[A]bstractions are what matter for contemporary liberalism: Slap a “Celebrate Diversity” sticker on your bumper, and you’ll barely notice you live in an upscale white enclave and send your kids to a school where the only diversity in view is the janitor.
But the gulf between Obama’s life and self-mythologizing goes beyond that. He was happy to exploit his exotic Kenyan family as part of his remarkably canny self-promotion, yet in the end the composite characters with invented narratives are far more real to him than a non-composite brother with an actual sick kid. Because the composites know their place – bit-players in The Barack Obama Story.
