Review the Reviewers

The New York Times Sunday book review found time to review David Remnick's 'exhaustive' new book on Obama called "The Bridge" and in particular, his comments on "Dreams from my Father". Here's one:

Obama was not literally a slave in his youth, but he was in thrall to false images of his father, fostered by his mother’s protective loyalty to her husband.

It will be interesting to see what Remnick discovered about the first year of Obama's life in Hawaii seeing as how Stanley Ann scurried off to Seattle weeks after O's birth and Barack Sr remained at U of Hawaii.

Anyway, Tom the Minuteman Maguire is not very impressed with the Wills writeup, specifically this part:

The narrative protects him from claims that he is an ideologue or peddler of false hopes. The art with which the book is constructed to serve his deepest personal needs shows how ludicrous is the charge of Rush Limbaugh and others that he did not write it. (The ineffable ­Limbaugh thinks Bill Ayers may have written it.)

Wildly, Maguire, like el-Rushbo and strange bedfellow Steve Diamond, believe that the Obama camp has been lying all along about Ayers and that celebrity biographer Christopher Andersen innocently stumbled upon the truth in writing his book, "Barack and Michelle" when he matter-of-factly was told that Ayers helped write the book when Obama got writer's block--according to people he interviewed in the neighborhood.

Andersen was interviewed by almost every major network but only Sean Hannity of Fox asked him about the Ayers part. Hannity may be an irritating tool at times, but he's absolutely right about 2008 being the year journalism died. That the mainstream White House journalists never asked Robert Gibbs about this contention is borderline criminal.

But it's not just the White House press corpse, perhaps most tellingly, the New York Times Review of Books never reviewed "Barack and Michelle". Celebrity writer? Well maybe, but they reviewed Kitty Kelley's book on Bush.

MORE 4/8/10

....from Huffpo on Remnick's book:

[Obama] was a cautious player, folding hand after hand, waiting for his moment to bluff or go big on a good hand ... Obama's caution, hidden behind a cloud of cigarette smoke, could be maddening. One Republican, Bill Brady, of Bloomington, told Obama, 'You're a socialist with everybody's money but your own.'

Fold after fold waiting for the big score or bluff--sounds like our president to a tee. As much as Bush was known for his bluntness Obama will be known for his subterfuge. Hopefully the world doesn't catch on.