Why is Obama Emotionally Detached?

He's not at the library, notes Forbes.

From the piece...

Real life is not like a science experiment, however. Humans are not purely rational beings. They have phobias, biases and other irrational elements. Ego, hatred and childhood experiences are not something that can be turned into statistics. In a purely rational world, the threat of sanctions coupled with some sweeteners would probably be enough to convince North Korea's Kim Jong-il and Iran's theocrats to end their rogue ways, but that's not the way the real world works.

This is where works of literature can help. Precisely because they're not concerned with reducing every event to facts and figures, and because they're not limited in length and description like policy briefs, they can explore events and people with a thoroughness that factual books and briefs can't. They describe the world as it really is--and so are essential to making knowledgeable policy decisions.

The most successful leaders of the past understood that reading literature was just as essential to decision-making as weighing policy briefs. They were either great readers of literature, or they made sure that their advisors were well-read. Winston Churchill, for example, treasured Daniel Defoe's Memoirs of a Cavalier; Alexander the Great carried The Iliad with him and Queen Elizabeth prized Cicero.