Misreading Obama

The nomination, election, and inauguration of Barack Obama signified a multiplicity of things to a multitude of people. To some, it was the realization of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s not-by-the-color-of-their-skin-but-by-the-content-of-their-character Dream; to others, it was the actualization of J. Edgar Hoover's creeping-philosophical-communist Nightmare. To some, it was an international relations marketing coup "redefining the American 'brand'"; to others, it was Viagra for the old Kennedy/Camelot vigor. To many, it was the fulfillment of Biblical prophesies, but some found the text in Isaiah, others in 1 Corinthians, still others in the Book of Revelation.

Obama himself foretold this, in his second book, The Audacity of Hope. "I serve," he wrote, "as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." But Audacity itself was a product of a projection: that Barack Obama was a Literary Figure.