Xmastime Agrees

Yglesias on the importance of having a president who reads:

My experience—and this is definitely why I never would have made it as a real reporter—is that actually talking to people about things is an extremely misleading way of acquiring information. You wind up getting unduly swayed by the fact that some people are more charismatic than others. What would worry me would not be the prospect of a president who doesn’t spend lots of time talking to military commanders a couple of rungs below him in the chain of command, but the prospect of a president who lacked the patience to read written reports from people in which they set out their views in the most considered way possible. President Bush, reportedly, would barely read anything. And I think it’s no coincidence that he was a terrible president!

What I’d be interesting in knowing about Obama’s decision-making isn’t who he’s talking to but what, if anything, he’s reading. There’s a lot of reluctance in our society to admit it (written words are plentiful but face time is scarce, so pretending face time is more valuable than reading time enhances the prestige of those with access to it) but human beings can process information more quickly and efficiently by reading than by listening to people talk. 

Or, presumably, looking into a man's eyes and "seeing his soul." Hmm.