In the early 1990s, Canon released an advertisement featuring Andrei Agassi, in which he proclaimed, “Image is everything”. Coming from one of the most charismatic sports stars of the generation, the message was an instant hit with teenagers.

If Canon were to do a re-release of the ad today, they may perhaps turn the camera towards Senator Barack Obama. From a distance, his message of “hope” and “change” sounds refreshing, along with the story of a mixed-race kid who realised his follies, worked hard and now on the verge of knocking the doors of the White House.

None of us will be mistaken for comparing him with the greatest leaders, until perhaps, we come across a few dissenting voices emerging from the media that otherwise seem to have fallen “head-over-heals-in-love” with Obama.

The New Statesman’s America editor and a long time observer of American politics Andrew Stephen, in his column last month, pointed to the “contradictions” that offer a comparison between real and projected “image” of the Illinois Senator.

He often portrays himself as a “Black” kid who worked hard. But, Stephen challenges this in one of his recent dispatch, because conventional wisdom in the US often relates “Black” with descendents of Africans who were brought as slaves to the US, not a person of a mixed race who surfed in Hawaii and went to one of the richest schools in the state.

Stephen claims that the image of Obama as a “Christ-like figure” has been a carefully constructed one, in which his more human “foibles” such as smoking or playing poker are firmly kept out of the public view.

Perhaps the last straw for many Obama detractors was his visit last month to the church where Martin Luther King Jr used to preach. Though this could be a good political strategy, trying to cash in on the goodwill from the respect people have for King, it has been seen as image building of the most sinister kind.

If we associate anything at all with King, or the man who inspired the civil rights movement lead by him — Mahatma Gandhi — it is their selfless service and the honesty with which they approached politics.

Obama told the “American public” in 2006 that he will not contest for the presidency before he completes his full term in the Senate. Yet, he did just that by announcing his candidacy for Democratic nomination after completing just two years of his term.

In The story of my experiment with truth, Gandhi describes his predicament when a group of “untouchables” wanted to take residence in the ashram. Granting them residence, he knows, would earn the disapproval of the donors who are upper-caste Hindus. But Gandhi was undeterred; he admits them to the ashram, despite the finances going dry.

The problem is that honesty is too much to expect from today’s “image-is-everything” politicians, who are ready to say or do anything to grab power.