The LAT[imes] asks handwriting experts to analyze signatures and writing samples from Obama, Clinton, and McCain to find out what they say about each of the presidential contenders. It turns out that Obama and McCain have some things in common. They both have illegible signatures, "which suggests a need for privacy or an aversion to transparency," and emphasize their first names, which shows "a desire to distance themselves from their fathers." For her part, Clinton's signature "is readable, but lacks emotion and warmth." As for their writing, Clinton's is "disciplined" while Obama's is "flexible" and McCain's is "disconnected, forceful and intense."
Okay, on second thought, our resident graphologist hasn't told us anything we didn't already know. We've got a clear choice between the bro, the ho, and the wacko. If we unpack the euphemistic language of the experts, the written characters they inscribe in ink reveal, in turn, secretiveness, aloofness, coldness, rigidity, opportunism, isolation, and brutality.
Chinese ink painters were judged on both their mastery of the skill in handling the brush, according to the standards of their tradition, and the inherent personal qi that is expressed in every stroke. In other words, making characters on paper reveals character. A gold Cross ballpoint or a Pilot V-ball extra fine is not a rabbit-fur calligraphy brush, but still. In which scholar-official's hand do we want the fountain pen of state?
Maybe I'll reconsider the whole character issue and just focus on policy, or, as they still sometimes say, 'issues'. One thing is certain: this group is not lacking in 'issues' of their own. But if policy is to be gauged by their policy statements, what statement by the three aforementioned obsessive-compulsive paranoid schizophrenics could be believed?
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