Book Review: First Friends

 

First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung (And Unelected) People Who Shaped Our Presidents by Gary Ginsberg
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book emphasizes the influences that good friends have on each other. Solomon speaks of iron sharpening iron, and this book shows the iron that sharpened the iron of several Presidents. Who our friends are determine who we are. Another saying is that who we are in 10 years are determined by the books we read and the friends we make.

Dee Brestin in The Friendships of Women described the difference in friendships of women and of men. Men do things with their friends. Women build intimacy with close friends. All of the Presidential friends detailed in this book show that the people are capable of building intimacy--so much so that others wondered if the relationships were tainted. 

When Clinton's transition team was vetting Al Gore, they were sorely concerned that Gore had no intimate friends. “If he can’t develop or even claim one real friendship, how’s he going to lead a nation?”

The author on the importance of friends for a President: "The point here is not to assert that a First Friend is essential to presidential success. It would be a reach—and a misreading of history—to draw that conclusion. And yet the deeper I delved into dozens of presidential friendships, the more convinced I became that those presidents who did have First Friends were almost always the better for it—and so was the country."

I'm very happy that I took Al Mohler's recommendation and encourage you to read this book as well.

And it took me awhile to read this book because work got very busy and my Libby check-out ended and couldn't renew immediately.

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