Jeg ved ikke hvad Lars Løkke Rasmussen mente da han forsøgte at lancere sig selv som Lille Lars fra Græsted og jeg ved heller ikke om det var sandt. Men jeg ved at det hurtigt viste sig at det ikke var et image han kunne leve på. Noget andet med Thorning og Obama. Deres personlige historier er en integreret del af deres politiske projekt, for Obama endda i nogen grad selve projektet. Drømmen om den første kvinde som statsminister eller den første neger (halvneger eller offwhite, hvis man skal være præcis) i det Hvide Hus er kun en del af dette.

Det har været vigtigt for Thorning været at vise sig som en ægte socialdemokrat især i formands opgøret med sødmælkskalven Frank Jensen. Her var det ikke var nok at have boet i Ishøj og derfor måtte Thorning bedyre noget så usympatisk at hun aldrig kunne forelske sig i en mand, hvis han stemte Venstre og på TV vise at hun nogen gange handlede i Netto, hvor hun var udmærket bekendt med prisniveauet - eller blot god til at læse op på en eksamen.

For det har været mistanken, som har naget i gamle socialdemokrater som Anker Jørgensen og de der romantiserede Ankers jævne baggrund, gennem hele hendes politiske karriere - at Thorning grundlæggende højst var en småborger. Derfor var det også en rasende Thorning der kaldte Freddy Blak for en pose lort efter han nedladende havde døbt hende Gucci Helle. Thorning har kæmpet hårdt for at bygge et heroisk men almindeligt image op om sin person, et image der er fyldt med så mange modstridende oplysninger at der er tvivl om alt fra hendes økonomi, adresse til hendes mands seksuelle observans. Jan Christensen skriver på 180 Grader

Som jeg har sagt før: Jeg ville egentlig ikke skrive mere om emnet, og alle og enhver ved efterhånden, at Helle Thorning-Schmidt lyver, næsten hver gang, hun åbner munden, men alligevel er jeg nødt til at reagere, når det bliver for tykt, og det gjorde det endnu engang i fredags på Socialdemokraternes kongres, da statsministeren talte om sin mor, hendes sparsommelighed og i det hele taget de, måtte man forstå, kummerlige forhold, familien levede under i Ishøj.

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Problemet for Helle Thorning-Schmidt er bare - ud over, at moren vel næppe har været nødt til at sove i stuen, når den (ejer-)lejlighed, hun boede i, var på 100 m² - at hendes mor ikke var eneforsørger, hvilket man kan læse nedenfor i et uddrag fra en tidligere artikel, jeg skrev om Thorning-Schmidt. Tværtimod har familien altid haft penge nok. Vi fik jo også tilskud fra min mand. Spørgsmålet er så, om vi igen har at gøre med én af de særlige Thorning-Schmidtske fortolkninger af ord, så de kommer til at betyde noget andet, end de i virkeligheden - eller i hvert fald de fleste andre menneskers ører - gør?

Den amerikanske præsident Obama dyrker også sit image, men han lever måske mere end nogen på sine selvskabte myter. Daniel Pipes skriver bl.a. i Washington Times

Mr. Obama remains the mystery candidate with an autobiography full of gaps and even fabrications. For example, to sell his autobiography in 1991, Mr. Obama claimed that he “was born in Kenya.” He lied about never having been a member and candidate of the 1990s Chicago socialist New Party. When Stanley Kurtz produced evidence to establish that he was a member, Mr. Obama’s flacks smeared and dismissed Mr. Kurtz. Mr. Obama’s 1995 autobiography, “Dreams from My Father,” contains a torrent of inaccuracies and falsehoods about his maternal grandfather, his father, his mother, his parents’ wedding, his stepfather’s father, his high school friend, his girlfriend, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. As Victor Davis Hanson put it, “If a writer will fabricate the details about his own mother’s terminal illness and quest for insurance, then he will probably fudge on anything.”

Into this larger pattern of mendacity about his past life arises the question of Mr. Obama’s discussion of his faith, perhaps the most singular and outrageous of his lies.

Asked about the religion of his childhood and youth, Mr. Obama offers contradictory answers. He finessed a March 2004 question, “Have you always been a Christian?” by replying: “I was raised more by my mother and my mother was Christian.” But in December 2007, he belatedly decided to give a straight answer: “My mother was a Christian from Kansas. I was raised by my mother. So, I’ve always been a Christian.” In February 2009, however, he offered a completely different account:

“I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist, grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion. I didn’t become a Christian until I moved to the South Side of Chicago after college.”

He further elaborated on this answer in September 2010, saying, “I came to my Christian faith later in life.”

Which is it? Has Mr. Obama “always been a Christian” or did he “become a Christian” after college? Self-contradiction on so fundamental a matter of identity, when added to the general questioning about the accuracy of his autobiography, raises questions about veracity. Would someone telling the truth say such varied and opposite things about himself? Inconsistency is typical of fabrication: When making things up, it’s hard to stick with the same story.

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I shall establish his having been born and raised a Muslim, provide confirming evidence from recent years, survey the perceptions of him as a Muslim, and place this deception in the larger context of Mr. Obama’s autobiographical fictions.

Og Washington Examiner har endda en artikelserie i 10 dele om “The Obama You Don’t Know“, her fra “A Childhood of Priviledge, Not Hardship“, som måske ikke er det mest interessant, men som giver en tynd undskyldning for at klaske Obama og Thorning i samme postering

Obama’s mother met her second husband, an Indonesian named Lolo Soetoro, while working at the East-West Center in Hawaii. They married, and in 1967, the young Obama, then known as Barry Soetoro, traveled to Indonesia with his mother when the Indonesian government recalled his stepfather.

In Indonesia, the family’s circumstances improved dramatically. According to Obama in his autobiography “Dreams from My Father,” Lolo’s brother-in-law was “making millions as a high official in the national oil company.” It was through this brother-in-law that Obama’s stepfather got a coveted job as a government relations officer with the Union Oil Co.

The family then moved to Menteng, then and now the most exclusive neighborhood of Jakarta, where bureaucrats, diplomats and economic elites reside.

A popular Indonesia travel site describes Menteng: “Designed by the Dutch Colonial Government in 1920s, Menteng still retains its graceful existence with its beautiful parks, cozy street cafes and luxurious housing complexes.”

In 1971, his mother sent young Obama back to Hawaii, where his grandmother, Madelyn, known as Toots, would become one of the first female vice presidents of a Honolulu bank. His grandfather was in sales.

Obama’s grandparents moved the same year into Punahou Circle Apartments, a sleek new 10-story apartment building just five blocks from the private Punahou School, which Obama would attend from 1971 to 1979.

Obama explains in “Dreams from My Father” that his admission to Punahou began “the start of something grand, an elevation in the family status that they took great pains to let everyone know.”

To his credit, Obama did not downplay Punahou’s upscale status, noting in his autobiography that it “had grown into a prestigious prep school, an incubator for island elites. Its reputation had helped sway my mother in her decision to send me back to the States.”

Obama also admitted in the book that his grandfather pulled strings to get him into the school. “There was a long waiting list, and I was considered only because of the intervention of Gramps’s boss, who was an alumnus.”

The school still features a lush hillside campus overlooking the Waikiki skyline and the Pacific Ocean. It was one of the most expensive schools on the island, and both Obama and his half sister Maya Soetoro-Ng received scholarships.

While the Dunhams were not among the wealthiest families on the island, he nevertheless studied and socialized with the children of the social and financial elite. Obama has said he didn’t fit in at the school. But that’s not how other Hawaiians remember it.

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Tellingly, Obama has never lived in a black neighborhood. Maraniss reported in his book that when leftist activist Jerry Kellman interviewed Obama for a community organizing job in Chicago, he asked Obama how he felt about living and working in the black community for the first time in his life.

Obama accepted the job but chose not to live among those he would be organizing. Instead, he commuted 90 minutes each way daily from his apartment in Chicago’s famous Hyde Park to the Altgeld Gardens housing project where he worked.

At Thorning og Obama lyver om deres politik er almindeligt politikergebet, som vi ikke lægger dem til last, men måske mere end andre politikere lever de på løgn. De løgne de lever på, fortæller noget essentielt om venstrefløjens drømme og forståelse af virkeligheden. En diffus drøm om en særlig autencitet, der i sig selv fortæller om forandring og håb. Og det er autencitet der for venstrefløjen giver giver en hvilken som helst forandring og et hvilket som helst håb legitimitet.