I'm looking forward to reading Jann Wenner's interview with Barack Obama in the new issue of Rolling Stone, due out tomorrow--but apparently available online today. I watched the CBS This Morning interview with Wenner, in which the founder and long-time editor and publisher of the magazine was long on praise for the President's strength, tenacity, his focused attention and intention, his "sure-footedness," and his sense of humor. It seems that Obama had admired Wenner's bold striped socks on the occasion of an earlier interview, and that Wenner had subsequently sent a couple of pairs as a gift. For this interview, he brought a similar gift, and the President had no trouble in predicting what was in the package. On opening it, he gave the socks an appraising look, admiring their bold design--but deciding that, after all, these were "second term socks."
I hope to see him wear them. I like the warm and genuinely human quality he manages to convey in his contact with people of all kinds--including those who bitterly oppose his policies. I can't claim to know what's behind what we see of him in the media, but what we see is firm as well as likable, strong as well as compassionate. I hope--and believe--that this is the real man, and not some creation of the political hacks. In his interview, Wenner apparently broached the subject of the President's challenger in the fall, Mitt Romney, and Obama expressed the opinion that it would be difficult for the presumptive Republican candidate to back off from the extreme right-wing positions he had embraced in his battle for the nomination.
Have we seen "the real Romney" in the course of the primaries? I have less faith in the awkwardly shape-shifting images he has presented of himself than I do in the image I have assembled of Obama, in the new several years we have been watching him in diverse circumstances. There seems to be a solid core, a consistency to the President's character, even in the most adverse of situations. There are multiple Mitt Romney's, as I see it; there is only one Obama. No matter what color the socks.
1 comment:
When I hear Romney speak and look at his body language I feel I'm witnessing a soap actor trying to fill the role of candidate. He is trying to sense his audiences expectations. I'll look like you in my stone washed jeans and rolled up open collar shirt if you vote for me is what I hear.
When I see Obama and listen to what he has to say I believe him because he is consistent and stays on message. Obama is cool and reflexive because that is his nature. He can sing a little, shoots hoop and is fearless when confronted. He is a natural. Romney is not in his element when standing with blue a blue collar crowd. I agree with you Peter when you define him as a shape shifter.
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