Appearing on Friday's NBC Today to promote his new book, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, author and former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham made a comparison between the founding father and the current commander-in-chief: "[Jefferson] was a tall, cool, cerebral president who won re-election, who was actually really good at politics even though he didn't want to act as though he was. So there's some similarities with President Obama." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Meacham did also use the comparison to offer some criticism of Obama: "[Jefferson] understood that to get along in Washington it was really important to understand the politics of the personal, which is something that President Obama has not been so good at. He likes to play basketball with his staff. He likes to play golf with his staff. He doesn't like to reach out to Congress."
Jon Meacham
The Associated Press published an article on the reasons for the demise of the print of edition of Newsweek but skipped any mention of the former editor of that magazine, Jon Meacham, who was instumental in ensuring its failure. It's the equivalent of publishing an article on the reasons why the Titanic sunk in which the word "iceberg" does not appear.
What Meacham did to destroy Newsweek was so absurd that he really deserves a plaque in the Bad Business Decisions Hall of Fame. Am I exaggerating? Here is Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post explaining the business "genius" of Jon Meacham in May 2009:
Watching Mitt Romney last night as he revived his campaign while demolishing President Obama was surely a bitter pill for Jon Meacham to swallow.
On Morning Joe today, the former Newsweek editor sought to console himself. Meacham—twice—pointed out that although Mark Twain famously wrote that rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated, Twain did eventually die. Nice analogy, Jon! View the video after the jump.