Without Laughing

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com President and Mrs. Obama filled their speeches to the International Olympic Committee with references to themselves, their lives, their experiences, all because of their self-evident significance to the progress of humanity. "Both Obamas," writes George Will, gave heartfelt speeches about ... themselves." This is only a slight exaggeration in the case of President Obama's speech, though entirely on the mark with respect to Mrs. Obama's. Mrs. Obama also earned extra credit with her Olympic memory of sitting on her father's lap to watch Carl Lewis compete when she would have been 20 years old. While Mrs. Obama's speech edged President Obama's in narcissism, it was a helluva close race. (The texts of both speeches are posted here.) Who can resist such stuff? To paraphrase Oscar Wilde on the death of Nell in Dickens's Old Curiosity Shop, one must have a heart of stone to hear it spoken in earnest without laughing.