The Obamas just not good journalism
THE OBAMAS By Jodi Kantor Little, Brown, $29.99
Reading this much-hyped book is like drinking a highly touted wine only to discover that it tastes like Kool-Aid. No surprises, nothing memorable and a bad taste left in your mouth.
In a recent television interview, the author called herself “an outside, fair observer,” which is giving herself credit (and gravitas) she in no way deserves. But she has to say something to try to justify her reportedly $1 million advance. As editor of the “Arts and Leisure” section of The New York Times, Kantor has received extensive free publicity from her employer. But nothing can make the facts disappear: The book is shallow and demonstrates little grasp of national politics, or even the history of the White House. And Kantor seems to know very little about the stars of her story, the first couple.
There is no wealth of research to reflect upon. Kantor relies heavily on interviews with White House aides, most of whom refuse to go on the record. How can we test the reliability of her sources? Kantor’s only direct contact with the president and first lady was one 2009 interview for a fluff-piece she published in The New York Times Magazine. A serious journalist like Bob Woodward had lengthy interviews with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush for his books on the inner workings of the West Wing. Kantor never had such access.
She claims to be writing about the Obamas’ marriage, but in place of an in-depth story we get the familiar pop culture formula of the power couple trying to balance ambition and family while remaining true to themselves. You can get the identical plot by watching the Lifetime channel.
To make up for lack of substance, Kantor relies on several unsubtle conventions from fiction writing. She imagines she can get inside Mrs. Obama’s head. For example, “she sat upstairs in the private family quarters of the White House, alone, frightened, and unsure of what to do next.” A “minor security incident” had taken place across town, and an aide had emailed telling her not to worry about the president’s well-being. Kantor builds the suspense: “The first lady’s mind reeled anyway.” She “could not wait any longer,” and asked a White House operator for her husband. “He picked up right away.” This is supposed to be drama. Hardly an Alfred Hitchcock moment.
Kantor imagines herself a fly on the wall, reporting on the first lady’s instinctive reactions. But she wasn’t there. No one was. Not even a nosy aide. The scene is entirely made up. This sort of invention happens repeatedly in the book. Kantor blithely sums up Michelle Obama’s feelings through a glance or gesture. It is no wonder that Mrs. Obama rebuffed the presumptuousness of the author during her interview with Gayle King on CBS This Morning. “Who can write about how I feel? Who? What third person can tell me how I feel, or anybody for that matter?”
Kantor’s recent performance on Piers Morgan Tonight gives ample evidence that she is oblivious to the sorry array of gender stereotypes that litter her book. While calling her creation a “sensitive, nuanced, textured portrait of the Obamas in the White House,” she actually relies on three familiar female characters: the overprotective wife and mother; the good wife who humanizes her “icy,” “cerebral” husband; and the domineering wife who is frustrated by the “feminine mystique” that is demanded of first ladies.
Kantor’s overprotective Michelle makes her hubby eat dinner with the family five days a week, because that’s how you manage an aloof, policy-driven loner. She is “his sparring partner, early warning system, refuge, guardian — tougher, by his own admission, than he is.” Her people skills “rescue” Barack, “again and again.”
Michelle Obama is not the first wife of a president to help market her “cerebral, self-contained” husband, not that the tone-deaf author would know. Her Michelle is a modern version of Dolley Madison, who was said to provide the emotional warmth James Madison lacked. He was the first egghead president, and his consort a vivacious woman best known today for serving ice cream to guests. Dolley was 5’8” tall, towering over her petite husband — one of the curious details we learn about Michelle Obama in this book is that she wears size-10 shoes. Dolley Madison was the first first lady to hire a White House decorator. Michelle’s decorating woes are also highlighted in the book. Dolley Madison was known for making dramatic statements with her outfits, especially her exotic turbans. Surely, if Vogue magazine had existed in 1810, Dolley Madison would have been on the cover. Kantor’s Michelle wears loud colors (“a sweeping turquoise skirt and glittery cardigan”) during a trip to London. “She stood out like a tall, brightly plumed bird.”
For Kantor, the emotional side of Michelle Obama can be a liability: her stubbornness, her need for control, made her “tough on people around her,” and for one aide, failure to perform brought on the “wrath of Michelle.” The stereotype is not so much the “angry black woman” that Michelle herself spoke out against in critiquing Kantor’s treatment; it is, rather, a different trope: the shrewish wife who browbeats her meek husband. Kantor constantly reminds readers that Barack refuses to rein in his wife, the same gender convention previously invoked for Hillary Clinton.
Though the Obamas actually spend their evenings together on the Truman balcony exploring their thoughts, in her clumsy way, Kantor paints them as a 1950s couple: His career is everything, and she is unhappy. To make up for his absences, he indulges her whims. One could almost imagine him saying, “Yes, dear, whatever you say, Flotus.” (For the uninitiated, Flotus is an acronym for first lady of the United States.)
Kantor imagines there are “fresh and essential truths” in her book, but she is wrong. She does not connect the Obamas in any meaningful way to the arena of presidential politics. Her story is drawn from popular culture, mimicking traditional female roles in literature, with a dash of the Hollywood wife. The book flattens the Obamas into stock characters who utter pat clichés.
In the end, the book is a sad reminder of how superficial our public discourse can be and how little progress has been made in talking about powerful women. All we learn by reading The Obamas is that a glib popularizer should not be called a journalist.
Nancy Isenberg is Professor of History at LSU, and co-author of Madison and Jefferson (2010).