PrintDecember 21, 2010
The Picture of Barack Obama
In the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, described as "a classic commentary on narcissism, decadence, and the wages of sin," author Oscar Wilde wrote:Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.An empty canvas was offered by Barack Obama in the prologue of his book, The Audacity of Hope, with his admission: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views," and "my treatment of the issues is often partial and incomplete." As writer Froma Harrop noted in her 2006 Real Clear Politics article, "Obama Scores as Exotic Who Says Nothing": Obama's appeal comes not from the things he says, but from who is saying them ... half-Kenyan and raised in Hawaii by white grandparents from...(Read Full Article)
