A Note to Jon Meacham

Dear Jon Meacham:

I am enjoying American Lion very much, but your sentences are giving me whiplash:

Jackson worried about the power of the Second Bank of the United States, an institution that held the public's money but was not subject to the public's control, or to the president's. Presided over by Nicholas Biddle—brilliant, arrogant, and as willful in his way as Andrew Jackson was in his—the Bank, headquartered in a Greek Revival building on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, was a rival interest that, Jackson believed, made loans to influence elections, paid retainers to pro-Bank lawmakers, and could control much of the nation's economy on a whim. (Jon Meacham, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House [New York: Random House, 2008], 53)

Also, congratulations on your recent Pulitzer Prize. For the record, I am not reading your book just because Columbia University decided to give it an award. I am also reading it because someone accidentally left it on my coffee table and I kept forgetting to give it back.

Yours sincerely,
The Book and Bottle