Entertainment Weekly’s EW.com has an interesting item today. The upshot is that a book publisher originally was to print a quotation from President Barack Obama on a book jacket, but then thought better of it. After all, the president’s comment wasn’t meant as a book endorsement. Here is the item on EW.com: 

“Shelf Life has learned that a quote from Pres. Barack Obama has been removed from the book jacket of “Hard Work: A Life On and Off the Court,” a memoir by University of North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams that will be published by Algonquin in November.

“Here’s the quote: ’What makes Coach Williams one of the great coaches isn’t just his extraordinary record, but his dedication to his players. He’s just as serious about making these guys into men and into leaders as he is into making them champions.’ Obama, who made the statement when he stopped to shoot hoops with the Tar Heels team during his campaign last year, clearly intended to extol Williams the man and not to blurb the legendary coach’s book (which has been getting rave advance notices). According to a publicist for Algonquin, the company has deleted the statement from the jacket after consulting with its legal team, which determined that sitting presidents cannot make commercial endorsements. A staffer at the The White House press office confirms this: ‘As a general matter, the White House does not authorize the use of the President’s likeness or words for commercial purposes.’

“Interestingly, though, recent printings of the paperback edition of Joseph O’Neill’s 2008 novel Netherland include a sticker with this blurb (a quote pulled from an Obama interview published last spring): ‘”Fascinating…A wonderful book.” President Barack Obama, Newsweek.’ Vintage, the book’s publisher, did not check with the White House before issuing the stickered edition.”

President Barack Obama

I’m not sure whether either book publisher would be breaking a law by using an accurate quotation by the president. After all, publishers habitually pick up quotations from this newspaper’s book reviews or stories and stick them on the paperback edition of a book. As long as it’s accurate, it’s legal (even if they cherrypick a nice comment in an otherwise negative review). The book review policy here has never been to supply quotations for commercial purposes, i.e. before a book comes out. But if a review or story covers the book, then the publisher’s First Amendment rights allow it to use the quotation (they, of course, don’t pay anything to the media source).

Now, this policy may differ according to who is supplying the quotation. Are famous authors ever “paid” for endorsements? I hope not, but I do not know.

It seems obvious, in this case, that Obama was not making a comment about Williams (remembered here in the Midwest as a former Kansas coach) as a commercial endorsement, nor was he “reviewing” ”Neverland” as a media commentator. But if he said it, can (should) a publisher slap it on a book cover? What do you think?

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