Fudgie Fudgie!
improperly inflated
Via Ace headlines comes this interesting bit of nooz: Uh-bama seems to have embroidered his resum*eacute; in the interest of The Narrative.
[by Dan Armstrong]
I’m a big fan of Barack Obama… But after reading his autobiography, I have to say that Barack engages in some serious exaggeration when he describes a job that he held in the mid-1980s. I know because I sat down the hall from him, in the same department, and worked closely with his boss. ...Barack’s story may be true, but many of the facts are not. His larger narrative purpose requires him to embellish his role. I don’t buy it.
Yanno, there comes a point where one begins to wonder if this is all to be laid at the feet* of The One. It’s so pervasive, taking place over so much time, that it almost seems that One may have agreed to be “helped” into a position of power by ...Others and then has been running to keep up with the Creation as it bent, bumped snipped and twisted his life into the required shape. The Narrative.
[* it’s a question. Ultimately, the responsibility is his. Yet, can ya blame the shovel used to dig up your prize petunias?]
This is the other issue that leapt out at me. That writer uses several quotes from Dreams of My Father; buried among them was this:
As far as I could tell I was the only black man in the company, a source of shame for me but a source of considerable pride for the company’s secretarial pool.
Shame: the feeling that something is wrong with you as a person
vs
Guilt: the feeling that something is wrong with your behavior
With these definitions in mind, I gotta ask: Why would he feel shame at being “the only black man in the company?” And whatinhell does he mean by that phrase—“a source of considerable pride for the company’s secretarial pool?”
He was young and single at the time so.... whatever. But according to Dan Armstrong there was no secretary other than one working only for the boss… Sometimes confabulation reveals more than straight-up factual reporting.
Then again, I’m sure that Dan Armstrong and that whole story were a creation of Karl Rove, YMFB™
N. O’Really—done. Thanks!
Embellish? Inflate? Those are certainly well-nuanced words for:
lie, cheat, prevaricate, exxagerate, falsify, ...
Posted by ZZMike on 09/15/08 at 09:46 AM
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