Culture

And After Just Two Hours Volunteering in a Chicago Soup Kitchen in 2003, He Developed the Weathered, Empathetic Eyes of a Mother Theresa

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Ana Marie Cox points to an embarrassingly worshipful passage from the introduction to a new self-help book by Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel:

It is impossible to write about Nelson Mandela these days and not compare him to another potentially transformational black leader, Barack Obama. The parallels are many. … And while it took twenty-seven years in prison to mold the Nelson Mandela we know, the forty-eight-year-old American president seems to have achieved a Mandela-like temperament without the long years of sacrifice.

Somewhat related: Last year, Jeff Winkler and I poked fun at Time's penchant for moral panic.