The election season underscored the fact that ours is a cul-
ture in which entertainment and news have been transmogrified
into a third category that marries the two, for better or for
worse, often called infotainment.When polled, young voters
routinely said they get their news from “The Daily Show with
Jon Stewart” or “The Colbert Report,” which are cable comedy
shows, not news sources, to those who rely on the mainstream
media. John McCain declared his intention to run for president
on “Late Night with David Letterman” and returned to the
show to ask Letterman’s forgiveness after abruptly canceling an
appearance. Cable TV pundits reported regularly on where the
women of “The View” stood on the candidates. But the cam-
paign became downright surrealistic after writer and performer
Tina Fey began playing Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live.”
Sporting the candidate’s signature glasses and often quoting
her verbatim, Fey brilliantly caught Palin’s Fargoaccent, down-
home mannerisms, and serpentine syntax. Palin later made her
own appearance on the show, passing Fey in the studio and
replacing her on the podium.
Like Palin, who trained for a career in television, Obama is
richly endowed with charisma, the personal magnetism that
allows an individual to captivate and sway audiences. It is the
same kind of star power that allows certain actors to own a
stage or a screen. Politics, too, is a performance art, as Orson
Welles made clear when he first met President Franklin De-
lano Roosevelt. FDR graciously said to the already-legendary
actor/director: “You know, Mr. Welles, you are the greatest
actor in America.” And Welles replied: “Oh, no, Mr. President.
You are.” Except for those rare occasions when candidates
share the same physical space as those they hope to lead, they
must have powerful enough rhetorical and acting skills to tran-
scend the distorting effect of television and other media. They
Epilogue to the Twentieth-Anniversary Edition