On the eve of Barack Obama’s inauguration in January, 2009, I wrote a post about the White House intellectual-in-residence, a figure who was a part of the presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford, but then more or less disappeared from the scene. Later presidents, of course, consulted intellectuals in other ways. A few months later, Tim Lacy blogged about an early appearance of intellectuals in this White House: the private dinner that Obama had held with a series of historians on June 30, 2009. U.S. News reported that guests included “Michael Beschloss, H. W. Brands, Douglas Brinkley, Robert Dallek, Read more