to see our President put away more than twice that many novels, none of which were about nancy pantsy liberals like John Adams.
stinkwrinkle
@Edward G. Talbot:
If he reads Friedman, that’s his business.
If he retains, considers, and/or incorporates Friedman into his brain, that’s OUR business.
scav
Or, it’s the tasteful and pristine rose-shaped soap put out in the guest bath that is carefully dusted when the relatives stop by;
Or, it’s even funnier to him than The Onion;
Or, …
joes527
No worries. wonkette reports that he has been carrying the book around since last year.
Evidently, he doesn’t find Friedman’s prose isn’t any more readable than anyone else does.
Drosophila Slayer
I just saw some old male BALB/c mice (the typical white lab mouse) my coworker is using for some experiments. They would be tough to fellate, but it would be doable, IMO. Their scrota are hairless, though, so teabagging wouldn’t be a problem.
Legalize
“I seriously would rather he spend his vacation reading the Onion and porn than the mustache of understanding.”
You say that like reading the Onion and porn is an undesirable venture.
Tax Analyst
••Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman, which urges a “green revolution.”Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman, which urges a “green revolution.”
Hopefully, he’s only using this as a doorstop or paper-weight.
freelancer
@Cole:
Might it be possible to create a new tag for news like this?
Perhaps, “We are so fucked”?
HumboldtBlue
While the Adams book is excellent, even I, a somewhat lukewarm student of the time period finally put it down 400 pages in. I kept thinking, please just give me a chapter that contains nothing but Abigail’s letters, they make for the most entertaining and informative reading anyway.
Violet
I figure the Presidential Reading Lists are mostly for show. Wouldn’t surprise me if he’s reading The Onion instead.
Da Bomb
I don’t care what he reads. As long as he’s reading it on his vacation and not during major briefings.
He can read “How to start up my own Black Panther Party.” for all I care.
He can take all of the pages from that Thomas Friedman book and wipe his ass with it too. Still wouldn’t care…
jibeaux
Meh, who cares. Reading something doesn’t mean you have to agree with it. By the way, I signed up on the day of service website to do some small act of service during the week of 9/11. I think y’all should too. It’s not often that you get to combine helping out with infuriating wingnuts.
Legalize
I bet he’s also reading national security briefings every morning too. And actually thinking about them.
dmsilev
@HumboldtBlue:
Try this one instead.
And yes, it is an excellent read.
-dms
General Winfield Stuck
Not near as disturbing as his 10 wood Titanium Driver.
Dr. Squid
But, but, he’s on VACATION! That’s just not conSERRRRvative!
Never mind President 60%. Shut up, that’s why.
GReynoldsCT00
why do we care what the presidents read on their vacation? we had these articles about Bush too… it’s silly
vacuumslayer
I think “Hot, Flat and Crowded” is porn. It’s about a pretty, skinny, flat-chested girl who’s into gangbangs.
demimondian
@Drosophila Slayer: Handle FTW.
gizmo
Have a look at the cute little dwelling that Thomas Friedman inhabits (11,400 sq. ft., $9 million value.) This is the asshole who is lecturing us on environmental values, and this is the writer our President is reading while on vacation. Oy……
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://lh6.ggpht.com/_0oNRupXJ4-A/SmhyIARRlaI/AAAAAAAAA2g/YvSp31O7bcQ/%255BUNSET%255D.jpg&imgrefurl=http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-don-we-all-cut-back-little-and-live.html&usg=___WFPOk7c_Wr8jQnbyEnoLEzMPn4=&h=453&w=784&sz=38&hl=en&start=17&um=1&tbnid=-48gPaIo5GKc-M:&tbnh=83&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dthomas%2Bfriedman%2527s%2Bhouse%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den-us%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1
The Raven
Yeah, I had a similar reaction. Hominds. Croak!
Edward G. Talbot
General Winfield – A 10 wood? To paraphrase Fitzgerald, what kind of a man uses a 10 wood :)
bayville
Porn and The Onion are much more intellectually stimulating than anything Friedman cuts-and-pastes.
Edward G. Talbot
Drosophila Slayer – I appreciate the analysis. That is as I suspected, although in all honesty it was a throwaway line :)
Zifnab
@GReynoldsCT00: It’s an attempt to get inside the President’s head. As though the President’s released reading list wasn’t already sanitized and pre-screened for our collective attentions.
I’d love to see Das Kapital on there, right at the end of his second term, just to watch the wingnuts go apeshit crazy.
GReynoldsCT00
@Zifnab:
Better yet, one of the Twilight books
ricky
@vacuumslayer:
But in the porn version, none of the people she interacted with were her “good friends” like they all are in Friedman’s book.
My brother in law gave me that for Christmas. I’ll finish it in a Friedman unit.
Dreggas
Looking over his reading list gives me a sense of relief. Relief that he is reading real books and not just pretending to be somewhat intellectual, see bush reading french philosophy.
Sloth
If I were Obama, I would not be able to resist this. Mao’s Little Red Book. Something on euthanasia. Government for Dummies. Like that.
Leelee for Obama
@jibeaux: I wish I could. Is there something that one can do from home? House-bound here.
On the reading thing-does the report say he’s reading the books, or that he’s bringing the books? I’ve brought tons of books with me to many places and never cracked the cover.
PaulW
What??? Shouldn’t Obama be reading the latest volume of Empowered instead of this policy tripe?
ricky
I find it equally disturbing that your read while getting your hair cut. Is your barber mute?
vacuumslayer
@ricky: LOL! My hubby read the book and found it very interesting. I’m still working on him…
DougJ
I saw this yesterday and was equally disturbed.
ricky
@vacuumslayer:
Did he finish it before or after we turned the corner in Iraq?
jibeaux
@Leelee for Obama:
Oh, no doubt there is. What do you like to do? I do a little gardening, so I am going to do this program called Plant a Row for the Hungry where you can donate your extra produce to food banks. You can almost garden year-round here, so it works well. I am doing this despite the fact that broccoli is a well-known gateway vegetable to fascism. :)
MikeJ
It doesn’t bother me that he’s reading a book written by an idiot. I’ve read lots of books written by idiots. I have a guess that the con law prof can spot shitty arguments in a Friedman book.
bartkid
My $0.02:
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
and
Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders by Jamie Whyte
That’s what he should read.
Hey, John, they’re probably available on Kindle, too.
ricky
Having followed the link to USA Today to “President’s Reading List a Hefty One,” I would say his reading list is not alone. Hope they charged the batteries for the golf cart overnight.
mai naem
Forget about his reading list. What find disturbing is that he spent several hours with the head of UBS. UBS, the same bank that was busy helping their clients cheat on their taxes and then had no problem getting in line to get a bailout. Why, oh why is Obama spending time with this POS? These pigs are partly responsible for the sorry state of the American economy and Obama is spending leisure time with this fucker.
Ole
EGT … the kind of man who worships straight shots :-) I have one of the original Adams steel shafted Tight Lies 9 woods, and it’s a marvel.
I hit it a steady 155-160 meters from fairway, slightly shorter tee’ed up a wee bit, and not that much shorter from the rough on my home course – straight as a telephone pole unless you make a really, really bad shot and because the ball comes in high there’s not much roll to take into account (but you have to look out for the wind though).
I know, a lot more mannish to draw that 3 iron cast blade with a stiff as hell iron shaft from the bag and slice it off to the woods … ;-)
So, regarding your question: The kind of man who wants to get things done, who wants to reach his target regardless. Not the kind of man who plays for the looks. Does Dubya often play the 3 iron? ;-)
joes527
@gizmo:
What’s next? We gonna inspect his countertops? Al Gore lives in a big-assed house that isn’t the most conservation minded. Should we wank on him too?
There are lots of things to criticise Friedman about. You don’t even need to get to the content of his writing, since the writing itself is so atrocious. (but if you do get to the content … ok, then THAT makes the style look good by comparison.)
No need to go all Al-Gore-is-fat on us.
ricky
@MikeJ:
I looked for shitty arguments. All I found were lengthy quotes inserted from articles he must have copied off the internet sent to him by all those “dear friends” he has dotting the globe.
JK
Obama’s reading list was incredibly lame
He should be reading these books instead
The Wrecking Crew – Thomas Frank
The Great Derangement – Matt Taibbi
How Would a Patriot Act? – Glenn Greenwald
Right is Wrong – Ariana Huffington
Fight Global Warming Now – Bill McKibben
jenniebee
@jibeaux:
It’s not often that you get to combine helping out with infuriating wingnuts.
Actually, since just about all community service drives them nuts, one frequently has the opportunity to combine helping out with infuriating wingnuts. Hell, if you don’t want to actually do something servicey you can drive them nuts just drive a fuel-efficient car. It could be that your main interest is in saving money on gas, or even because you don’t want to send your dollars to Saudi Arabia, but the wingnuts know better – they know that you’re only driving that car to rub your smug, self-satisfied, know-it-all, holier-than-thou attitude in their faces. And they’ll get back at you by revving up their SUVs, just to let you know that your “save the planet” trip is backfiring out their Explorer’s tailpipe.
If you really want to drive them barking mad, write up a letter to the editor that lists and commends the top 10 local leaders/personalities by their charitable donations in the last year. They go apeshit over that. It typically runs something like: “How dare you liberals impinge freedom by trying to make everyone who doesn’t donate to charity feel guilty! Not that anybody should feel guilty because you’re just enabling the poor and probably giving hard liquor to bums and this is why we’re in decline and freedom isn’t free. WOLVERINES!”
JK
More things Obama should be reading
The Long Emergency – James Howard Kunstler
and last but not least, Obama should be reading BALLOON JUICE.
lotus
To paraphrase Fitzgerald, what kind of a man uses a 10 wood
One secure in his masculinity (and who wants to get the dang ball to the dang pin in the fewest dang shots). Yuh-huh.
Shawn in ShowMe
For Best Unintentional Snark the nominees are ..
jibeaux
@jenniebee:
Well, that’s probably true, but combining community service with a public plan to do so under a Democratic president? That’s not just garden variety apoplexy, boy, it’s prime time.
That’s an interesting idea about the community leaders. How do you find out their charitable donations, though?
ricky
@joes527: @joes527:
“No need to go all Al-Gore-is-fat on us.”
I really think it was the earth tones that made Gore look fatter than he really was. He was quite slender when he swam the Love Story Canal and proposed to Tipper over the internet he invented. That, alas, was more than a few Friedman units ago. Back when Joe Liebermann was ethical.
Jackie
I kind of filed it under “know thine enemies” and “Books we monitor and mock as needed” and “Flatter the fucker, he’ll work overtime to prove me smart”
HumboldtBlue
Thanks DSmilev, you are truly a God/Goddess.
General Winfield Stuck
Did you know that Marx ghost wrote Obama’s Dreams of Our Fathers. Literally ghost wrote?
That’s really what the Whitey Tape shows.
vacuumslayer
@ricky: Before, if I remember correctly.
JK
To totally piss off Doug, Obama should read anything by Cornel West.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
John, I am disturbed that you say that like it’s a bad and degenerate thing, rather than the height of early 21st C. intellectual achievement that it is.
.
anonevent
At least he’s not reading that book that Bush was fond of, the one that told him that as long as he believed in God, God would work through him, and nothing he did could be wrong because it was an act of God. I don’t know the name, but that has to be the most dangerous book a president could read.
BombIranForChrist
Sacrilege! Blasphemery! The moustache knows ALL because he is ALL.
cleek
this is why i’ve stopped getting haircuts
geg6
Well, for once I must disagree with you, John Cole. I often read stuff by people who I know I won’t agree with simply because I want to know what they are saying and how they say it. I’ve read most of Friedman’s stuff (and what a slog that is) just to know where his head is when he’s spewing his crap on teevee. Now, I won’t take it too far, like picking up a Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter screed. I prefer to avoid the scribblings of the completely insane. But Friedman is one of the “reasonably intelligent” (and yes, I’m cutting him a lot of breaks here) ones. If I want to know their thinking, I really want our president to know that, too. He’s the one who will actually have to take them on, policywise. And, to be honest, with fairly intelligent conservatives like Friedman or, say, Sullivan, you sometimes get a glimmer of a decent idea now and again.
General Winfield Stuck
I just saw Miss Universe on my teevee blowing up a condom in a condom blowing up contest. And it seemed perfectly normal. And I didn’t know you could blow one up the size of Limbaugh’s hind quarters. It was all win.
I love this country. I really do!
Edward G. Talbot
@Ole
well I was partially joking, although I’m not aware of anyone under 50 who plays for a living (whom one would think would be the most interested in results) who carries a 10 wood. I won’t be totally shocked if there is one, but it would be a major exception. On the senior tour, that’s a different story – some of those guys do hit the really high lofted woods.
The three iron comparison is kinda misleading. The equivalent to your nine wood would be a seven iron, and there’s not a whole lot of slicing with a club that short. I mean, if you’re shooting 110, sure, but if so, there’s a lot more to worry about than whether you have a seven iron or nine wood.
I’ve always found that I top Tight Lies (and most high-lofted) woods more than irons. That’s because I either swing down on them like an iron (which is really the ideal way) and there’s less margin for error or I swing with a wood swing, which inherently is more susceptible to topping. You could say that I am hypocritical to joke about a ten wood working for someone when I’m choosing clubs that get me personally the best results.
And, well, you’d be right :) Just havin’ a little fun.
R-Jud
Haircut sketch.
Shawn in ShowMe
Michael Steele’s Reading List:
* Uncle Tom’s Cabin
* “Vibe” History of Hip Hop
* The Reagan Diaries
* The Invisble Man
* Why Government is the Problem
McGeorge Bundy
McCullough’s biography of Adams made for entertaining and rather light reading, but James Grant’s John Adams: Party of One is much better.
Oh well! At least he’s reading. But put down the Friedman, please.
DougJ
To totally piss off Doug, Obama should read anything by Cornel West.
cleek
i recommend using a cleek
jibeaux
@DougJ:
If a vacation to Martha’s Vineyard had to be accompanied by reading Nader’s novel, I would clear brush in Crawford instead.
Warren Terra
Seems to me this thread desperately needs a link to Taibbi’s delicious evisceration of Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded (and, for fun, his earlier similar treatment of Friedman’s The World Is Flat).
All that said, it seems to me that this could just as easily be Obama announcing that he’s reading the book so as to make the punditariat, and Friedman in particular, happy. They like Friedman’s books, and they like people to praise Friedman’s books. From everything I’ve given to understand, Friedman’s books are extremely shallow and can be summed up on the back of an envelope; I can’t imagine that Obama will actually be spending his time reading Friedman’s book, because there aren’t supposed to be any buried pearls of wisdom that further contemplation can provide, and he’s got better things to read and better things to do, like play with the kids and the dog.
catclub
Does nobody realize that the mustache of understanding practically IS
a pornstache – and so the porn part of ‘the Onion and porn’ is practically taken care of by reading Friedman?
Ann B. Nonymous
In defense of reading Friedman — OMG I’m in the brick oven now — he’s the Anopheles mosquito for a certain geopolitical tendency which Obama almost certainly runs into daily. It would be like reading Huntington or Fukuyama a few years ago.
But it’s something he should read on the down low, maybe annotating it with Post-Its pre-inscribed with “stupid,” “very stupid,” “truly the Mustache of Understanding,” “where does he find these cab drivers??!” and so on.
JGabriel
@DougJ:
It does seem like an odd choice, almost guaranteed to piss off both liberals and conservatives. I can’t imagine many (any) real intellectuals are fans either.
.
Mike in NC
Dubya’s handlers went a bit too far when they claimed he was down in Crawford reading Homer and Plato in the original Greek.
ricky
@Mike in NC:
jibeaux
O/T, but there is a Funny or Die video called “We defeated socialism! Insurocorp!” that is pretty funny. I don’t know how to link anymore, sorry.
Obama Death Panel Chairman (formerly glocksman)
What he should be reading are books that illustrate just how bad the crazy gets out there, as a reminder that sometimes you just can’t reason with some people.
My list:
The Turner Diaries
None Dare Call It Conspiracy
Serpent’s Walk
Imperium
Which Way, Western Man?
I would have put Ayn Rand on the list, but I don’t think Obama needs any paper Ambien.
Ole
EGT – no way I can hit a 7 iron that long. 5 or 6 but then them’s my ancient – relative to modern irons high lofted – Cleveland TA-3s :-)
(Have seen the occasional 7 wood sneak into (male) pro’s bags though … but generally their biggest concern isn’t hitting it straight so that’d be more a question of custom fitting the weaponry for the course in question.)
And I know – still I’d bet almost anything that Dubya never ever would even consider totin’ a 10 wood no matter it’s merits when time comes to forget what happened on the course and merely look at the numbers on the scorecard ;-)
/Danish golfer out
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Ann B. Nonymous:
This should be a new tag.
That, and “Magic 8-ball sez”
LOL. That made my day. Thanks!
jibeaux
Oh good grief stupid moderation filter, the Funny or Die video I was trying to tell you about is called “We defeated SOSHULISM Insurocorp!” OKAY?! I promise never to spell it correctly again.
Tsulagi
@Mike in NC:
Okay now that’s just fucking gross. But I guess he did have a lot of practice sliding his head up Cheney’s ass.
freelancer
@Warren Terra:
THIS.
Da Bomb
@Shawn in ShowMe: Actually remove the Invisible Man, which by the way is a great book.
And replace with the Little Engine That Could.
Jay B.
Hot, Flat, and Crowded
by Thomas Friedman
(used with publisher permission, all rights reserved)
Intro: Hot, Hot, Hot
I had just finished a marvelous lunch of curried penguin liver a chile and endive salad with the CEO of some Indian company which I can’t recall at the moment (hint: Supta something or other) at his lovely villa estate in the dusty plains north of Bangalore and I remember thinking: Sweet Rolling Moses, it’s hot! Hot like ten blast furnaces pouring out the sweat of a million Indian day laborers.
I mentioned this to my gracious host. For a few long minutes he stared at me, half-crazy, half-sane, like he was reaching deep into his gray matter (aka his brain) for the proper response to such an observation. I couldn’t decide if it was an observation he had heard often, or a stunner which he — a plains Indian living a few hundred miles from the equator — hadn’t quite realized. If he had a toothpick, I imagined he would have been twirling it around like a Doctor getting ready to deliver a hemophiliac baby, but he didn’t have the toothpick. Instead it was like an internal, invisible toothpick of thought.
“Yes,” he said finally. “Crowded too.”
I knew then I had the working title of a book. After trying it out on a few of the laborers around whatshisname’s estate and getting vague stares of incomprehension, I asked the gentleman who drove me back to the airport what he thought of it.
He took to it like an uncomprehending puppy and bit deeply. “Yes sir. Hot and crowded!”
He made a good point. I asked him what he thought about “flat.”
“Flat. Yes sir.”
More than with just his inexpert driving, I knew I was getting somewhere.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@JK:
This is why the whole “XOMG!1 Obama is a radicul!” thing is such bullshit. If he were truly radical, Hank Paulson would be getting gay married in an orange prison jumpsuit, and Obama would be reading from “The Long Emergency” on his Sat. radio broadcast. But I don’t think the masses are ready for a big dose of Kunstler’s (very true IMHO) message that suburban living is a way of life that has no future.
freelancer
Maybe it’s a Bushian Head-fake, like when Rove said with a straight face that Bush read more than 200 books a year. Or that he was reading Camus.
If so, POTUS should be forcing the wingnuts to contort like a pretzel by walking around with Liberty and Tyrrany, or Beck’s Common Sense.
slag
Not worried. Who ends up reading half the books they take on vacation? A week sounds long only because it most often gets measured in work hours. In vacation hours, it’s a blink of an eye. He’ll be lucky to get through the morning paper.
Edward G. Talbot
@Ole I hear ya re: clubs. Mine are from the late 1990’s, so not really old, but nothing new. Through the full range, I go down about two clubs from woods to irons to get the same distance (so 4 wood equals 2 iron, etc). But I do know plenty of people who hit say their seven wood further than their five iron.
Dubya obviously would hit driver from the fairway if the cameras were on ;)
BillCinSD
What about
13 Ways of Looking at a Black Man
by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Anne Laurie
@scav:
For the win! If half the Notable Serious Best Seller “units” bought were ever actually read — well, there’d be a lot fewer people with the time to fvck up the townhall meetings or astroturf the better blogs.
Comrade Darkness
@Jay B.: “plains Indian”
Bravo.
Anne Laurie
@GReynoldsCT00:
Rethug Tweet: OMG Prezdint reading Mormon propaganda teen pr0n ! ! !
@JK:
Dude! Have you considered what the Secret Service surge would do to our WordPress semi-functionality? ! ?
@Ann B. Nonymous:
Imagine what such a Presidentially-annotated edition would sell for on eBay!
(Assuming, of course, that Friedman could still afford to outbid Rush Limbaugh. And that Limbaugh didn’t welch out on his winning bid afterwards.)
Hawes
Mmmmmmmm, Onion flavored Porn….
Desert Rat
Desert Rat
Read porn?
John, you must be doing it wrong.
I want my edit button back.
Lihtox
I was given a copy of Hot, Flat, and Crowded, and I like to keep an open mind, but the title makes me feel so miserable that I just can’t bring myself to open it.