Thursday, February 5, 2015

An Unlikely Moralizer

"Power Forward - My Presidential Education" by Reggie Love   Simon and Schuster   212 pages   $26

Love was President Obama's "bodyman."  He is a 6 ft. 5 in. former Duke basketball star who graduated from Wharton in 2013.  He writes that he was good at football, but that basketball was his true love. 

His writing links sports to behavior - "Every Lay Up Isn't Easy" or "Never Get Too Comfortable on the Bench" or "Own Your Mistakes" which probably should be "Own up to your mistakes." 

There is also 'way more than we need to know about Love's childhood, school years, what his parents taught him, and what he was thinking during various points in his life.  (yawn)

The book title is misleading.  Whatever bits of scandal or real information shedding light on the Obama personality were pretty much not there.  I did glean that he dislikes M & Ms in trail mix and that he gets up at 5:30 a.m. to work out for an hour.

He is willful.  During a car trip between two cities to make campaign speeches, he suddenly shouted, "Stop the car!"  They were passing by a Sombrero Fest and the candidate said, "They've probably got some great food there" and he was out of the car and into the crowd.  His Secret Service detail was not pleased.  Nor were the people waiting for him at his destination. 

If this book were a textbook at a black high school, it might be a powerful tool for good.  As "history" it's the story of Reggie Love.

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