The Smartest Man in the Reading Room

So. The President can’t manage his time well enough to fill 17 of the top 18 positions in the Treasury Department, but will get paid half a million dollars to write a children’s book. Well, not exactly write it, per se:

The project calls for an abridged version of his book “Dreams From My Father” for middle-school-aged children, according to the disclosure.

A White House aide said that the deal had been in the works for weeks and that the publisher will abridge the book. The aide, speaking on a condition of anonymity, said the publisher will get half of the money while Mr. Obama will sign off on the final version.

Obama will get a quarter million to give his (presidential) seal of approval to a book he didn’t write, to sell to schoolchildren whose curriculums are set, in part, by the Department of Education he runs.

Well, it’s hard to deny that Obama seems a bit unseemly, or that Crown Publishing looks like it’s currying favor, or that schoolchildren everywhere won’t be subtly “encouraged” to buy the book. “Library card check,” anyone?

This stinks.