Almost one year into the Obama administration, we have repeatedly seen instances of nuance from the president, from telling Jewish groups he was boycotting the UN racism conference while at the same time telling civil rights groups the United States would attend, to nuanced foreign policy, as when he told the Poles and Czechs he would go forward with the missile shield while at the same time assuring Putin that he would not. The admirers of the president like to call this nuance. We call it something else. We call it double dealing. We call it deceit. We call it lying. We call it the Chicago way.   

 

 

Well I’ll be darned, if it aint so

I never thought I’d live to

See the day the saintly O

Would stoop so low to give two

Versions of the same deceit

He always likes to practice

With answers sharp but incomplete

Like spines upon a cactus

That stick you just about the time

You’ve bought the thing he sells you

And then you find taint worth a dime

To anything he tells you

To say he’s nuanced would be wrong

I say the man just misses

The shiftiness that must belong

To the man who said, …”what is is”