Shades of Jimmy Carter revealing at his 1980 presidential debate that he discussed nuclear policy with his 12 year-old daughter. Actually, this is even funnier. According to New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt, President Obama's deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes (brother of CBS News Chairman David Rhodes) can be found after midnight reading "To Kill A Mockingbird" to his month-old baby daughter.
This hilarious revelation comes to us in Schmidt's article about the lonely agony of writing Obama's State of the Union address after midnight. Take it from here, Michael S. Schmidt:
One night last week Cody Keenan, the chief White House speechwriter President Obama has christened “Hemingway,” knew he needed help.
Mr. Keenan had spent 15 days holed up in a hotel room in Honolulu as the president vacationed nearby, and seven more in a windowless office in the basement of the West Wing trying to turn a blank computer screen into a 6,000-word State of the Union first draft. The lonesome process had finally gotten to him.
So the burly 34-year-old former high school quarterback left his White House office and trudged in the freezing rain to the nearby apartment of one of his closest friends in the administration, Benjamin J. Rhodes.
It was after midnight, but Mr. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser and the writer of many of the president’s foreign policy speeches, was up reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” to his 4-week-old daughter. The two men poured two single-malt Scotch whiskies and, with the baby resting quietly, began triage on Mr. Keenan’s prose. By 5 a.m., a more succinct draft was on its way to the president.
Wha...WHAT?!! Ben Rhodes actually reads "To Kill a Mockingbird" to his baby daughter? Is some troll source out there trying to mock Rhodes who is already known for usually having the demeanor of the Grim Reaper (or Harry Reid)?
Jonah Goldberg of the National Review put on his Sherlock Holmes cap and narrowed the field of suspects down to just one:
He’s reading To Kill a Mockingbird to his 31-day-old infant (give or take a day)? And here’s the great part. If you read on, the Times reveals this tidbit didn’t come from Keenan:
Mr. Keenan, who is not shy but did not want to talk about himself on a day when attention is on the president, declined to be interviewed for this article.
In other words, it was Rhodes who told the Times he was reading To Kill a Mockingbird to his one-month old daughter — at least until weighty affairs of state (and a few single malts) intervened. Look, maybe he was reading it to her. Maybe it’s the most important book in his life. Good for him, it’s a great book. Maybe it makes her fall asleep. I used to sing the old Good and Plenty theme song to my daughter (“. . . choo-choo-Charlie was his name I hear . . .”). Whatever works. But it takes a special kind of pomposity to want the Times and her readers to know this — or at least think this — about you.
Exit Question: After Ben is done reading "To Kill A Mockingbird" to his daughter, will he follow up with "Hard Choices" by Hillary Clinton?
