Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Obama's Books: Good Enough to Buy, But Not to Read?

A strange juxtaposition of two stories.

1. U.S. taxpayers pay for more than 7,000 copies of Pres O's books. Mostly "Dreams from My Father," apparently.

2. Those same books have been banned as subversive and objectionable, containing material "potentially detrimental to national security"

Now, I should say two things. I thought "Audacity of Hope" was more like "The Mendacity of a Dope," a load of ideological pap. But "Dreams From My Father" is terrific book, very moving, honest. (Well, maybe not honest, exactly, but coming across as honest). I read DFMF twice, and really liked it.

Second, the fact that Prez O's books were banned as "detrimental" doesn't mean much. In the supermax setting, newspapers and books that contain any passages that even refer to foreign policy are banned.

Still, it does seem odd that these two things are happening together. Our embassies are handing out the book to foreigners as inspirational, UNLESS those foreigners happen to be in jail.

(Nod to the Blonde)

1 comment:

Dirty Davey said...

I guess the question here ends up being -- should the State Department be spending money on pro-American propaganda abroad?

If yes, then the President's book is quite a reasonable expense -- a nice story of success in America that shows the nation in a generally positive light.

If no, then the books are probably small change compared to the rest of the propaganda budget.