If you doubt the president’s self-regard, you should follow him on Twitter or read the new issue of Vanity Fair online. Obama’s interview with his favorite historian and presidential-legacy stylist Doris Kearns Goodwin didn’t reveal much beyond his ample vanity. It was hardly the scholar-pundit and known plagiarist’s first time talking to the president about himself–he called her when he was a freshman senator, already contemplating his place in history and, above all, his likeness to Lincoln.
In “Barack Obama and Doris Kearns Goodwin: The Ultimate Exit Interview” four consistent strains stand out. They’re themes of the presidency Goodwin directs attention to with a would-be-biographer’s familiarity, and clear indicators of what history will remember as the Obama years crystallize into the past.
