“I Like Obama.”  Recently at a reception on a tour promoting my book The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama and the Real World of Power, a young lady from Chicago refused to be photographed with me.  When asked why later, she explained that “I can’t be pictured with Paul Street. I like Obama.” When told of this comment I flashed immediately to a comment by the prolific left author Chris Hedges. Reflecting on the power of advertising and manufactured illusion in the creation of a superficial “junk politics” culture that privileges personalities and trivia over substantive engagement with policy and morality,  Hedges observed that….read further