For some strange reason...

and a reason completely unknown to this blogger, the New York Times demonstrates an uncontrollable need to humanize Barack 'Barry' Obama. This was a probing piece, with quotes from, his sister;

“I think Hawaii gave him a sense that a lot of different voices and textures can sort of live together, however imperfectly, and he would walk in many worlds and feel a level of comfort.”

his homeroom teacher;

“He had the same exact mannerisms then as he does now,” said Eric Kusunoki, Mr. Obama’s homeroom teacher at the Punahou School. “When he walked up to give that speech at the Democratic convention, we recognized him right away by the way he walked. He was well liked by everybody, a very charismatic guy.”

his almost sweetheart;

(Ms. Furushima seems to have lighted a fire in Mr. Obama’s high school heart, judging by his sugary entries in her yearbook in which he expressed regret that the two had never dated. “He never asked,” she said wistfully.)

the always necessary high school basketball coach;

“He was on a very, very strong team,” said his coach, Chris McLachlin. “Had he been on any other team in the league, he would have been a starter. But he practiced hard, and his work ethic might have been above everyone else’s. He practiced at the 10 a.m. juice break; he practiced at the lunch break at noon; and he was the last one to leave each day.”

the politically astute high school friend;

“He seems to have the skills that a lot of people in our class had, which is to pull diverse people together,” said Bernice Glenn Bowers, another classmate.

his profound high school poetry;

But he did have writing skills, composing poetry for the school’s literary magazine. One poem, “An Old Man,” lamented, “He pulls out forgotten dignity from under his flaking coat, and walks a straight line along the crooked world.” {teary blogger here}

Who is Barack Obama? Ask the New York Times.

***UPDATE*** Are you kidding me? Is this an orchestrated campaign? More pablum with quotes from the same characters mentioned above. And a darling pic:

OBAMA - THE POSTCARD

***UPDATE The Sequel***

A Tale of Two Candidates

Lets contrast this with a WashPo hitpiece with its provocative title, 'Revealing the Total Giuliani', about Rudy:

The attacks from his bully pulpit were legendary. Giuliani had no statutory control over the city's deplorable public school system. Frustrated, he began a campaign to hound from office the mild-mannered new schools chancellor, Ramon Cortines. Each day brought a new round of public ridicule. Cortines was "a captive of the bureaucracy," Giuliani complained. "He should grow up . . . and stop playing little victim," he said on another occasion. Unable to fire Cortines, he tormented him mercilessly until the chancellor surrendered and moved to California. Soon afterward, former mayor Ed Koch, a onetime ally, wrote a book about Giuliani. Its title: "Nasty Man."

The City Hall steps have historically served as New York's town square, hosting an unending stream of colorful protests and news conferences. But that proved too anarchic for the mayor, who tightened security -- before 9/11 -- to the point that reporters, politicians and interest groups were banned from the steps, rendering the place desolate. Only pressure from the City Council forced him to relent. The boss viewed the world in terms of friends and enemies. New York's top-tier elected black leaders -- all of them Democrats -- were written off as sympathizers of Giuliani's predecessor David N. Dinkins; Giuliani refused to meet with any of them for years. He counseled his aides to stay on the offensive -- and he illustrated the point every day. The mayor's battles with the media were pure theater: He'd storm out of news conferences, demean his questioners, pick fights. Nothing restrained him from turning to a Newsday reporter one day and dressing him down in front of his colleagues. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he demanded.