Monday, May 10, 2010

Change We Can Believe In by Barack Obama

As I understand it, this book was actually put together by Obama's staffers during the campaign, in order to present his platform to the American people. It's organized into two parts: first, his platform (which is divided in such a way as to allow him to repeat key themes throughout the first section), and second, copies of various speeches he's given. The writing in the first part is nothing to write home about, but it was intriguing to compare his campaign promises (to be fair, promises that he couldn't possibly fulfill, given the fact that he has to work with Congress to get any law passed) to what he's accomplished in office. The speeches are more intriguing; I'm convinced that President Obama is a good writer on the basis of his books, and he's obviously hired great speechwriters, who take advantage of his charisma and oratorical talent. The speeches are usefully repetitive and rhythmic, although they don't say a lot (the meat of his plans is in the first part of the book). This book is a strange hybrid, but worth looking into.

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