A dissembling smile

Just saw this on a literary magazine: go to narrative.com for a picture comparison.



IT’S BEEN QUITE A WHILE since we’ve seen it, but there it was again in round one of the Obama-Romney presidential debates—a smile
we remember. The last time we saw it was in vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon’s Checkers speech, a moment of shape-shifting and insincerity that should have told voters all they needed to know about the candidate. Sixty years later, we’re reminded of Edmund Burke’s famous line, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” And we all know how things turned out with Tricky Dick.