On August 2, two days before Barack Obama’s reported sixty-second birthday, the Jewish journal Tablet published an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning civil rights historian David Garrow.
Asking the questions and providing extensive commentary of his own was the well-traveled journalist David Samuels. Although Garrow is a progressive and Samuels something of a centrist, their evaluation of Obama’s tenure in the White House borders on cruel.
The exchange between the two deserves to be read in full. Rather than summarize that exchange, I will focus on a few key truths, both those they nailed and those that squirmed away. Most intriguing in the latter category are the questions about Obama’s literary talents and about his birth. Garrow’s opinion matters. His 2017 bio, Rising Star. The Making of Barack Obama, is easily the boldest and most accurate of the Obama biographies.
Written by: