Politics

The latest fad in political journalism seems to be attempting to suss out the true personality of a candidate by looking up personal details. Salon (site pass, arggh) has a piece on Obama's reading habits, but really, if you didn't know the names Neibur, Alinsky, and Neitzche in connection to the man at this point in the campaign are you really going to care if Salon tells you about it now? Far more hilarious is the gambling piece where the habits of the two canidates are compared and we find out that McCain's gambling is far over what would be considered reasonable for anyone that didn't marry an heiress ("a few thousand dollars at a time") and Obama gambles like an old woman (by which I mean me).

There is also Rolling Stone's profile detailing Obama's playlist that everyone has been swooning over, but really what kind of playlist. Is this a Random Rules situation or did his awesome body man just set one up? Is this most played or top rated? The level of obsession in the piece is no where near high enough for me to be satisfied. Also, has the intrest in the body man (or woman) of a canidate always been this high or is this inspired by the West Wing?