You say he's playing pool. I say he's getting ready to cast the Aveda Kedavra spell on James and Lilly Potter.

Someone has a mancrush.  

"Curious," mused Obama. "Wright has a table installed here in the basement of the church and even the chalk is black..."

"Push, John, Push!" urged the candidate's supporters as Senator Kerry tried out NASA's new zero-gravity Port-O-Potty.

I don't know -- that strange shadow across his face makes him look a little sinister... like one of the bad guys in a sci-fi film or a Batman instalment.

Recalls that Bryan Ferry album from the early '90s-- moody/spooky shadows, film noir air. "Kiss and Tell"?

The Anti-Christ should look so good.

No kidding. Before I clicked onto the link, I thought it was going to be the photograph of Kerry duck hunting, or whatever it was. The photo of Obama is also slightly superior to the picture of the Duke in a tank in 1988.

Crowley's is out of touch with the common man. You don't play pool, you shoot pool.

(I should talk. That last line is from a Hal Hartley movie.)

I didn't know Obama was in "A Scanner Darkly?"

And here I thought (hoped?) (before I read the text) that it was a Walther PPK . . .

liberal reformer:  Are you jealous?  The guy couldn't take a stupid photo if he tried.  Dukakis was a dork (not that that should have excluded him from the presidency) but Obama is dee-vine.  

I would have said an extra long and extra thick cigarette holder.  Give him a grey cat and you'd have the perfect Blofeld.

How bout this one, taken the other day in Oregon:

sconover.tumblr.com/.../34399981

Yeah icarusr but Blofeld looks like Cheney.  This is something leaner and meaner, with a slight Asian touch -- a kind of animé Obama going into the underworld on a mission of vengeance.

Great, I'm sure this will help the whole "unite the party" concept beautifully (even if I do love the photo).

"The name is Obama..., Barack Obama".

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Hey Mikey, I realize you are too cool for this whole journalism thing sometimes, but how about some of the basics, like who took the photo, where was it taken, when, you know that journalism 101 stuff you may have forgotten with your head up in the broadcast network clouds on such a regular basis. :-)

It's a beautiful photo.

The shadows give a sense of complexity to his character. The overall quality is somehow ephemeral and grainy. The look in his eye is intently focused, yet his hand looks smooth and relaxed. There is so much light play and so many lines that the eye is drawn to different sections of the image at a time and each evokes a different thought/sensation.

He is, by far, the most photogenic presidential candidate we've had in ages. Though he's very thin and his ears are little goofy, the camera loves him. It will be nice to have his voice and his image become predominant in our culture for a while. Such a change from the simian Bush/Cheney team.

This post and all of its comments are really quite ridiculous. Are you guys chosing a president or a lover?  You are "in love" with him.  I hope you want more from him that to sustain your crushes.  I do.  

Here's how it's done Mikey, try taking after Andrew, a former TNR employee if I'm not mistaken.

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.../face-of-the--11.html