Politicians and their reading habits

Occasionally, during the last presidency, we were treated to lists of what nonfiction titles Bush and Cheney were reading. It was appalling, but nothing you wouldn't find at the bedside of a newspaper-reading, NPR-listening, highly credentialed suburban striver.

Very impressive to find a book reviewer who understands these fatal cultural deficits:

DAVID BROOKS is not the first contributor to the airport book stand to whom our leaders have turned for enlightenment and instruction. In the search for insight on the issues of the day, the politicians who are meant to be guiding us toward a better world have nudged, blinked, pirouetted on tipping points and anxiously pondered the wisdom of crowds. Yet none of these brightly packaged manuals has proved to have the practical usefulness that was promised. But not to worry, those who govern us are invincible positive thinkers who will never give up the hope of finding someone who will tell them how to conjure away all our problems.
[...]
ONE MIGHT be tempted to say that the political success of Brooks’s book is testimony to the callowness of our leaders, who have lost touch with the intellectual traditions that shaped Western cultures.

As a general rule, you want to watch out for people who express themselves in one and two syllable words. That's a way of saying, stay off the op-ed pages and stay away from political stumps.