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Having written volumes about his past and his thoughts—books which are, presumably, to answer all our questions—Obama doesn't want to talk about himself, but about his policies. He's a geek that way. But the press, his constant companions and observers, largely absorbed in their own reflection, have heard his stump speech a numbing number of times. For them, it is no longer a story (except when he alters, however minutely and however logically, a position and becomes, thereby, a flip-flopper or an opportunist—which is, of course, a story). Sobriety, civility, earnestness and restraint may be what our country desperately needs, but as the McCain camp well knows, they make for dull copy.

There are still, for many voters, questions remaining, gaps in the portrait Obama has drawn of himself. Some are gaps created, or certainly widened, by the media's increasingly disenchanted analysis of the candidate. In order to succeed, Obama needs to work his considerable authorial magic, to make sure that the stories being told—not just by himself, but by the supremely powerful press—aren't about his freckles (yes, it is true; I may not have shaken his hand, but I did get close enough to see those) or his silhouette in suits, or about his celebrity, or about others' ideas of him. He needs to take control of the storyline and provide the details that will give that storyline authenticity, and authority, so that when the journalists, or the public, want to know who he really is and what he really believes, he will already—convincingly, and with a complexity worthy of his message—have told us.

Messud’s most recent book, “The Emperor’s Children,” was listed for the 2006 Booker Prize. She was the recipient of a Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and is a NEWSWEEK contributor.

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Posted By: Krohn @ 10/09/2008 7:43:17 PM

They harassed her until she registered to vote six times!:
http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=3145562&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/politics/
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Posted By: Krohn @ 10/08/2008 11:49:21 PM

"Not all Democrats agree with Mr. Frank that such policies are off-limits to criticism. Last week Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama said in a statement: 'Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie and Freddie. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership, when in retrospect, I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong.'

"Mr. Davis is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus."

'Rank snobbery'

Camille Paglia, who supports Sen. Barack Obama, has nothing but scorn for the way the media has treated Sarah Palin.

"The mountain of rubbish poured out about Palin over the past month would rival Everest. What a disgrace for our jabbering army of liberal journalists and commentators, too many of whom behaved like snippy jackasses," Miss Paglia writes at www.salon.com.

"The bourgeois conventionalism and rank snobbery of these alleged humanitarians stank up the place. As for Palin's brutally edited interviews with Charlie Gibson and that viper, Katie Couric, don't we all know that the best bits ended up on the cutting-room floor? Something has gone seriously wrong with Democratic ideology, which seems to have become a candied set of holier-than-thou bromides attached like tutti-frutti to a quivering green Jell-O mold of adolescent sentimentality."
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Posted By: Krohn @ 10/08/2008 11:49:08 PM

"Not all Democrats agree with Mr. Frank that such policies are off-limits to criticism. Last week Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama said in a statement: 'Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie and Freddie. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership, when in retrospect, I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong.'

"Mr. Davis is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus."

'Rank snobbery'

Camille Paglia, who supports Sen. Barack Obama, has nothing but scorn for the way the media has treated Sarah Palin.

"The mountain of rubbish poured out about Palin over the past month would rival Everest. What a disgrace for our jabbering army of liberal journalists and commentators, too many of whom behaved like snippy jackasses," Miss Paglia writes at www.salon.com.

"The bourgeois conventionalism and rank snobbery of these alleged humanitarians stank up the place. As for Palin's brutally edited interviews with Charlie Gibson and that viper, Katie Couric, don't we all know that the best bits ended up on the cutting-room floor? Something has gone seriously wrong with Democratic ideology, which seems to have become a candied set of holier-than-thou bromides attached like tutti-frutti to a quivering green Jell-O mold of adolescent sentimentality."