"....a student who’d done the coursework and was eager to impress the teacher" !! - says former US President
New Delhi: Former Congress president but de facto boss of the party, Rahul Gandhi, has been praised by sycophants and a section of Delhi's darbari intellectuals and flayed and ridiculed by others. Now, it is the turn of former US President Barack Obama, who says, Rahul has “a nervous, unformed quality about him, as if he were a student who’d done the coursework and was eager to impress the teacher".
In his memoir 'A Promised Land', the former US President - who visited India twice during his stint in high office - sums up Rahul's approach to politics and life well and notes, "deep down (Rahul) lacked either the aptitude or the passion to master the subject.”
On Dr Manmohan Singh, Obama says the former Indian Prime Minister had "a kind of impassive integrity", as per a report in 'The New York Times'.
BJP leaders are rejoicing the remarks especially coming after the party's success in recent elections and also during the festive season of Diwali.
"It must have taken Obama a great deal of self-control to desist from calling him a ‘joker’, or an ‘overgrown adolescent’," says former Meghalaya Governor and senior Bengal BJP leader Tathagata Roy.
Union Minister Giriraj Singh says, "Well, Rahul used to get these descriptions in the country and now getting the same honour (sic) even overseas".
The reviewer also notes - "Barack Obama is as fine a writer as they come". The two volume works "is nearly always pleasurable to read, sentence by sentence, the prose gorgeous in places".
"From Southeast Asia to a forgotten school in South Carolina, he (Obama) evokes the sense of place with a light but sure hand," the reviewer notes.
The article further says - "Obama's focus is more political than personal, but when he does write about his family it is with a beauty close to nostalgia. Wriggling Malia into her first ballet tights. Baby Sasha’s laugh as he nibbles her feet. Michelle’s breath slowing as she falls asleep against his shoulder. His mother sucking ice cubes, her glands destroyed by cancer. The narrative is rooted in a storytelling tradition".
The memoir also mentions Rahul's mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who was quite powerful during ten years of Manmohan Singh rule.
"We are told of the handsomeness of men like Charlie Crist and Rahm Emanuel, but not the beauty of women, except for one or two instances, as in the case of Sonia Gandhi," the article reads.
The reviewer says - "Vladimir Putin reminds him (Obama) of the tough, street-smart ward bosses who used to run the Chicago machine". Obama also notes, physically, Putin was "unremarkable".
The article also notes: "If Kennedy’s words suggest a sense of destiny, it isn’t clear how much Obama himself wants it. He is a conflicted and sometimes reluctant participant in politics, a man who feels increasingly lonely as the size of his crowds swells...".
ends
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