"Respect came from what you did and not who your daddy was."

Ben Carson's dream, or at least his interpretation of it, had the effect of elevating himself to a position of singular cosmic importance. It would not be too strong to say that Carson feels he is on a mission from God, a mission first revealed to him in a heaven-sent dream.

What D'Souza did is part and parcel of the right wing's campaign to paint Obama as, in the words Mitt Romney used to describe the president's ideas, "extraordinarily foreign."

Unlike the typical politician, Austen always signals the artificiality of her narratives. If only political narratives -- or all the pundits insisting we need them -- could be as honest. But what politician says, "enjoy the artificiality of my American success story?"