Caffeinated Politics

The nation learned last week, courtesy of a photo op that looked like a Pottery Barn clearance display, that Karoline Leavitt, the shallow White House press secretary, was giddy to be photographed while seated in front of a wall of fake books. Not light reading, not decorative editions, but straight‑up hollow props. The kind of books that exist solely to suggest literacy in the same way a cardboard fireplace suggests warmth. But at least she left her cross necklace off stage. Probably wise not to accessorize sincerity when the backdrop is doing its best impression of a Potemkin Barnes & Noble.

It’s a bold aesthetic choice for an administration led by a man who famously does not read and whose demonstrably ignorant, male-heavy base treats libraries the way vampires treat sunlight. A large support base of voters who prefer information prechewed by angry right-wing cable hosts. Leavitt is perched proudly, showing some cleavage. The only depth in the photo. But the troubling symbolism is all too real. Fake books behind a simplistic spokesperson for a person sitting in the Oval Office who prides himself on not reading books.

This weekend on the Madison isthmus, at random, I asked friends what the titles on the books’ spines might have read. I got a nice list of possible titles. Ideas ranged from Reading Is For Elites to The Deep State Alphabet Book to War and Peace (Cliff Notes). One lady said there could be no copy of the Constitution, which would be ironic if placed on the sleeves, given how often the administration treats it like a take‑out menu accidentally left in the limo.

A man walking his dog this weekend told me that the press secretary sitting in front of fake books is the most honest thing this administration has ever done. It’s a perfect metaphor, he told me candidly, of a government that wants the appearance of knowledge without the inconvenience of acquiring any.

I think the photo symbolizes a confession. A decorative admission that the administration’s relationship with information is purely ornamental.