If one had to name Barack Obama's chief accomplishments in public life, his two books would outweigh anything he has done in politics. The New York Times had a fascinating article, The Story of Obama, Written by Obama, on the front page of Sunday's paper. The piece points out that Obama's attraction to the masses is driven not by what he has accomplished in the real world (especially in the Senate), but by his ability to tell a tale -- his own. Unspoken by the NYT is that this phenomena does have its place in history - it is the very definition of "cult of personality".Senator Obama understands as well as any politician the power of a well-told story. He has risen in politics less on his track record than on his telling of his life story - a tale he has packaged into two hugely successful books that have helped make him a mega-best-selling, two-time Grammy-winning millionaire front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination at age 46. According to his publisher, there...(Read Full Post)