Rumi Nations

What could be the motivation? Well, good stories sell. Novelists and storytellers have all the freedom in the world. Screenwriters even in biopics do not mind using a bit of artistic license to imagine a scene. If you can use reality as the base and add some embellishment and fine tuning and a dose of heroism and sacrifice to make the story appear more heroic and more emotional, what's wrong with that? The world is a bit too crowded with heroes and tales of heroism. So, it's a bit tough to stand out if one sticks strictly to the truth and nothing but the truth. So, who are the heroes? Well, creating an appropriate image is incredibly important. Bill Clinton is living proof of that. Mother Teresa and Diana are dead proofs. No matter how convincingly Christopher Hitchens is able to demolish myths of heroism and saintly qualities around these personalities, the public perception is so strongly rooted in the manufactured image that it's very difficult and nearly...

Someone wrote that Obama will turn out in the long run to be like a Truman rather than like Carter. I certainly hope that it turns out to be that way. Although it's also quite 'unfair' that Carter is considered to be a 'failure' for whatever reasons. It just shows how little leverage presidents really have on the larger sweep of events. It's clearly weird that Reagan has turned almost into a demi-god in Republican circles and even Democrats find it hard to criticize him. It's no wonder therefore that Mark Twain's memoirs are at no. 4 on bestseller lists whereas George W. Bush's memoirs are almost 'guaranteed' to reach the no. 1 position.