Andrew Ferguson casts a cold eye on Barack Obama:


“Barack Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope” is well into its fourth month on the bestseller list, and even a professional sourpuss (not that I know any) can see why.


“‘I am new enough on the national political scene,’ he writes in the book’s prologue, `to serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.’


“Never mind the mixed metaphor about striped people projecting on screens (a rare infelicity from such a graceful writer). The statement is the purest Obama, the kind of sentiment that people seldom get from a career politician: knowing, self-aware, candid, vivid in its expression and — most amazing of all — true.


‘The Audacity of Hope,’ in fact, can best be understood as an extended effort on the part of the first-term Illinois senator to keep that screen as blank as possible.”


Despite which, Obama always votes liberal.