The most compelling story surfaced in the Times today.

It’s not the writing, or the subject of Barack Obama, that makes it interesting. It’s that, likely for the first time ever, we have a leading US presidential candidate claiming to do drugs, and friends and press calling him out on it. As in, he was in fact totally clean and talked about his drug use in books and on the campaign trail to present an image of utter honesty and possibly connect with young voters–who he has won over convincingly (along with an interesting GOP counterpart.)

The crux of the Times story:

Mr. Obama’s account of his younger self and drugs, though, significantly differs from the recollections of others who do not recall his drug use. That could suggest he was so private about his usage that few people were aware of it, that the memories of those who knew him decades ago are fuzzy or rosier out of a desire to protect him, or that he added some writerly touches in his memoir to make the challenges he overcame seem more dramatic.

The entire notion is hilarious. First, the ugly head of cynicism rises again, but to think otherwise is naive: Obama has harbored political ambitions for most of his life; the confession in the book, written when he was still at Harvard law, was a calculated gamble. As a mid-20’s author, the first African-American editor of the HLR, and one fiercely interested in politics, he had to have had a future in civil service squarely in his sights.

But the much more relevant question is, was his editorial liberties ethical? Is this even worth discussion? Sorry to waste your time reading this post, but my answer, hypocritical as it is, is no.

Please, is it such a big deal that a candidate CLAIMED to use drugs when they were actually a clean intellectual, compared to the fact that incumbents, present and past, actually used drugs? It’s a really interesting newspaper article, but not much more than that.

But this leads me to feel that (and this shouldn’t be news to anyone) Obama has been hyping himself his whole life, perhaps for this moment.

Nobody is perfect. Next to all the candidates, Obama exudes selfless honesty, integrity, and vision that is outstanding except against possibly John McCain. Obama has amassed a fervent young following, and civic enthusiasm among our generation is uplifting to see. But we have not witnessed that many candidates in action nor too many elections in our lifetime, our youthful idealism always offers the benefit of the doubt, and it is comforting to see a candidate selflessly pursuing higher ideals without any personal ambition. Michael Kinsley, living proof that liberal pundits on TV are just as insufferable bitches as conservative pundits on TV, is in this case terrifically spot on in a closely related musing.

This paradox is timeless. We hate politicians, who manipulate minds and deceive hearts, who crave the highest and most terrible form of power — that is, to rule over people. So we find hope and inspiration in candidates who don’t appear like politicians and instead seem genuine.

Yet if we ever encounter the perfect politician, how would we ever know?