Carl theodur sorensen biography of barack obama
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America’s intellectual class seems to adore President Barack Obama nearly as much as it reviled his predecessor. While George W. Bush was routinely derided for his purported lack of intelligence and learning, Obama has been embraced by the intellectuals as one of their own--to a degree unmatched by any president since perhaps Woodrow Wilson. Indeed, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof spoke for many when he argued after the election that “American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.” Rebecca Mead of the New Yorker even sought to make it official, calling Obama a “certified intellectual.”
This difference in attitudes says as much about the state of American intellectuals as it does about Bush and Obama. It also highlights the complicated relationship between intellectuals and the modern American presidency. That relationship has been of great interest to recent presidents; most chief executives since John Kennedy
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AN EVENING WITH TED SORENSEN
JOHN SHATTUCK: Good evening. I’m John Shattuck, CEO of the Kennedy Library Foundation, and on behalf of Paul Kirk, our distinguished chairman, who’s here with us tonight, other members of the board who are also here, and the Library’s Director, Tom Putnam, I want to welcome you to this evening’s very special forum at the Kennedy Library.
Let me first något som utförs snabbt exempelvis expressleverans our thanks to the organizations that make these forums possible, starting with our lead sponsor, finansinstitut of amerika, and our other generous supporters, Boston Capital, the Lowell Institute, the Corcoran-Jennison Companies, the Boston Foundation, and our media sponsors, the Boston Globe, NECN and WBUR, which broadcasts these Kennedy Library Forums on Sunday evenings at 8.
Tonight we celebrate the contribution to our nation and the world of a man who during the presidency of John F. Kennedy, in the words of the poet Wallace Stevens, “was the man responsive as a mirror with a röst, who
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‘Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History’ by Ted Sorensen
May 6,
A great speechwriter is a master of timing, as well as a maker of phrases.
Now in his 80th year, Ted Sorensen -- whom John F. Kennedy once referred to as his “intellectual blood bank” -- has as firm a grip on those qualities as ever, which is one of the reasons “Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History” is not only a fascinating memoir but also this election year’s most important political book.
Despite the subtitle’s characteristic modesty, part of what makes “Counselor” so important is that its author was at the very center of so much that was important in American history and politics during the second half of the 20th century. Thus, this book contains significant new information and insights into Kennedy’s ambiguous relationship with Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the civil rights and Cuban missile crises, and the origins of the space program. What truly elevates Sorensen’s account above other political memoirs, how