Dan Amira: “It’s unclear whether Christie would be the heaviest president in
American history, but he would certainly share one of the top two spots
with William Howard Taft, who served as our 27th president from 1909 to
1913. And though that was a long time ago, in a much different era,
there may be a thing or two that Christie can learn from Taft’s
experience.”

Two former Democratic presidential nominees are in the news: John Kerry was just confirmed as Secretary of State and Al Gore is making the interview rounds for his new book and answering questions about the sale of his Current TV to Al Jazeera.

First Read: “As the saying goes, there are always second acts in politics. And it’s interesting to see the two VERY different paths Kerry and Gore have taken. The other aspect of watching these two men who both came so close to the presidency: Kerry appears to be the same guy he was in 2004. Gore, on the other hand, seems quite different.”

This looks really good: Junius and Albert’s Adventures in the Confederacy: A Civil War Odyssey by Peter Carlson.

“Albert Richardson and Junius Browne, two correspondents for the New York Tribune, were captured at the Battle of Vicksburg and spent twenty months in horrific prisons before escaping and making their way to Union territory.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “is convinced that a lone gunman wasn’t solely responsible for the assassination of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and said his father believed the Warren Commission report was a ‘shoddy piece of craftsmanship,'” the AP reports.

Said Kennedy: “The evidence at this point I think is very, very convincing that it was not a lone gunman.”

Out next week: King: A Filmed Record… From Montgomery to Memphis.

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) is the co-author of a novel about terrorists who barge into the crowded House of Representatives and open fire, killing or wounding more than 100 lawmakers and staffers.

Wall Street Journal: “Officials in the city where President John F. Kennedy was gunned down Nov. 22, 1963, want to observe the 50th anniversary of that day with a celebration of his life. The city plans a ceremony that would include readings from Kennedy speeches by historian David McCullough and military jets flying over Dealey Plaza, where the 35th president was shot.”

“But some who believe the assassination was a conspiracy involving high-ranking U.S. officials say their views shouldn’t be excluded from the commemoration.”

The top book on Michiko Kakutani‘s list of her 10 favorite books of 2012: The Passage of Power by Robert Caro.

“In the latest installment of his magisterial, multivolume biography, Mr. Caro uses his wondrous narrative gifts to tell the dramatic story of how Johnson was catapulted to the White House in the wake of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and how he used his potent political skills to push his predecessor’s civil rights legislation through Congress and lay the groundwork for his own revolutionary war on poverty.”

“He looked at her and got prostate cancer and quit. Giuliani just left the fight and the struggle. But quite frankly, I
think Hillary Clinton was a helluva good reason to withdraw his
candidacy.”

— Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), quoted by Capital New York, recounting how Hillary Clinton cleared the field in her first U.S. Senate bid, which included Rudy Giuliani.

The Week has a hilarious video history of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) temper tantrums.

The Nation dug up an interview with the infamous GOP strategist Lee Atwater explaining how Republicans can win the vote of racists without sounding racist themselves.

Said Atwater: “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites…. ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.'”

Pacific Standard: “We all know that most voters decide who to vote for well before the campaigns begin. In political science research, this is called the ‘minimal effects’ thesis. Basically the vast majority of the voters vote how we would expect them to long before the election. The first study to investigate this phenomenon focused on voters during the 1940 election. Researchers found that only 8 percent of voters changed their preference over the course of the campaign. In 70 years, not much has changed.”

The Chicago Tribune puts together some interesting trivia ahead of Steven Spielberg’s much-anticipated film about America’s greatest president.

Out next week: Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham.

New York Times: “Meacham is one of several journalists turned historians who belong to what might be called the Flawed Giant School… Books in this mode usually present their subjects as figures of heroic grandeur despite all-too-human shortcomings — and so, again, speak directly to the current moment, with its diminished faith in government and in the nation’s elected leaders. Few are better suited to this uplifting task than Meacham.”

“Yes… I think, at this point, this is breaking down.”

— Barack Obama, in a U.S. Senate debate in 2004, on whether he favored eliminating the electoral college.

George McGovern, the three-term senator from South Dakota and 1972 presidential candidate who inspired a generation of Democrats, died today after being hospitalized last week, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports.

The AP has an interactive look at McGovern’s life.

The family of former Sen. George McGovern (D-SD) says the 90-year-old is “no longer responsive” in hospice care, NBC News reports.

A newly-released State Department history quotes Henry Kissinger during a March 1976 meeting of top Ford administration officials as they discussed Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign and his foreign policy adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Said Kissinger: “Brzezinski is a total whore. He’s been on every side of every argument. He wrote a book on Peaceful Engagement and now that we are doing most of what he said in the book, he charges us with weakness.”

The Washington Post asked Brzezinski for comment: “Henry is a friend of mine — he must have meant ‘bore.'”