Debra Pickett

The very idea of our political leaders embracing serious literature -- despite its dangerous association with all things Eastern and elitist -- is enough to thrill nerdy English majors like me. Because just as I am obligated to keep telling my parents that the master's degree in literature they paid for really has been super-useful in my career, I am also forever attached to the idea that reading is an exercise in self-improvement.

And, anyway, I've always been a sucker for the kind of guy who, when he is not sitting in a smoky coffee shop filling his Moleskine notebook with existentialist doodles, can drop names like Camus and Kafka into conversation with casual ease. Admittedly, I am also the kind of person who liked having a Rhodes scholar as president and daydreams about our country being represented, on the world stage, by someone who doesn't talk with food in his mouth.

But I digress.

Following the syllabus

There are any number of overly simple ways to separate people into opposite types -- those who have waited tables and those who haven't, for example -- but, for sheer predictive ability, one of the most useful dividing lines is the one between the kids who, back in school, did all the reading and those who did not.

Those of us who kept to the syllabus tended to be rule-followers in all areas of life. Punctual and law-abiding, we have grown up to be the people who wait for that little on-ramp traffic light to tell us when we can merge onto the expressway. We wear our seat-belts and eat our vegetables.

We might have mid-life crises, but only in socially acceptable forms. Years after our last appearance on an honor roll, we are still remarkably easy to spot. Especially today. Because it's the day before Labor Day weekend and we're in the office, wondering if the boss will let us out early.

The other kids, though -- the ones who prided themselves on their ability to answer essay questions and give oral reports without ever having read more than the back cover of a book -- are harder to pin down.

Some have dropped out. Or flamed out. But others have succeeded brilliantly in all sorts of ventures where rule-following is a handicap rather than a virtue.

Taking their word for it

Being a geek at heart, I am overly fastidious about what I claim to have read.

I've made it better than halfway through Moby Dick, but never all the way, and, in my guilt, I have a tendency to confess this failing at completely inopportune moments, like whenever someone mentions Nantucket.

Similarly, I have listened to Foucault's Pendulum on tape -- an extremely bad idea if you are trying to pay attention to road signs at the same time -- but have never actually read the book. And this bothers me. A lot.

So I have to assume that if the president says he read The Stranger -- plus, he says, "three Shakespeares" -- he really has read it. And if Mayor Daley says he's going to read The Interpreter of Maladies, he means it.

The question for me, then, is what these busy, important men will do with what they find in these great books.

If President Bush and Mayor Daley were in the same book group, what would they talk about over wine and cheese?

Power corrupts

Though they are, theoretically, political opposites, the president and the mayor would seem to have much in common.

There's the whole relentless consolidation of power thing. And the black-and-white, with-me-or-against-me worldview. And the sputtering. And the popular perception, however erroneous, that they're not exactly intellectual heavyweights.

Mostly, though, they have managed, despite their bloodlines, to be understood as "regular" guys who don't have a lot of need for fancy stuff. Real men.

And if it's suddenly OK for them to read the "hard" books and think big thoughts, maybe there's some hope that the nerdy kids among us will finally get a chance to feel cool.

Just imagine what the world would be like if our leaders bothered to do their homework.