AJAX: Can he not be sociable?
ULYSSES: The raven chides his blackness.
(Troilus and Cressida, Act 2, Scene 3)
Earlier today, in a particularly paradoxical press conference — one in which Barack Obama really got down to brass tax — Obama said of Russian president Putin:
“He’s got that kind of slouch, looking like the bored kid in the back of the classroom.”
This for some reason recalled to me that straight-laced and model student, with the perfect military posture, whom we’ve all come to know so well:
