Word to the Wise

Every so often Steve Sailer pops up in comments here to claim that neither I nor anyone else in the press has read Barack Obama's first book Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance because obviously if more people read it, more people would share the Sailer interpretation of Obama (I'd say Mike Tomasky's much closer to the mark). Well, I read it some time ago. Was encouraged to do so, in fact, by someone on staff with his campaign.

Like most writers who've read it, the main thing that comes across is that Obama's a good writer -- a politician capable of producing a pretty good book without an army of ghostwriters at his disposal. It's a pretty impressive achievement and also probably helps give him some of his heir of authenticity. One knows that he know more writes his own lines at this point than does any other major presidential candidate, but he seems like someone who could.