Recalling the importance and power of President Harry Truman’s Kitchen Cabinet, brought vividly to life in  David McCulloch’s Truman, the thought occurred to me that it might not be a bad idea for President Obama to appoint his own Kitchen Cabinet to help think through some of  overwhelming issues facing the president and the nation.  There is a wellspring of talent in the world of books and historians from which might come some unique and a-political  ideas and possibly answers. 

 Here we go Mr. President with a suggested list of invitees! My guess is they would all not only come but bring some well-educated perspective.

Jonathan Alter,  The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope

Henry William Brands,  The Reckless Decade, America in the 1890s. TR The Last Romantic, Traitor to his Class. ( FDR)

Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson

Doris Kerns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

David McCullough, Truman, John Adams

Edmund Morris,  The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Rex, Colonel Roosevelt, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan

Gordon Wood,The Creation of the American Republic and Empire of Liberty

The body of work by the authors of these works of history is a national resource!  They could very well be the best  and most productive “committee ” in Washington , DC. Go for it Mr. President. You will be in great company!

I Would enjoy hearing  suggestions from my blog readers for the Great Historian Kitchen Cabinet at the White House!