If you do a serious presidential bio, you want to supply the reader with maximum material because otherwise you're offending the reader. A president for many people is a serious thing and they want to know everything.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Presidents need to be critically studied and analyzed.
Many people - especially those people who earn livings by convincing editors and bookers that rich and influential strangers consider their thoughts and opinions interesting - have ideas about who should or should not run for president.
As you probably know, I've written a lot about the presidency, so it's obviously exciting when you get to interview a president and write about it.
I've always enjoyed reading history, particularly presidential biographies.
Political biography is in the doldrums. No one wants to read 800 pages or so of cradle-to-grave dead politics, especially if it's familiar stuff and has all been written about before.
Conservatives don't want to read good, smart books. They mostly want to read Fox and talk radio hosts writing about presidents.
You can use a biography to examine political power, but only if you pick the right guy.
I often have said that to be a college president, you need a thick skin, a good sense of humor, and nerves like sewer pipes.
A president, like a college freshman, can't know in advance which questions he'll have to answer or what topics he'll have to master. He has to be flexible, supple, and responsive. He has to be comfortable with multiple-choice.
Presidential biography is, by its nature, out of scale; no character is bigger, no action greater, than the person and the doings of the American president.