Apparently ranking high on his list of priorities is President Obama setting the record straightover some of the contents of Jodi Kantor's newly released tell-all book, The Obamas. Last week, Michelle Obama did a similar thing over the "angry black woman" -ish portrayals of the her in the book, and now Mr. Obama tackles his depiction as a, well, wallflower ("cold and aloof"). The bookdescribes the Obamas "as more interested in spending time with their family and inner circle than with in schmoozing with Washington's power players."
Obama says it's the media's fault. But then he goes on to say that he actually is a wallflower. It's just a classic case of mistaken identity -- a shy person mistaken for a jerk:
My suspicion is that this whole critique has to do with the fact that I don’t go to a lot of Washington parties and, as a consequence, the Washington press corps maybe just doesn’t feel like I’m in the mix enough with them, and they figure, well, if I’m not spending time with them, I must be cold and aloof.
Weird. He seems like such a HAM. But listen, parts of America that hold family values very high, ahem South Carolina, and even parts that don't. He doesn't go to parties not because of a fear of crowds, or because people are so fake , or because those days are over , or because Joe's changed so much since he's become vice president , but because his daughters are more or less teenagers, and he and Michelle feel that "we want to be good parents at a time that’s vitally important for our kids."
Anyway, why schmooze when you're already the king of the world? Oh, right, Congress. As for Boehner and company, Obama insists that he puts in the requisite schmoozing time with Boehner. "John Boehner and I get along fine. We had a great time playing golf together." They just don't, you know, bro out.
The problem was that no matter how much golf we played or no matter how much we yukked it up, he had trouble getting his caucus to go along with doing the responsible thing on a whole bunch of issues over the past year.
"Yukked it up." Sounds like a deep and lasting friendship. [TIME via Politico]