LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
the newest and most robust cottage
industries of our time: the Obama
biography. Examining the spectrum
of Obama treatments—from Edward Klein’s The Amateur, which
tags Obama as “a narcissist” and “a
bungler-in-chief,” to David Maraniss’s Barack Obama: The Story, a
deeply-reported chronicle of the
president’s family history stretching back generations—Michael
finds that the political book industry reflects the wider national trend
of polarization. According to a recent Pew study, Americans’ “values
and basic beliefs are more polarized along partisan lines than at
any point in the past 25 years.” As
Jodi Kantor, a New York Times reporter and author of The Obamas,
explains, the atmosphere of polarization greatly influenced the way
her book was received: there was
“confusion about whether this was
on the left or right, a Fox book or an
MSNBC book.”
Elsewhere in the issue, Alice
Hines reports on one of the more
colorful pieces of political stagecraft: what the candidates eat. The
tradition of public food consumption in American politics goes back
to the barbecues thrown by South-
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ern politicians, rowdy affairs with
roasted pigs and free whisky and
rum. Today, it’s photo-ops at greasy
spoon diners, roadside bakeries and
ice cream parlors. Alice even catalogues President Obama’s intake in
a 48-hour period last month, mercifully without a calorie count: “Bacon, eggs, grits, buffalo wings, ribs,
sausage, pepperoni pizza, iced tea
and Miller Lite were only the start.
At a farm, the President purchased
fresh peaches, strawberries, sweet
corn and cherries; at a bakery, it
was a dozen chocolate chip cookies
and an entire apple pie. At one café,
Kozy Corners in the village of Oak
Harbor, he was photographed sharing strawberry pie and whipped
cream with a young boy.” And then
there are musings on candidates’
indulgences—President Obama’s
fondness for beer, and Mitt Romney’s weakness for coffee-flavored
ice cream, made even more notable because of his no-caffeine
Mormonism. So, for the undecided
voters still mulling it over, there’s
always the beer vs. ice
cream tiebreaker.
ARIANNA