Don't ignore pop culture

Mitt Romney’s iPod playlist featured Johnny Cash, Frankie Valli, the Beach Boys and the Soggy Bottom Boys. Barack Obama’s iPod had, the president assured his fans, something for everyone — “Stevie Wonder, James Brown. I’ve got Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan,” Obama said. “And then I’ve got everything from Jay-Z to Eminem to the Fugees, to — you name it.”

This pop cultural posturing isn’t new, as historian Tevi Troy chronicles in a highly entertaining survey of how American presidents have consumed and affected pop culture: “What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted.”